An onion grown anyplace other than around here just isn't a Vidalia

There's one thing you quickly learn in Vidalia, Ga. You can't call just any old onion a Vidalia. There are some things that make an onion a Vidalia onion.

One of those things is where it was grown, a requirement so specific that it's spelled out in Georgia law. The story of the onion with the town's name began more than 70 years ago in Toombs County, Ga. In 1931, a farmer by the name of Mose Coleman discovered the onions he had planted didn't have the "bite" he was expecting when he tasted them. Instead, they had a sweet taste.

At first, it wasn't easy to convince people that they wanted a sweet onion, but Coleman kept at it, selling those first crops of onion for $3.50 per 50-pound bag. He didn't know it at the time, but it was the start of something big.

In the 1940s, the state of Georgia built a Farmer's Market in the town of Vidalia and the word started to get out about "those Vidalia onions." Production numbers grew in the 1950s and '60s and by the mid-1970s, about 600 acres of Vidalia onions were harvested each year.

By 1977, there wasn't just a Vidalia onion, there was a Vidalia Onion Festival. Three years later, there was Yumion, the Vidalia onion's official mascot. The Georgia Legislature got down to the business of officially creating an "onion zone" in the late 1980s.

And what if you like Vidalias so much that you want to grow your own? Well, you can't unless you live in that carefully outlined Vidalia region. The soil there has a unique blend of nutrients that gives the onions their sweetness. The popularity of that taste hasn't waned since it first was discovered by Coleman. In 2004, Vidalia onion growers sold almost 13 million pounds of onions.

Even though growing them yourself might not be possible, you can see them being grown. And, of course, you can bring some home, which might be easier than growing them yourself anyway. Many farms in the growing region, especially near the town of Vidalia, offer tours where you can see the onions sprouting and watch them being picked.

There are tours of some warehouses, where "onion rings on the hoof" are stacked to the ceilings of environmentally controlled buildings just waiting to leap onto hamburgers and into potato salads across the nation and around the world.

Gift shops are filled with onion-based goodies to take home and, depending on the season, visitors can either buy their Vidalias right there or pre-order them for shipping later.

Elizabeth Harvill of the area's Convention and Visitors Bureau suggests that "onion hunters" stop by her office (not surprisingly, it's on Vidalia Sweet Onion Drive) for advice on finding farms to tour.

Whatever sort of tour you want, if it involves onions, there's sure to be something to your liking in Vidalia.

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