Utah State Vegetables - Spanish Sweet Onion and Sugar Beet
Utah State Vegetable - Spanish Sweet Onion
The Spanish Sweet Onion was named the state vegetable in the 2002 General Session of the Utah State Legislature, S.B. 136. Senator Bill Wright, R-Elberta, a dairy farmer, sponsored the measure and students from Lone Peak Elementary School were the driving force behind this bill (Utah Code).
Onion farms can be found in Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties, taking up about 2,500 acres. Onions are a $9 million business in Utah and these counties grow about 100 million pounds of onions each year. Utah State University's Agriculture Experiment Station in Logan has an "onion specialist" who studies the vegetable and believes it may help prevent cancer, heart attacks and strokes (it naturally thins the blood) as well as being tasty and only 65 calories per cup!
There was stiff competition at the Capitol from the Realms of Inquiry School students, supported by Rep. Jackie Biskupski, who backed the sugar beet as Utah's vegetable. A compromise was reached; plans to designate one or the other was merged into a single bill and the sugar beet was declared the historical state vegetable and the onion the contemporary state vegetable.
The onion (in general, not necessarily the Spanish Sweet onion) is believed to have originated in Asia, though it is likely that onions may have been growing wild on every continent. Dating back to 3500 BC, onions were one of the few foods that did not spoil during the winter months. Our ancestors must have recognized the vegetable's durability and began growing onions for food. Learn more about the history of the onion.
Why do we cry when we cut into an onion?
It's simply a reaction of enzymes in the onion when they become exposed to the air. Heating the onion increases the enzyme activity. Chilling onions before chopping or slicing them helps reduce the tendency to tear-up because it slows down the reaction of the enzymes.
Utah Links:
- Roasted Utah Onion and Rosemary Focaccia (From Chef Scott Blackerby at Bambara Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City)
Utah State Historic Vegetable - Sugar Beet
The sugar beet was named the historic state vegetable in the 2002 General Session of the Utah State Legislature, S.B. Bill 136. Senator Bill Wright, R-Elberta, sponsored the measure and it was supported by the students of Realms of Inquiry school of Salt Lake City (Utah Code).
Utah achieved prominence in nineteenth-century America for its efforts to produce sugar from sugar beets; and the production of beet sugar contributed substantially to Utah's economy for almost one hundred years. A first bold attempt was made in the early 1850s but the factory never quite managed to solve the chemical problems of converting beets grown in alkali soil into granulated sugar. By the 1980s there were no beet sugar factories in Utah. The Utah History Encyclopedia has a thorough history of the sugar industry in Utah.
The Lehi factory of the Utah Sugar Company was the first successful beet sugar factory in the Mountain West, the first to use beets grown by irrigation, the first to have a systematic program for producing its own beet seed, the first to use American-made machinery, the first to use the "osmose process" of reprocessing molasses, and the first to build auxiliary cutting stations. This factory also served as a training base for many of the technical leaders of the sugar beet industry of the United States.
The onset of World War I and the expansion of sugar beet acreage brought about a shortage of laborers. The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company sought workers outside of the United States and hired families from Juarez, Mexico to work the fields in the Garland area. The people, their housing, schools, and social life are described in Mexican Families and the Sugar Industry in Garland.
Utah Links:
- Lehi Beet Sugar Factory (Utah History to Go)
- Mexican Families and the Sugar Industry in Garland (Utah History to Go)
