I have had permission from Angela of Tracing Rainbows, to use this charming photo of Pascal the onion seller at her local market.
It brought back memories of childhood in Cornwall in the 1950s.
Every year we looked forward to the arrival of one of the Breton onion men who cycled from the port of Roscoff to Cornwall, their bikes strung with onions, garlic and shallots. They went from door to door from Cornwall and as far North as the Shetland Isles.
Suddenly, up the drive he would come, cheerfully using his limited supply of English, and giving me a chance to practice my very few words of French. The onions were displayed to my Grandmother who always brought a string or two, hanging them in the garage to keep dry.
I used to marvel at the clever way the onions were strung, tied up with raffia.
photo from Brittany's Onion Museum.
Any market in France now will have a stall with a wonderful array of onions, shallots and garlic. The pink Roscoff shallots even have their own Appellation Controlee label. There is still an Onion Festival in Roscoff with music, dance and no doubt, stalls of every onion possible.
But nothing was quite so exciting as that first view of 'our' onion man cycling up the drive!
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