Onions and More Onions

Story by Roberta Beach-Jacobson, Photos by Alf B. Meier

Griesheim, Germany has been called the Onion Capital of the World, though this is a claim made by locals. It‘s nothing you‘ll find noted in any official record books, but I have to admit I tend to believe it.

Every September, this town in the state of Hesse holds its Onion Market (Zwiebelmarkt) which allows the people to experiment with anything and everything related to onions. You can sample French onion soup (thanks to Griesheim‘s sister city of Bar-le-Duc, France) and move on to a wide variety of steamy-oniony pastries. My favorite is onions with mushrooms simmered in wine in a huge wok. The eating is messy, but delightful. The onion wine for sale is potent stuff and the supply seems to be endless.

Onion power rules the entire five-day festival and row upon row of onion-related products are on offer. Of course, you can also buy various sizes of farm-fresh sacks of onions. Onion dolls, with curly red and purple ribbons for their hair, are an annual tradition. All handiwork for sale relates to onions - from simple jewelry pieces to framed sketches.

In this carnival-like atmosphere, there are rides for the kiddies and games for all ages and talents. Weather co-operating, in the market square near the bronze statue of the symbolic Onion Woman, a square dance group performs daily. Their name? The Spinning Onions (of course).

The laughter and party spirit gets louder in the wee hours. Onions, I have learned, are really something worth celebrating.