It’s always good to report when a product lives up to its marketing, and for all those pickle fans out there we can report, after extensive and pleasurable testing that Barry Norman Premium Pickled Onions  are what it says on the jar. (“hot and spicy, crisp and crunchy”) We also found them satisfyingly sweet and pungent on the palate, with warm hints of five-spice.

Reportedly, like Paul Newman’s Salad Dressings, the affable and sometimes pungent film critic’s pickles were launched after a tasting by someone in marketing who insisted they had to be marketed, and accordingly they were launched in 2007 by producers Bennet Opie, based on Norman’s own family recipe.

Of course there will be those tightwads and not us of course who know that the secret’s in the vinegar and will save it to immerse lesser, cheaper onions in, perhaps with some other additives