Likely the most famous onion of Italy, Tropea’s red onion (cipolla rossa di Tropea) is a common sight in Calabria – strung outside shops, adorning doorways and piled high on market stalls and produce trucks by the side of the road. The southern region of Calabria is surprisingly unknown to tourists, but the Calabresi certainly know how to eat. Dishes are spicy with red chillies, tangy from bergamot, or sweet with the iconic red onion.
Tropea red onions are known for their sweetness – and their light flavour lends them perfectly to be eaten raw within salads. The locals say that a good Tropea red onion is so sweet you’d even be able to eat it like an apple! But this isn’t because they contain more sugar than a standard onion – the signature sweet taste is down to a reduced amount of pyruvic acid, which makes them less pungent. The natural sugars are left to dominate the flavour, and they caramelise beautifully when cooked. Their shape is also longer and thinner than the traditional round red onion, yet few people know that there are actually three types of the famous red onion. The cipolla fresca is harvested in April, and resembles a large red spring onion, with a long and thin stem and purple onion bulb. The cipolla da serbo is then ready in June – this is the iconic red onion with pointed ends that you’ll see in imagery of Tropea. And then later in the year, the cipollotto is harvested in October. Sweet and white, they resemble the classic spring onion in shape.
Although known as the iconic food of the coastal town of Tropea, the consensus amongst food historians is that the Tropea red onion didn’t originate along the Tyrrhenian coast. The variety likely arrived with the Phoenicians and Greeks from across the Mediterranean, as they traded across the sea when Calabria was part of the Magna Grecia over 3,000 years ago. By the medieval ages, the onion was firmly claimed by the locals in the Calabrian peninsula, with multiple accounts from the period referring to the cipolla rossa di Tropea. Nowadays, the onion is grown all over the region of Calabria, but the sandy soil and moderate climate along the coast around Tropea (on the clay cliffs from Capo Vaticano to Briatico) is said to produce the best of the lot.
You’ll find the cipolla rossa crop up on every single menu during your time in Calabria – on everything from pizzas to burgers, crostini, salads (great with tomato), fritattas and sandwiches. Try with the local thin twisted shape of fileja pasta, in simple sauces that leave their sweetness to be the star of the show. In delicatessens across Calabria, you’ll also find the caramelized red onion chutney – which pairs perfectly with cheeses, hams and salamis of a charcuterie board. The onion is also served alone as the star of the show within antipasti dishes, grilled, roasted, salt-baked or even raw with a dash of local olive oil. And of course, your Calabrian antipasti platter wouldn’t be complete unless you pair it with ‘nduja – the perfect combo of sweet and spicy.
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