Pickled Onions

[abracadraba]

I bought a jar of pickled onions the other day and was amazed to see under storage "once opened refrigerate and eat within 6 weeks. Surely the process of pickling is to preserve the onions??? Almost as daft as a notice on a bottle of whisky..."suitable for vegetarians"!!!

[Gormless]

Yes, daft. How can vinegar go off? All that might happen is that they will get a bit soggy, but nothing worse than that.

I still have a few jars of shallots that my dear dad pickled 8 years ago. Pickles don't go off.

[villa_fan007]

i buy a jar of pickle onions every christmas, as you do.
i eat about three and then they end up at the back of the cupboard,to be eaten the next year. i've got 3 jars all open at the moment and they all taste the same.
not sure about the pickled egg i pickled two years ago tho..

[theonlyone]

Think i would bin the pickled eggs !!!

[kujawski]

along the same lines, what confuses me is the Best before date on bottles of water????

[lilylilymort]

wot a strange comparison, pickled onions and whisky. sod the onions, drink the bottle of whisky and you wont care how old the onions are or what they taste like.

[ethandron]

oh yum, pickled smoked garlic sounds delicious. what do you use it for? i once bought a jar of pickled garlic cloves from a chutney shop in the lake district and used to eat them straight from the jar - until my husband complained about the odour (he hates even the merest whiff of garlic).

[hundreddolla]

With regards to why some Whiskeys are labelled 'vegetarian'

The reason some Whiskeys are labelled as vegetarian is to distinguish them from the Whiskeys that aren't. There are some Whiskeys that use animal products in their production.

With regards to how long bottled water will keep.

The 'best before' dates on bottles are based on the amount of time the manufacturer believes the water will remain without measurable levels of contamination due to the lack of completely sterile conditions in their bottling plants.
If the water is stored in a plastic bottle, the date will also relate to contamination from the constituents of the plastic, which may change the taste of the water.

So to answer your question, yes, water can 'go off'.

[ethandron]

you're very lucky living so close to the channel. we spend a lot of time in france, usually 6 weeks in may/june and another couple of months in sept/oct. depending on which ferry crossing we do, i love spending time browsing around the calais supermarkets, athough we usually go to the ones at coquelles.
i've taken to roasting garlic cloves whole as they don't seem to taint food as much, which satisfies my husband's dislike of them, and i can eat the whole cooked ones. next time we're over there i'm going to treat myself to a string of the smoked ones you mention and have a bash at doing what you do. thanks for the tip.

[abracadraba]

many thanx for all the answers.given me pleanty to think about

[tamirra]

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/foodlabels/labelling terms/bestbefore/