Unjaring M&S Balsamic Vinegar Pickled Onions

Balsamic? That's a vinegar-y good question!

And so it continues. Another weekend, another jar, another moment spent in front of a camera, wondering about the life choices that led me to this point.

Welcome back to the internet's premier series dedicated to a middle-aged man opening jars of pickled things.

This time, we're venturing back upmarket to the home of the excellent traditional pickled onions: Marks & Spencer. However, today's subject is a different beast entirely: M&S Balsamic Pickled Onions.

The jar is small, the pickling liquid is dark and mysterious. My initial thoughts, which I mumbled to the elastic-band-mounted camera, were not optimistic. Balsamic vinegar, for all its merits in a salad dressing, isn't exactly known for the sharp, aggressive tang one expects from a proper pickled onion. It felt like a concept that was trying a bit too hard to be fancy, a bit too middle-class, for the humble onion.

For some reason, this video was more... planned. I had props. I had a vague idea of what I was going to say, mostly because I'd already run through it in my head during a sleepless night earlier in the week. Why? I couldn't tell you. It felt like I was trying to impose some sort of order on this whole ridiculous endeavour, a futile gesture in the face of the sheer pointlessness of opening jars on camera. It was a departure from the raw, unplanned spirit of the first one, and frankly, I'm not sure it was for the better.

So, did these balsamic-soaked globes defy my low expectations? Or did they confirm my suspicions that some things are best left traditional? You'll have to watch the video to see the verdict.