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Shallot

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Shallot

The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, Allium ascalonicum. The taxon was synonymized with Allium cepa (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was too small to justify a separate species.

As part of the onion genus Allium, its close relatives include garlic, scallions, leeks, chives, and the Chinese onion.

The names scallion and shallot are derived from the Old French eschalotte, by way of eschaloigne, from the Latin Ascalōnia caepa or Ascalonian onion, a namesake of the ancient city of Ascalon.

The term shallot is usually applied to the French red shallot (Allium cepa var. aggregatum, or the A. cepa Aggregatum Group). It is also used for the Persian shallot or musir (A. stipitatum) from the Zagros Mountains in Iran and Iraq, and the French gray shallot (Allium oschaninii) which is also known as griselle or "true shallot"; it grows wild from Central to Southwest Asia. The name shallot is also used for a scallion in New South Wales, Australia and among English-speaking people in Quebec while the term French shallot refers to the plant referred to on this page. In most English-speaking nations, the name is pronounced with the emphasis on the last syllable in common with the French pronunciation, sha-lot, while the emphasis is commonly made on the first syllable, shall-ət, in the United States.[citation needed]

The term eschalot, derived from the French word échalote, can also be used to refer to the shallot.

Like garlic, shallots are formed in clusters of offsets with a head composed of multiple cloves. The skin colour of shallots can vary from golden brown to gray to rose red, and their off-white flesh is usually tinged with green or magenta.

Shallots are extensively cultivated for culinary uses, propagated by offsets. In some regions ("long-season areas"), the offsets are usually planted in autumn (September or October in the Northern Hemisphere). In some other regions, the suggested planting time for the principal crop is early spring (typically in February or the beginning of March in the Northern Hemisphere).

In planting, the tops of the bulbs should be kept a little above ground, and the soil surrounding the bulbs is often drawn away when the roots have taken hold. They come to maturity in summer, although fresh shallots can now be found year-round in supermarkets. Shallots should not be planted on ground recently manured. Shallots suffer damage from leek moth larvae, which mine into the leaves or bulbs of the plant.

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