Breme Red Onion

Breme, a small medieval town with 700 inhabitants, is located in lower Lomellina, the green lung of the Pavia area where the Sesia and Po rivers intersect.
The municipality is rich in historical monuments and, among these, there is the ancient Abbey of San Pietro from the 10th century, where the story of the Breme red onion begins, “sigulla” in dialect: the Benedictine monks, in fact, cultivated this variety in their vegetable garden at the back of the abbey. The first records can be traced back to a chronicle of 906 AD. It is here where we read of some monks from the Novalesa Abbey (in the Turin area), who transferred to Breme to escape the raids of the Saracen barbarians, and who found not only the new headquarters of their congregation, but also the ideal habitat for the cultivation of their vegetables, and in particular for two types of onions, known as the white (or golden) and the red.
The second is an onion which is around six or seven hundred grams, it has a squashed shape and an intense red colour. Thanks to its sweetness, crunchiness and its high digestibility, it has survived over the centuries, and has been cultivated and is known even today with the nickname “dolcissima” (very sweet). These organoleptic characteristics are largely linked to the morphological composition of the land (flat, sandy and of medium compaction), their flood plain origin and the area’s microclimate.
Cultivation is mostly manual, not very different to the method handed down by the Novalesa monks to the people of Breme. Which has then been handed down from generation to generation in Breme, until today. It is a complex process: the seeds are placed in a hessian sack which is wet, when the moon is waning in August; as soon as they germinate, they are sown in a nursery and then, between the end of October and the start of November, the seedlings are transplanted into a field. To preserve the fertility of the land, the crops are rotated, and organic fertilisers are generally used. Every two years, onions are alternated with wheat, peas or other legumes. Weeds are eradicated by hand, without the use of herbicides. Thanks to the morphological characteristics of the soil, which has a high water table during the summer months, it is not necessary to irrigate. The harvest begins in June and lasts for about two months: when the stem begins to dry and folds in on itself, the onions have reached full maturity. Once they are harvested, they are left in the sun for a few hours in the field, after which they are moved to a shady place, where they remain another three or four days to complete the ripening and drying process.
The Breme red onion is the ideal ingredient for jams, compotes, mustards and sweet and sour preparations. In the kitchen it is optimal raw, for example in a Breme salad (with tuna, beans, extra virgin olive oil, salt and vinegar), or even cooked and transformed into soups or omelettes.

Season

Available from June to August