An Onion By Any Other Name

Shopping The South - Vidalia, Georgia

Years ago, one of my all-time favorite Southern belles (who shall remain nameless) was chatting about a trip across Georgia. “Dahlin’, we had to stop and pick up some of those good Valdosta onions.” She was on top of her game, even at her advanced age, and even if she did pay just enough attention to remember that the name started with a V. (For frame of reference, she was also fond of quoting scripture from “The Book Of Paul”, and we simply agreed with her and got on with our day.)

Of course, the proper name of the onion is Vidalia, derived not from the variety (which is technically a Granex) but by the location where it is grown. They began cultivating onions in Toombs County, Georgia in the area around the town of Vidalia in the 1930’s, and while a Granex is known to be naturally sweeter than some other varieties, a curious thing happened. Folks began noticing that the ones from Vidalia were sweeter by far.

A bit of detective work soon determined that the soil was the benefactor of so much extra onion sugar. Vidalia’s farmland was noticeably devoid of sulfur, which, apparently, is a sugar-thief of some sort.

That, as it turns out, was the start of something big. Today, there is a multi-county area in Georgia that is officially designated by law as a “Vidalia Onion” production area. The name is also trademarked by the Georgia Department of Agriculture. That happened in 1986. And four years later in 1990, the Vidalia also became the state vegetable.

This is onion season across the South, by the way, and while you can pick up Vidalias these days in any good grocery store, you might want to try one of the many farm stands at the edges of the fields near Vidalia itself.

Just watch your map. I’m not sure what you might find in Valdosta.

Top photo by Explore Georgia, bottom photo by Beth Yarbrough.