Festival of the Red Onion of Tropea in Ricadi

The cultivation of the“red onion of Tropea” had its first diffusion and typification in the areas falling on the municipalities of Parghelia and Zambrone and then spread towards the Capo Vaticano area involving the municipalities of Tropea and Ricadi.

The“red onion of Tropea” for its fleshyness, sweet flavor, and crunchy character, still turns out to be one of the most sorbable and sought-after products. Everyone agrees that the “Tropea onion” has exceptional therapeutic properties, just as scrupulous laboratory analyses have confirmed.

There is no doubt, therefore, that the “red onion of Tropea” is today one of the most interesting typical local products of the entire Italian agricultural scene. Every year, in the month of August, the red onion festival is held in Ricadi, the capital, at the initiative of the municipal administration, in agreement with the pro-loco and an organizing committee, which always renews and integrates itself in the continuous search for the best to offer to an ever-increasing number of visitors and tourists, who willingly leave the village or hotel, where they spend their vacations, to participate in the Sagra event, aimed at enhancing the typically rural component of the Tropea-Capo Vaticano district area.

The festival also wants to recover the ancient values of the peasant world, love for the land and animals, interest in the crops, the rediscovery of the kitchen and genuine and traditional foods. It deserves the red onion from Tropea, the attribution of the QUALITY MARK in order to avoid confusion and possible counterfeiting and to promote, support its improvement and increase its productive development.
Italian scholars have ascertained that the onion relieves, if not perfectly cures, colds and flu. It also helps fight aging. This vegetable, which contains vitamin C, has an antihemorrhagic action, strengthens cells, invigorates veins and arteries, and helps defend against infectious attacks.

It should also be noted that the onion does not lack iron, which keeps the number of red blood cells in the blood at the right level; it has a sedative power so that it easily reconciles sleep and also exerts its beneficial action on diuresis and hypertension. Recent studies on senility and cancer prevention show the importance in the daily diet of vitamin E, selenium, iodine, zinc and magnesium, elements present in a certain quantity in onions. Scholars such as Kendal, Menom, Newal recommend them for the treatment of chronic rheumatism, they consider them beneficial in the treatment of obesity, they have been positively tested as stimulants of virility, they find an antisclerotic power with benefits for the heart and arteries. Therefore, in the fight against cardiovascular diseases and heart attacks, eating these onions means ensuring an increase in the fibrinolytic activity of the blood. It is no coincidence to find the low mortality rate for heart attacks in Calabria, where people consume a lot of onions, preparing them in salads, in dressings, cooking them in the oven, boiled, omelettes and especially raw. We can rightly define the onion as a delicious vegetable very important in the diet of every day for its therapeutic components.