The legendary Vidalia Onion might be the greatest accident in the history of agriculture. It’s hard to imagine living without ’em now, but they actually didn’t even exist until the 1930s. And it was another 50 years before the rest of us found out!
In the 1930s, a farmer in Vidalia had a contract to deliver some regular onions to the local Piggly Wiggly. There was a late freeze that took out his crop. No more seedlings were available locally. Finally, he resorted to having a train car load of onion plants from Texas. They arrived right on time — but when the crop came up, the onions weren’t hot… they were sweet! Nobody was happy about it… at first. The farmer thought he was ruined. The Piggly Wiggly manager decided to give ’em a try anyway.
You know the rest of the story… or think you do. We’ll tell you how that happened, show you how Vidalia onions grow and are harvested and — bonus! — host Chip Carter also introduces us to some of his favorite people in the world in his musical tribute to the region, “Sweet Vidalia”.
