Well, scallions, actually.

At least that’s what we always called them at home.

In fact, as far as I can recall, I only started to become aware of the alternative name “spring onion” when I got into far eastern cookery, where it was hardly possible to flick through a cookbook without stumbling across a clutch of recipes that involved spring onions in some shape or form. And even though, technically, the terms scallion and spring onion (and green onion, come to that) all referred to exactly the same vegetable, somehow spring onion seemed a bit fancy-pants to me. Scallions were down-home. Something you’d put in a potato salad. Spring onions were exotic and always turned up with their friends ginger and garlic in spicy Asian dishes. As for green onions – well that was just the name of a tune from the 60’s by Booker T. and the MGs…

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