Pickled fallen onions

I like opening my fridge and seeing the fallen onions in a jar.

I pickled them since I had had my fill of the fresh kind, and these were surplus to my immediate requirements.

These are the upshot of my accidental spillage of seeds from the packet recounted in Fallen Onions and elsewhere.

When I was very small, about five, I think, I saw cocktail pickled onions in a jar for the first time. I remember asking my mother why they were so white. The answer came half a century later as I carefully cut the roots off these fallen onions and squeezed the bulbs out of their outer skin. There. Little white balls. Some of them, anyway.

I also discovered that I need no lessons in plaiting onions. I had to harvest the correctly planted onions because the stalks had gone all floppy and dry. A gardener friend confirmed that this year the season is a bit awry, and she also had her onions maturing too soon. So, once again, nature held sway. No matter, plaiting the early harvest is one way to make them last until I need them.

I gave one lot away to a friend who gives me lifts into the village when my need for cash from the ATM does not coincide with bus timetables. Her car was quite smelly by the time we had made the round trip to the village and back. The other I hung in my religious kitchen.

Which is not to say I have two kitchens, you understand. But then again, my kitchen is more religious than you think. You might recall that I have magnetized representations of the Miraculous Flies of Sant Narcís stuck to my fridge.

They are quite close to a disk depicting St. Christopher which, when new, had pride of place in a 1962 VW Beetle belonging to my beloved’s mother. I cannot remove it since I applied double-sided adhesive tape to secure it some years ago. The magnet was tired, it seems. Make of that what you will.

I am keeping my fork out of the jar of pickled fallen onions. They’re waiting for the day when friends will be coming over for a barbecue in a couple of weeks’ time. At which point we shall scoff the lot.

©2019 Allison Wright