Onion Johnny was a term given to the French onion sellers of Brittany who cycled round the streets of Britain, strings of onions tied to their bikes, knocking at doors and making markets more exciting!
Berets worn at a jaunty angle, Gaulloise cigarettes hanging from their lips, bicycles smothered in plaited strings of onions – each of which weighed between one and two kilogrammes – French onion sellers were once a familiar sight on the streets of Britain, plying their trade from door to door, from the Channel ports to as far north as the Orkneys and Shetlands.
Born at the dawn of the 19th Century, it’s a time-honoured trade that at its between-the-wars peak, in 1929, involved some 1,500 so-called Onion Johnnies – all of whom came from one tiny area around the Breton port of Roscoff.
The history of the Roscoff Onion dates back to 1647, when Brother Cyril, a Capuchin monk, introduced this pink skinned variety from Lisbon in Portugal. Initially cultivated in the gardens of the convent, the onion quickly became a staple in sailors’ diets for its anti-scurvy properties, before becoming a prized resource for maritime trade.
But it was in the 19th century that its reputation crossed the Channel, thanks to Henri Ollivier, a young farmer who, in 1828, set off to sell his produce in Great Britain. The “Johnnies”, as they were nicknamed by the British, continued this tradition of door-to-door sales, on foot and then by bicycle, until the 1970s. Although production fell sharply from this decade onwards, a renaissance took place in 1992 with the creation of the hand-braided “cluster” onion, followed by the obtaining of the AOC labels in 2009 and AOP in 2013.
Today just a dozen Onion Johnnies stay in business but the pink Roscoff onion, now distributed by more conventional means, remains highly prized in kitchens across Europe. And, in the back streets of Roscoff there’s now a dedicated and memorabilia-packed Maison des Johnnies et de L’Oignon Rosé museum at 48 Rue Brizeux. Here you can learn about the Onion Johnny story and the famous pink onion, meet with the professionals, enjoy tastings of onion based products and find a discovery trail on a mini train including a visit to an onion grower.
Don’t miss the annual onion festival if you’re in Roscoff in August – music, dance, games and onion-related celebrations galore for an authentic taste of Brittany.
Details of opening times and information for the Onion Museum and the annual onion festival on the Roscoff Tourism website roscoff-tourisme.com
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