In recent years, some famous people have branched out from their chosen specialist subject and lent their name to certain consumer products.
Paul Newman’s salad dressings spring to mind, as do Loyd Grossman’s pasta sauces (which are actually pretty good). Hey, even Cliff Richard produces his own wine.
Now at the time, some of these seemed pretty weird, but we’ve got used to them. You can imagine my surprise then, when I was sauntering along the aisles of my local supermarket and spotted on sale umpteen jars of, I kid you not, Barry Norman’s Pickled Onions.
Here’s a quote from the supermarket’s website:
Barry Norman never buys pickled onions. He doesn’t need to. Using a 19th century recipe handed down from grandmother to mother to son he makes them himself.
The ploughman’s favourite side order are apparently grown on Bazzer’s own farm and the former BBC film critic has decided to cash in and lend his name to the product,
The question is, does this totally undermine the credibility that he has built up over decades of movie reviewing?
From All About Eve to alliums…
I don’t think Barry is selling out or cashing in.
I think that for once, a genuinely fabulous product has been marketed by someone, who in this case, happens to be famous for something completely unrelated.
Now I haven’t seen Barry Norman since his took his film…show to Sky so he looked a little older on the jar and I thought the clapper board looked a little cheesy with it’s comic sans type font. A bit obvious. But even so…I was given the jar as a jokey Xmas stocking filler and because I am a huge pickled onion fan.
I can honestly say…these are the best pickled onions I have ever tasted. I’m on my fifth and I only opened the jar about 10 minutes ago and in that time I’ve had to Google this topic to evangelise about er…onions.
They are closest in style and flavour to the old-fashioned Garners onions but sweeter and with a lot more flavour. I’m a huge coriander/cilantro fan and some of these onions pack a real coriander punch so there must be seeds in the ‘secret’ recipe.
Anyway, better go, I can’t believe I’m desperate to chat on the web about onions on NYEve but there you have it – that is the type of onions these are. I’ll never buy another brand!
Well, it’s great to hear from someone who’s genuinely enjoyed them, Sarah. Perhaps, I’ll try them the next time I walk past a jar in Sainsbury’s!
sainsburys stopped selling these, gutted isnt the word!!!!!!!!!!!