]As you read these words, Vidalia onions are being shipped across the nation, from sea to shining sea. If you aren’t from around these parts, let me tell you what we natives already know.
There is nothing like a Vidalia onion. They are sweet enough that you can eat them like an apple and in this whole wide world, they are grown in just 20 South Georgia counties, including Toombs County, in which the largest city is, of course, Vidalia.
Folks over in Glennville in Tattnall County will remind you that about half the annual crop comes from there and at one time the produce was referred to as the Glennville sweet onion, but everybody got together and agreed to call it “Vidalia” instead. That’s the way we do things in this great state. We may be divided in our politics, but not in our onions.
Where does the Vidalia get it sweetness? It’s because the soil in these particular counties is sandy and low in sulfur, while onions grown in soil high in sulfur compounds tend to have a hot, bitter flavor. That’s also why people cry when they slice into an ordinary onion. With the sweet Vidalia, you weep tears of joy.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a farmer named Mose Coleman discovered that the onions he had planted were not hot, as onions are supposed to be. They were sweet. It took a while to catch on, but Mose was soon selling his onions like, well, hotcakes. Only better.
Other farmers, who had suffered through the Depression years, followed suit, and started producing their own sweet, mild onions. Today, Vidalia sales total around $90 million and some five million, 40-pound boxes are shipped out each season to 49 states and Canada. That’s sweet.
By the way, you cannot call an onion a “Vidalia” unless it was grown in the above-mentioned areas of Georgia. Don’t even think about it. If you try to foist off a substitute on unsuspecting consumers, you will get a visit from the Georgia Department of Agriculture, wherever you are. Federal Marketing Order No. 955 was established in 1989 to help reinforce Georgia state laws and in 1992, the Vidalia onion was trademarked by the state. We don’t mess around when it comes to our onions.
If you are in the area, you might want to check out the Vidalia Onion Festival, April 23-26. There’s all kind of stuff going on, including concerts, a rodeo and Mimosas and Onions Art where you can “create a one-of-a-kind piece of onion art to take home while sipping on mimosas.” Give me enough mimosas and I will create onion art that would make Rembrandt suck wind.
The weekend will be capped off by a performance of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team. I get goosebumps writing about them, let alone seeing them in person.
Not to be outdone, Glennville has its own festival planned on Saturday, May 9, with its 50th annual Glennville Sweet Onion Festival. I note they don’t refer to it as the Glennville-Vidalia Sweet Onion Festival, even though Glennville agreed to call it the Vidalia onion back years ago. I am sure there is a reason but I’m staying out of this one.
Glennville won’t have the Blue Angels at its festival but will have some neat stuff of their own: a Sweet Onion Run, a Sweet Onion Parade, and a Sweet Onion Street Dance, as well as a turtle race. The Chamber of Commerce says some 6,000 folks will attend — not bad for a town of 3,800.
Don’t you find it interesting that in the 3.8 million square miles that make up these United States of America (including Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia), God saw fit to carve out just 6,000 square miles of sandy and low sulfur soil in 13 counties in Georgia and parts of seven others so we could grow sweet Vidalia onions?
There is no question God loves us. We have the greatest state song in the history of the world, “Georgia on My Mind,” sung by Ray Charles Robinson, of Albany. We have the oldest state-chartered university in the land with four national football championships and 27 Rhodes Scholars. We have the Masters golf tournament. We have the Blue Ridge Mountains and the silver sands of the Georgia coast. And the sweet Vidalia onion. Can I get an amen?
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at dick@dickyarbrough. com or at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Ga. 31139.