Onion

“Closing: a healer blows tobacco smoke (soplada), and a mix of lemon, onion, garlic, pepper and salt "cuts" the dieta. Breaking the rules risks "cruzadera" (energetic interference). In Shipibo-lineage programmes the person dieting stays alone in a forest hut (tambo) with meals brought (retreat listing, weak source).”

“Cold, first chills. Shoga-yu (grated ginger in hot water): the warming drink, its gingerol and shogaol shared with Kampo formulas. Negi (green onion) roasted and wrapped round the neck, or negi soup: the old way. Tamago-zake (egg in hot sake): warming but alcohol, never for children, not in pregnancy, not with medicines. Kuzu-yu (kuzu starch stirred into hot water until thick): starch, not the Kampo root kakkon, comfort through warmth and easy digestion. The Kampo formula Kakkonto is the household name for a cold in Japan, but its ephedra is banned in EU foods: a Kampo skill set topic.”

“Cebolla en la mesilla: a cut onion on the bedside table to "draw out" the cold. Harmless.”

“Uienstroop. Ons mam's cough remedy: an onion in rings, layered in a jar with sugar (honey for the grown-ups), overnight under a plate, the syrup spooned off in the morning, kept cold. A spoon in the morning, the cough syrup of the Peel kitchen. Honey never under one, sugar for the little ones over one.”

“Onion (Allium cepa). Ceapă, crni luk. The whole plant boiled into Baba's syrup. Red onion skins dye the Easter eggs. Onion on the chest or in a sock, the old way: harmless.”

“Baba's syrup: onion (crni luk, ceapă) boiled down thick with honey or sugar, mixed with a walnut decoction, for cough and flu. Never honey under one year.”

“Ginger and scallion soup (葱白生姜汤, cōng bái shēng jiāng tāng). The first thing many Chinese families make at the first chill. Ginger and the white of the spring onion are both pungent and warming, the flavour the old order pairs with the lung.”

“Pungent belongs to the lung. Ginger, spring onion, garlic: the flavours of the cold soup.”

“One small task. "Tonight, a warm soup with garlic and onion, a glass of tea you let cool a little, and bed an hour early."”

“Ghormeh sabzi. Cooling beef balanced with warming kidney beans, onions and dried limes, and a great deal of cooked herbs.”

“The care. It begins with vethukuli: oil on the body and a bath in water boiled with herbs, every day for a week and then on alternate days. After the bath the mother eats hot rice with ghee and simple, fresh, warm food with a little turmeric and pepper. Then come the family's preparations, ginger with honey, the lehyams of jaggery and spices, a turmeric gravy, fenugreek water, the broths of goat or chicken in many homes. "Hot" foods like onion and garlic are favoured and "cold" ones like curd and buttermilk kept away in the first months.”

“Garlic and onion. In the soup and on the bread. Some families hang garlic in the room. "Luk ot semi nedug", onion against seven ailments, the old people say. A food writer remembers her Russian garlic treatment: "no one wanted to be near me because I smelled so bad!" One line: garlic on the skin can burn, and garlic pills beside a blood thinner go past the pharmacist.”

“Chicken broth. A clear broth with onion, carrot, a bay leaf, a little dill at the end, sipped from a cup for the one in bed, the meat for the others. "The broth is for the sick. The chicken is for whoever sits with them."”

“Garlic and onion. Herodotus reported an inscription on the Great Pyramid recording 1,600 talents of silver spent on radishes, onions and garlic for the workers. Scholars today think he misread it, perhaps an offering list. "The workers ate onions. The number is a tourist's number."”