Fester’s herring pickle

This Facebook post from 2 January 2010 at 09:54 ·reminded me
 

I’ve just been on the Danny Baker Show BBC Radio 5 Live "Sell by boasting game" with a 3 pack of Co-op Chilli Con Carne Casserole Seasoning Mix best before end Jul 94 - we used one of the packs this week and are still here.

The Squire you really should clear out your cupboards

Bentonbag we do - just slowly

FIfiD Hilarious!!!!

Bentonbag Actually I've also found 2 packs of Knorr Bread Sauce mix which have no date on at all - Phil is the only person I've known who had bread sauce so they must date back to 1992 or even earlier!!! Any takers?

AG Not today thanks lol.  I found a jar of Chicken Tonight Spanish red sauce dated '01 in the cupboard a couple of months ago lol x

Bentonbag Yes - but did you eat it?

AG I would've but the mister made me chuck it in the bin lol

Bentonbag No sense of adventure that man - big cohones when it comes to icy dips though - remind me to tell you about Fester and the pickled herrings one day.

Well here it is ...

Fester loves fish.

I do not.

At one time Lidl sold jars of pickled herrings (and probably still do) so being, a loving wife, I would buy a jar for his lunch.  He wasn’t always at home, or in the mood for herring, for lunch and one jar remained unopened for far longer than it should have. 

Eventually I lost patience with shifting it around the cupboard and asked “Are you ever going to eat this jar of herrings?”

“Oh.  I’d forgotten we had them.”

I checked the label.

“They’re well past their sell by date.”

“Oh that doesn’t matter.  Give them here.”

As he twisted the lid there was an audible, evil sounding “Phhisssh”.

He put the opened jar on the work-surface.   

Fumes bubbled out of the liquid and slithered visibly down the sides of the jar.  Imagine the scenes of the potion in a Hammer version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, only more malevolent.

“You can’t eat that.  It’s off.”

“Nah.  It’ll be fine.”

And he ate them.

They didn’t stay with him for long, passing through and being deposited back into water well before tea-time.

You, like me, will be asking “But surely they must have tasted strange?”

He did admit, a little later, that they had an odd texture and “felt a bit cotton woolly”.