A few weeks ago, I went to the grocery store to buy some white onions. They were out, and I had to get some yellow ones instead.
Then a few days ago, I went again, and noticed that now there wasn’t even a space for white onions–it was all dedicated to yellow onions.
I asked about it, and it turns out that this grocery store chain’s warehouse in the area doesn’t have any white onions–and furthermore, that white onions have been removed from the warehouse manager’s order list! As in, there is no longer any way for the management (at least of this area) to get white onions any more!
Is this local to Southern California? Is this across all chains, or just the Albertsons chain?
It’s just not the season for white onions and they don’t store well. Most yellow onions though last a long time under proper storage conditions.
Every Fall I buy a 50 pound sack of winter onions for between 12 and 15 bucks. I’ll have good onions for another month yet, until they start to soften and sprout, at which time I just lop off the green sprouts and let them grow some more until the onion is finally depleted.
I just asked Lady Lacha; she’s in the produce business. White onions are out there, but they’re very expensive. It’s due to weather conditions – white onions are very delicate and are generally grown in the Midwest. When they got that cold snap, it probably damaged a good deal of the onion-growers crop, hence the shortage and the hike in price. My wife says that a 50-pound bag would cost, wholesale, $80.
She says try the little white pearl onions in small mesh bags. They’re available from “Melissa’s,” a California-based company.
The style of the time is a yellow onion, not a white. People always say, “never leave your house without your onion,” but it was a white onion back in nineteen dickety two.
I’m having a dickens of a time finding SMALL or even medium yellow onions. Y’know, the assorted but around tangerine to small orange sized ones that come in the mesh bag? Dominicks and Jewel (the big grocery stores near us) haven’t had them for at least six months now. They only have the loose, red onion sized huge yellow onions, which are milder in flavor and impossible to dice as finely without juicing them, since their rings are thicker. The only place I can still find plain ol’ onions in a sack is Aldi, but of course those are relatively ancient onions that sprout before I can get to the bottom of the bag. (I like Aldi, but produce is not their strong point.)
Actually, I’m not sure I’ve seen yellow onions. I can get white and red onions, but the ordinary ones are always pale green inside, with a nut-brown skin.
I said “nut-brown” is how I might describe a ripe yellow onion. I meant very ripe.
Though I’m starting to think maybe the brown ones are the very unripe ones since apparently the brown shade is associated with a green interior. (And I take it green onions are unripe?)
On edit: Here’s what I’m talking about. And indeed, all these look more brown than yellow to me. At my grocery store, though, they look yellow. On the page I linked, the first picture in the second row shows a bit of the “yellow” that I’m talking about.
(The second picture on the first row is not a picture of onions AFAICT.)
dunno, 'round here they’re called “Vidallia” or “Sweet”… I think yellow because of the golden color of the skin (most time) and they ain’t white or purple.
I saw all three types at the local Von’s on Sunday. I was a bit taken aback by the price of white onions, but that has been explained. I use red onions almost exclusively anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. I was at Albertson’s and really wanted some white onions for some burritos and was very disappointed they were all out. I got red onions instead.
