The onion traces its humble origins to Western and Central Asia, where it was first cultivated. It quickly spread in varieties big, small, mild and tart to Europe and America. Massachusetts could by 1875 boast of being a leading state in onion cultivation, with over one thousand acres devoted to the crop.

Cheap and widely available, the onion was consumed with gusto by the peasantry and working classes. An austere meal of watermelon, raw onion and black bread satisfied many a Southern European workingman, who preferred the onion’s pungency to cheese’s comparative mildness, which was favored by his British counterpart.

Don Quixote’s erstwhile companion Sancho Panza even preferred a meal of raw onion and bread to more substantial fare: “To tell you the truth,” he confesses, “what I eat in my corner, without compliment or ceremonies, though it were nothing but bread and an onion, relishes better than turkey at other folk’s table, where I am forced to chew leisurely, drink little, wipe my mouth often, and can neither sneeze nor cough when I have the mind.”

The onion was considered more than just a lunchtime tidbit; it was also valued for its medicinal properties. Onions were used as protection against winter colds and as a balm for snakebites and flesh wounds. For the insomniac a few small onions eaten before bed were supposed to prove soothingly soporific, and a patch of them planted near one’s house could protect against plague. Even Napoleon consumed onions by the barrel-full to increase his military prowess.

Here’s a 1902 recipe for potato and onion pie, a simple dish favored by the British working classes. Replace the meat with a cheese of your choice for a vegetarian dish.

Potato and Onion Pie

Take some peeled and finely-sliced onions and potatoes, allowing half a pound of onions to one pound of raw potatoes; fry the onions in a butter or drippings till a pale golden color, and season them with pepper and salt. Take three ounces of finely chopped beef suet [optional], three ounces of chopped lean ham or bacon, the same of finely-chopped cooked chicken, and mix this with a dessert spoon of finely-chopped parsley. Have a pie dish slightly greased, arranged the potatoes and onions alternately in this, sprinkle over each layer chopped meat, and continue these layers until they form quite a pile; fill up the dish with good light gravy or stock, wet the edges of the dish with cold water and put a strip of puff pastry the size of the rim round the edges. Wet the upper side of this, then cover the whole of the pie with puff pastry about half an inch thick; press this well into the band of the pastry. Trim the edges evenly, brush over with whole raw beaten-up egg, mark in any pretty designs with a small knife, scallop the edges, stand the pie in a baking tin, pour water in this to about an inch in depth, and bake the pie in a moderate over (350 degrees F.) for one and a half to two hours.

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On the right bank of the Rhine, near the entrance to a small valley known as the Whisperthal, sits the ancient town of Lorch.

Legends of Lorch’s haunted ruins and riotous inns attracted travelers in search of adventure. Once, after drinking their fill of the ruby-colored Rhenish wine at one such inn, three young men, the sons of wealthy merchants from Nürnberg, ventured into the ancient forests of the Whisperthal. There, amid fetid swamps and craggy ravines, they met with three beautiful maidens with eyes like diamonds and hair glossy and black. The maidens promised marriage and riches if the travelers would recover their pet birds–a magpie, a starling and a raven–who had recently flown away.

The men searched the forest well into twilight before they found the missing birds. But when they returned to the spot where they had first met the maidens, only three toothless hags stood, cackling like devils. The hags offered rusty goblets of bitter wine to their future bridegrooms; filled with disgust and hopelessness, the young men accepted. Upon drinking the wine, however, they fell senseless to the ground. It was black night before the young men awoke and found themselves surrounded by nothing but the swaying elms and lindens of the Whisperthal, the hags nowhere to be seen.

The three travelers from Nürnberg swore never to venture into the Whisperthal again. But their tale of magic and love has been told many a time over a jug of Rhenish wine and simple peasant fare in the Rhine Valley’s rowdy inns, where, Charles Dickens complained, “stoutish men, entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and having nothing else upon them, will remain all night, clinking glasses, and singing about the river that flows and the grape that grows.”

Like many situated north of the Alps, Lorch was a poor town, but its wholesome fare made up for the more unpleasant traits of its inhabitants. Potatoes appeared frequently on the tables of the town’s modest homes. An affordable staple, they were prepared in numberless ways–as stews, gratins, dumplings and cakes. Here is a recipe for Kartoffelgemüs, potatoes cooked in stock, a traditional peasant dish from Hesse, the German state in which Lorch is located.

Kartoffelgemüs

8 potatoes
Salt
2 onions
2 tbsp pork lard
2 cups/500 ml meat stock
1 bay leaf
1 clove
Pinch of sugar
Pepper
1 tbsp mild wine vinegar
1 bunch dill, finely chopped
1/2 bunch parsley, fine chopped

Wash the potatoes and boil them in their skins in salted water until tender but not too soft. Drain the potatoes, rinse with cold water and leave to cool a little, then peel and cut into thin slices. Peel and chop onions. Heat lard in a heavy iron frying pan and cook the onions until transparent. Pour in the meat stock, and add the bay leaf and clove. Stir in the potato slices and season with salt, sugar, pepper and vinegar. Simmer until potatoes have absorbed nearly all the stock. Garnish with chopped herbs just before serving.

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