Bunching Onion

Allium fistulosum

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By Elizabeth Schneider

Published 2001

  • About

Also Japanese or Chinese or Oriental bunching onion, welsh onion, Japanese scallion; negi, Tokyo negi, naganegi, nebuka (Japanese); da cong or tsung (Chinese)

“Bunching onion” is a term correctly applied to the fistulosum species, the bunching onion of the Far East (but it is also used in common parlance for all green onions). Joy Larkcom observes that “if the long loaf epitomizes the French shopper, the long white-stemmed onion epitomizes the Chinese. Tied to bicycles, peering out of panniers, it is the most ubiquitous of Chinese vegetables” (Oriental Vegetables). She dates the bunching onion’s appearance in Chinese literature as 100 b.c. and its entry into Europe as during the Middle Ages.