Spanish onions are famous for their sweetness. The net of three I bought in the supermarket had however travelled all the way from Patagonia!
The photograph above shows the Patagonian traveller on the left, with two examples of the local ´Cebolla de Figueres´. The figueres type is particularly sweet and is more usually red in colour. The shape of this onion with it´s flattened bottom is well suited to, if not the direct result of, being grown in stoney soil.
The Catalan growers have another trick up their sleeve; they re-plant some of the onions after slicing off the top and trimming the root right back to the bulb. Over the course of the winter the onion sends up three or four new side shoots which look like giant salad onions or scallions.
The side shoots are matured in early springtime and are a delicacy when thrown on the BBQ.
