Pickled Onions

They don't taste the same as the ones that filled those big jars which sat in a cupboard serving out the four week wait. My mouth still craves for that first crisp bite, the tangy, sweet release of spicy vinegar as my teeth cut through the tightly wound layers, the sharp burst of pleasure, the lingering after-taste. Nowadays pickled onions, like those at the back of my fridge, look anemic, floating in their pale brine. They're soft and soggy. Oh how I long for the pickled onions my Nan used to make. It was a ritual every spring. The jars would be retrieved from the shed and washed, a big bag of onions opened and spread out on the kitchen table to be peeled and soaked. Malt vinegar bubbled its pungent breath from a pot somersaulting peppercorns and cloves through its slow churn. I would help load the jars with onions before Nan would pour the hot vinegar into each packed jar. Then the wait, each passing week pestered by a …..‘are they ready yet ?’ They were better than candy for me, a flavor that went way beyond taste and deep into something shared between us, a love that found its way to pickle a little of itself every year of my childhood.