Why the Sausage Rolls Need to Return to Lidl’s Range (and Quickly)
Food with the smell and taste of the past is priceless. It’s a shame that my nostalgic comfort food was ruthlessly cut from Lidl’s range. Dear Lidl: listen to my plea and bring back the sausage rolls!
Marcel Proust tasted the crumbs of his Madeleine, which he had dipped in linden blossom tea. That taste and smell brought forgotten memories of his childhood back to him. In short, that is the premise of his book À la recherche du temps perdu, translated as ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The cakes have consequently become legendary, and I think sausage rolls deserve the same status.
Cheapest possible rolls
I’m not talking about just any sausage rolls, but Lidl’s absolute cheapest rolls. For years, they sat there obediently in a cardboard box, waiting (they had a long shelf life, after all) for people like me, who needed warm comfort and memories of school trips, children’s parties and long, lazy pajama Sundays. And guess what? Lidl removed the rolls from its range.
Art made with bread dough
Sausage rolls have been on the list of intangible cultural heritage since 2016. That means the 25 million sausage rolls sold each year contribute to the cultural richness of the Netherlands. So a sausage roll is essentially art, in a delicious wrapper. Usually, these are shiny rolls from the bakery, with a soft, bready exterior and a savory sausage inside.
A sliver of offal
The sausages I miss are much less culinary than these works of art. They were rock-hard rolls, especially if you left them in the oven a little too long. They were sealed on both ends. And the sausages inside were probably largely vegetarian, made from soy-based ingredients, lots of breadcrumbs and herbs, with a sliver of offal here and there. It didn’t matter, because when I was little, two or three of those rolls with a cup of milk were the ultimate comfort food. Chain fallen off your go-kart? Barbie’s hair cut off? Guinea pig thrown up? My mother would already preheat the oven so we could happily nibble on a few of those sausage rolls.
Treasure hunts or elastic bands
Fans of genuine Brabant sausage rolls would probably raise their eyebrows in stress when they see these industrial, dirt-cheap sausage rolls, but for me they are a direct route to cozy childhood memories—not passing Go, no two hundred guilders. And I’m surely not the only one, because in the North Holland village where I’m from, they often appeared on the tables of friends and neighborhood children too. Children’s party? Send a plate of those rolls into the celebrating crowd, and the treasure hunt or elastic-band games could begin. School trip? The teachers didn’t worry about gluten-free or vegan food and stuffed the oven at the farm campsite to the brim with cheap ass sausage rolls. And years later, when I was living in student accommodation, those rolls were a lifesaver when you wanted to survive a rough Sunday and had no money for pizza delivery.
Kept in the range
Slowly, the sausage rolls disappeared from supermarkets. Albert Heijn was the first to throw in the towel—or rather, the roll. Dekamarkt, Deen and Vomar followed. Yes, I was willing to travel far for my rolls, and I was overjoyed that Lidl was still keeping them in the range.
Until, a few years ago, the boxes between the sausage rolls and the cheap crackers remained suspiciously empty. Not a supply problem, as I initially thought, but the end of the sausage roll. Cut, cost-cut, removed from the range.
Listen to my plea
So here is my emotional plea: Lidl, bring back the sausage rolls. Give me and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people from my generation our childhood memories, our personal temps perdu experiences, our own blast from the past. Put the sausage rolls back in the stores and make us as happy as children with new roller skates.
