Do you know your onions? From large, sweet onions to shallots, garlic, chives and leeks, the allium family contains some of the most popular vegetables in the world. Shy of the spotlight - except when repelling vampires, preserving mummies, curing heart disease or predicting the future - this lowly yet universal family of plants has been a friend to mankind from earliest times.

Martha Jay traces the history of garlic and onions back to the earliest civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the recipes of ancient Mesopotamia. Celebrated, denigrated, avoided or sought-after, the amazing allium family has a story full of fine cuisine and art, peasants and kings, colonization and conquest, magic and medicine. But most of all, it's the story of how a seemingly ordinary vegetable has conquered the world.

About the Author
Martha Jay is a writer and editor based in London.