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APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES

Vatolla onion

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Vatolla is a hamlet of Perdifumo, on the slopes of Monte Stella, in the Cilento National Park. It looks over the coast between Agropoli and Castellabate, with views of Capri and Ischia, and enjoys a microclimate that the philosopher Giambattista Vico, tutor to the noble Rocca family in Palazzo De Vargas, called 'most perfect air'.

There are no written sources, but tradition holds that the seeds of this onion came from the East before the year 1000, brought by Basilian monks fleeing iconoclast persecution. For centuries it was grown only here, and farmers handed the seeds down from generation to generation.

Folk rituals grew up around the onion: the sowing and planting festival in January, the braiding festival in June and the onion festival in summer. The Cipolla di Vatolla Association, together with the Municipality of Perdifumo and the Park, guided the path to the Slow Food Presidium; the onion is also listed among Campania's traditional products.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cipolla di Vatolla · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

It is grown in Vatolla, a hamlet of Perdifumo, in the province of Salerno, on fertile clay soils with excellent exposure; the regional sheet also extends the area to neighbouring villages.

Sowing takes place between August and September, and between November and December the seedlings are transplanted into the gardens, spaced more widely than usual because the bulbs tend to grow large. No synthetic chemicals are used, whether for weeds, removed by hand or mechanically, or for pest control or fertilising. Rotations are two-yearly, with tomatoes, beans and broad beans, and in the driest spells the plants are watered from springs or from peschere, cisterns that collect rainwater.

Harvest, by hand, runs from the end of June to the first ten days of August. After a short drying in the field, the onions are braided at dawn, while the leaves are still damp, and hung in airy places.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cipolla di Vatolla · Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Cipolla di Vatolla

How to recognise it

The Vatolla onion is shaped like a spinning top or elongated like a small lemon. It usually weighs between 330 and 400 grams, but often reaches 800-900 grams or more.

The outer skin is pinkish white or straw-coloured; the inner layers are white, tightly packed, with lengthwise pink streaks.

The taste is very sweet, with minimal pungency, and the aroma is delicate and gentle. It is very easy to digest. Its very low pungency limits its keeping time to two or three months: this is why a small share is made into preserves.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cipolla di Vatolla · Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Cipolla di Vatolla

In the kitchen

It is perfect in salads and in omelettes with Cilento cacioricotta. Above all, it is the key ingredient of susciello di cipolla, an onion soup dressed with extra virgin olive oil and pecorino, easy to digest and delicate in flavour and aroma.

Preserves make it possible to enjoy it out of season too.

These are simple dishes, made with produce from the vegetable garden and the olive grove, that belong to the food traditions UNESCO recognises in the Mediterranean Diet: a heritage of knowledge handed down, as the Park points out, in the communities of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni too.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cipolla di Vatolla · Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Cipolla di Vatolla · Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni — Dieta Mediterranea

Where to taste it

The place is Vatolla, in the municipality of Perdifumo, between Monte Stella and the Cilento sea. The village is home to Palazzo De Vargas, linked to Giambattista Vico's stay.

The event most closely tied to the onion is the fair of the Madonna del Carmelo in Mercato Cilento, another hamlet of Perdifumo: in July the braided onions are sold as a thanksgiving for the harvest.

The best season runs from late June to August, when freshly made braids hang in airy places. From here it is easy to go on exploring the Cilento, between the inland villages and the coast from Agropoli to Castellabate.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Cipolla di Vatolla

Protection

When

Where

Campania