Fruit, vegetables and pulses

Acquaviva red onion

Acquaviva red onion: a flat, sweet disc from the 'onion town'

Wide and flattened like a disc, often over half a kilo, the Acquaviva red onion shades from carmine to violet and fades to white towards the centre. It is grown only within the town of Acquaviva delle Fonti, largely by hand, and is both a PAT product and a Slow Food Presidium. Its sweetness wins over even people who usually avoid onions.

• Flattened at the poles: a disc 2-3 cm thick, as much as 15 cm wide
• Juicy, fleshy layers wrapped in thin papery skins from reddish to copper
• Harvested in July and August; the oldest way to present it is the serta, a plaited string

How to enjoy it. This is the onion for Puglia's calzone, a flatbread pie filled with onions made in Lent, and for onions baked au gratin with vinegar, breadcrumbs and pecorino. Sweet as it is, in Acquaviva it even ends up in ice cream.

Production areas

Apulia

Season

[object Object]

The full story, sources and places on apulica.com →