Vegetarian smoked sausage tonight. I’m bracing myself.
There are good intentions and there is a plan: less meat and more vegetarian food or fish. And that’s going quite well, thanks to the fake chicken pieces and imitation mince from various factories. But mashed potatoes call for a smoked sausage, which is why there is suddenly a vegetarian smoked sausage in the kitchen. Is it a success? Well… testing it didn’t take very long, which may say something.
The smoked sausage from the Vegetarische Slager isn’t bent into a horseshoe shape like ‘regular’ smoked sausages. The first indication that something is not quite right, but something to do with book and cover, so we’ll just have to overlook that. The mash is nicely mashed, and the sausage is sliced to place on top. And as always, first taste a small piece. Smoked sausage isn’t haute cuisine, but it is very tasty, especially when it’s cold outside and warm inside, and when you’ve worked all day and are looking forward to traditional Dutch food.
Play-Doh
That first bite is the worst. The smoked sausage is disgusting. Very disgusting. The texture is cottony and rubbery, the skin looks like a layer of plastic and when I chew, the sausage becomes grainy. It’s as if I’m eating a prop, or Play-Doh, or chewing gum that you’ve had in your mouth for an hour. I look across the table, where a piece of smoked sausage is discreetly spat into a hand. I try another piece, chew, taste… No, people, something is seriously wrong here. Unfortunately, this smoked sausage is inedible.
‘Really gross’
I could have known, in hindsight. Because my favorite food blogger Meneer Wateetons, as a sausage expert, has already tested those vegetarian smoked sausages. And his test also found the Vegetarische Slager’s smoked sausage far from positive, to put it mildly. Quote from his judges’ report: ‘For-f***’s-sake (…). This tastes like vomit! Really gross.’
Few compliments
Fortunately, Wateetons also tasted other vegetarian smoked sausages, so we don’t have to. Taking one for the team, hats off! The vegetarian sausage from Unox was rated at least as poorly by his tasting panel. Sour, tough, rubbery, no smoky-sausage aroma – few compliments for Unox.
Least disgusting
Valess’s smoked sausage is the tastiest, or rather: the least disgusting. Not exactly an endorsement. And the vegetarian smoked sausage from Hema? Not bad at all, an acceptable alternative, as long as you serve enough sauerkraut and gravy with it. OK, I might still try that. Otherwise, it’ll be organic free-range cuddle-three-star smoked sausage, as an exception to the new vegetarian regime.
