Thursday, January 11, 2007

Beef...oh, so THAT'S what's for dinner!

Continuing on with our "Things to Eat in New Zealand" thread of blog entries, we have a few new gems for all of our devoted readers. Some of you may remember the Great Wallaby Incident of '06 we wrote about a while ago. Well, for all of you living in cattle country, here's another meaty wonder just for you.


Peter immediately started laughing in the grocery store when he saw this and snapped a picture with his cell phone. I just sighed; I had seen this before in other supermarkets. What has the world come to? And just what were these sausages made of if not beef? They had no ingredient label, so my mind just had to wander through all of the worst case scenarios as we walked by the sheep's kidneys toward the kleenex isle. The best thing I can say about these sausages is that they were much cheaper than any of the other items in the meat case. Needless to say we didn't get any.


We also saw this product near the checkout stand. Part of me actually wanted to by a box, just to compare it to the original. I know that they call raisins 'sultanas' here and that it probably tastes exactly like it does in the States, but still. Unfortunately, like most of the imported food here (and a lot of it is imported), it cost way more than I wanted to pay for it. We're in the process of sifting through the markets to find the cheap and healthy locally produced food. It's not proving an easy task, but since when is anything healthy or responsible easy?


I'll end this post with nod to all of you Futurama fans out there. I actually found this product at a dairy (aka convenience store) in Wellington. Not only was is Bachelor's brand food product (conjuring up images of Fry living on specially formulated brown stuff in the year 3000), but it claimed to be the UK's favourite mutilated vegetable matter.



My official review is mixed. It was better than I expected it to be-reminiscent of the condensed Campbell's split pea and bacon soup I loved as a kid-but still a cylindrical mass o' mashed vegetable that tasted just about as good as something like that can. I would only recommend this product to people with a nagging and sick sense of curiosity who also have $2.50 to spare.

5 comments:

Devin said...

Hmm. Beef flavored pork. Wow. Sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen . . .

Devin said...

Well, you know, I was just working on the assumption that most sausages are made from pork. Hardly optimism, but thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi Roni,
Having just recently returned from a trip to the UK, I knew exactly what that can of "mush" was. Over there, in every fast food restaurant, such as the fish and chips shops, you always have "mushy peas" on the menu. I actually like them, as long as you just think of them as smushed lentils. I suppose it is no worse than the ubiquitous "grits" that are on every menu in the south, which I cannot stand!

Kathy Wise
Sunday, Feb. 4th

Anonymous said...

Mushy Peas are something eaten in the UK with fish and chips, along with "curry" sauce! I'm still trying to get used to it.

Roni said...

Sounds like I hit on a cultural hot button. If anyone else out there has had the "mush" experience, do share!