Every May and June I look forward to the fresh influx of Vidalia onions into the supermarkets.  Being a Georgia girl, I took them for granted when I was down South; now that I live far away, I greedily fill up my grocery buggy and usher them into their new home … aka my pantry.  In fact, I’ve started to hoard them a bit already – resorting to the old fashioned storage option of hanging in pantyhose legs even though they feasibly will be available through the late fall thanks to advanced storage technology borrowed from the apple growers.

But for the benefit of non-Southerners, let me first help out with some general info points & phonetics here.  Vidalia is a town in the state of Georgia, about an hour or so due west of Savannah.  It is pronounced with three syllables as [vuh-DAL′-ya] or [vy-DAL′-ya], the variance between the two pronunciations being the first syllable and what type of Southern accent you sport – a soft uptown drawl or a back country twang.  For my Yankee friends, this is NOT pronounced as if it were a town in Italy or a botanical flower.  Pronunciation here in New England has been bastardized by many into four syllables with the inflection on the wrong part (so, so harsh on my tender Southern ears!).  Getting away from the pronunciation thing though, you should know that Vidalia onions are trademarked similar to French champagne, as only certain varieties grown in a specific production area in Southern Georgia can be identified, marketed and distributed as “Vidalia onions.”  The distinguishing attribute of this onion is that it has a high level of sugar and is thus incredibly sweet tasting – due largely to the sandy, low sulfur soil it grows in, as well as the mild climate.  You can further impress your friends at the next cocktail party with the knowledge that the Vidalia onion is Georgia’s official state vegetable.

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