Onion

Onions (betsalim in Hebrew) appear in the Bible in a single passage that reveals much about the Israelites' nostalgia for Egyptian food during the wilderness march. In Numbers 11:5, the people lament: We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Egyptian onions were famous in antiquity — large, sweet, and consumed raw, cooked, and in relishes. The complaint reflects the genuine hardship of a diet limited to manna and the human tendency to idealize past comforts while minimizing the circumstances of oppression that accompanied them.