Allium oschaninii French Gray Shallot

This is the French gray shallot which, as it turns out, is botanically distinct from the shallots of grocery stores ( or at least the grocery stores where I shop). The grocery store shallot is botanically a form of the culinary onion, Allium cepa. The French gray shallot is a distinct species, Allium oschaninii. There is a school of thought which claims that the French gray is the true shallot, and while that point of view might have merit, for practical purposes it's about as significant as the distinction sometimes made between cassia (what most of us  - "us" in this case being most of us Americans - know as cinnamon) and "true" or Ceylon cinnamon. Cassia and Ceylon cinnamon are distinct in taste, and shallots of the onion sort and French gray shallots are distinct in taste. All have their uses.

The gray shallot originated in the middle east where it still grows wild. We call them French gray shallots probably for the same reason we call dwarf box "English" box: because that's where our predecessors more than likely got them. French gray shallots are not native to France.

As far as I know, both culinary onions and garlic are known only as cultivated plants; culinary onions are grown from seed, but garlic apparently is not known to produce seed. My French gray shallots have not bloomed here, and I don't know if they produce viable seed or not. 

Dead rat story

For the last two weeks, whenever I open the cabinets under the stove where I store potatoes and onions, there has been a strong dead mammal reek. When I first noticed it, I assumed it was a potato which went bad. I took out all of the potatoes, sorted out any which had even the slightest sign of trouble, and sat back thinking the problem had been solved.

It hadn’t. Not only was the odor still there, but it seemed to be getting worse. My first thought was that it was a dead mouse. Mice follow the gas pipes which lead to the stove, and that takes them right to the potato/onion bins. I’ve never known them to bother onions, but on rare occasions a potato will show signs of gnawing. Sweet potatoes on the other hand are quickly sampled. And then there was this: the odor seemed to be getting worse. A week later it was as strong as ever. A dead mouse would not stink that long; was it a dead rat?

The vegetable bins are on one side of this space. The other side is occupied by an assortment of culinary potions which has accumulated over the years. This includes things like various vinegars (there were four different rice vinegars when I looked today), what in the bad old days were known as sauces (ten-year old oyster sauce anyone?) and various spirits ( port, sherry, rum, a very old un-opened bottle of Canadian Club, Marsala, vermouth) and the results of various impulse purchases at the import store (mostly Russian fruit syrups and juices – Aronia, black currant, sour cherry).

Convinced that the decomposing corpse of a dead rodent lay hidden among all of those bottles, I took each one out, dusted it off, checked the cap for a good seal, and put them aside. As the last few bottles came out, it was clear that there was no dead rodent. Yet the stench was still there. I got a flashlight and peered down along the gas pipes as far as I could see: there was no sign of a dead anything.

What was going on? If anything, the smell now seemed to be stronger in the kitchen itself rather than under the stove. But where in the world was it coming from? The only thing I had not examined carefully was the onion bin. I took the onions out one by one: they were Vidalia onions, an onion which has a half life of several hours in our kitchen. No, the Vidalias were fine. There was a sweet potato in the same bin – it was light and dry, well on its way to becoming a cork. There was a shallot – nothing bad there.

And there was a plastic bag with garlic. Uh oh, what’s this? The plastic bag had traces – stains - of some now mostly dried brown liquid all over it. When I lifted the bag, there was a nearly dry puddle of the same dark brew. The stench was now reaching the truly disgusting level. Of the three heads of garlic in the bag, two seemed fine except for the bad company they were keeping: the third head was soft and reeking.

Problem solved – well, sort of. Now that the stench is gone, the mice will no doubt return.