Onion Johnnies set sail for Britain again

ROSCOFF, France: Onion Johnnies, the travelling salesmen whose berets and bicycles inspired Britain and much of the world’s classic image of the archetypal Frenchman, are setting sail for England once more.

Beset by tough market conditions at home, the producers of Brittany’s celebrated pink onions have decided it is time to introduce it to a new generation of British housewives with their Gallic charm and strings of eye-watering produce.

The Etoile du Roi (Star of the King), a replica of an 18th-century sailing ship, on Monday set off from the Breton port of Roscoff, weighed down by a hefty cargo of onions that it will deliver to London on Dec. 6 after stopovers on the Channel island of Jersey and at Portsmouth, on England’s southern coast.