Bye bye vinegar bottles! I'll miss you.


Long ago when I was a junior high school student I had a strange English teacher named Ms. Pennels. When she wasn't screaming at us for no reason, she was making the class memorize and recite over and over a poem called "The Vinegar Man". While I was busy every day reading about the depressing life of the Vinegar Man, my brother was usually playing with Lego or doing other fun stuff with his cool hip teacher Mr. Ward. A few years after I graduated I heard through the grapevine that Ms. Pennels had to leave her job and get professional help. I can't help but wonder if she's now living in a tumble-down shed by the Haunted House surrounded by greasy old records of paid and due.


Anyway, you're probably wondering about the photo. Well that's my vinegar bottle collection, which sadly I must part with today. For those of you not in the know, Canadians (and this Canadian in particular) love to put white vinegar on french fries. I have no idea where this custom comes from, but it doesn't seem to be practiced anywhere else, except maybe in Britain to some extent. In Japan it's really hard to find ordinary white vinegar. Those red capped bottles in the photo are Japanese vinegar, which is made from rice and isn't very good. The rest was either shipped from North America (thanks to my loving parents and Jenny) or purchased at Aomori's only source for vinegar ELM shopping mall in Goshogawara. Not pictured are two large plastic vinegar jugs which I unfortunately threw out before I got the idea to start collecting my empties.


Click 'Read More' to experience "The Vinegar Man" for yourself, or click here for the MP3!:

Follow up:

THE crazy old Vinegar Man is dead! He never had missed a day before!
Somebody went to his tumble-down shed by the Haunted House and forced the door.

There in the litter of his pungent pans, the murky mess of his mixing place ?
Deep, sticky spiders and empty cans ? with the same old frown on his sour old face.


"Vinegar - Vinegar - Vinegar Man!

Face - us - and - chase - us - and - catch - if -you - can!
Pepper for a tongue! Pickle for a nose!

Stick a pin in him and vinegar flows!
Glare -at-us- swear -at-us- catch - if - you-can!

Ketchup - and - chow - chow - and -Vinegar -Man!"


Nothing but recipes and worthless junk; greasy old records of paid and due ;
But down in the depths of a battered trunk, a queer, quaint valentine torn in two ?

Red hearts and arrows and silver lace, and a prim, dim, ladylike script that said ?
(Oh, Vinegar Man, with the sour old face!) ?

"With dearest love, from Ellen to Ned!"


"Steel - us - and - peel - us - and - drown - us -in - brine!
He pickles his heart in" ? a valentine! '

' Vinegar for blood! Pepper for his tongue!
Stick a pin in him and ?" once he was young! "

Glare -at-us- swear -at-us- catch - if - you - can! " -
"With dearest love" ? to the Vinegar Man!


Dingy little books of profit and loss

(died about Saturday, so they say),
And a queer, quaint valentine torn across . . .

torn, but it never was thrown away!
"With dearest love from Ellen to Ned" ?

"Old Pepper Tongue! Pickles his heart in brine!"
The Vinegar Man is a long time dead:

he died when he tore his valentine.


Ruth Comfort Mitchell