ABSTRACT
The secret of good cooking lies in the discreet and sympathetic treatment of the onion. An onion or garlic-scented atmosphere hovers alike over the narrow calli of Venice, the cool courts of Cordova, and the thronged amphitheatre of Arles. The onion is but the name for a large family, of which shallots, garlic and chives are chief and most honoured varieties. Still farther south, still farther east, you will journey but to find the onion fainter in flavour, until in India, it seems but a pale parody of its English prototype. In great gladness of heart every one must look forward to the dainty little spring onion: adorable as vegetable cooked in good white sauce, inscrutable as guardian spirit of fresh green salad, irreproachable as pickle in vinegar and mustard. The onion, as a dish, is excellent; as seasoning it has still more pleasant and commodious merits.
