More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.
More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.
I actually did have vegan “fish” by accident once. Ordered normal fish and chips, but they called the vegan stuff Vish, so it was easy to get mixed up. It was quite the disappointment (I immediately tasted that this was not fish).
I don’t understand why people keep insisting that it has to be called a burger or a sausage. With a burger - OK, I kind of see that we’ve already muddied the waters on what can be called a burger, but a sausage? That has just about always been with meat until recently, and obviously for many people that’s part of the definition. Why can’t we just call it something else if the core element of what makes it a thing is absent? (And why do we even have to try to recreate meat by processing vegan stuff until what it used to be is unrecognizable? There’s so much more to vegan coming than that…)
The core element of a sausage is not, that it is made from meat. Its the shape and structure, namingly “Ground up things stuffed into a thin tube, then cooked, smoked or grilled”.
There have been so many changes even before adding being vegetarian to the mix.
Most sausage you buy nowadays is no longer made with pig intestines. Does that bother you as well?
There was also sausage that was not made from meat before or only contained very little, Luke Pinkel or Grützwurst
Wrong. Simply wrong.
is black pudding a sausage?
I don’t really know that thing. I have heard that it’s made of boiled meat and blood, so maybe yes.
Traditionally, yes, it is that it is made from meat. Even most dictionaries will back that up. Even vegan “sausages” will try to make the contents taste like meat (the keyword is in my experience “try”), which kind of proves the point.
And yes, most sausages aren’t made from intestine anymore, but if you want a really good one - it still is, and there’s an argument to be made that it isn’t an authentic traditional sausage if it isn’t. To be fair, though, the intestine isn’t central to the taste, it’s more of a functional thing. The filling isn’t.
And I’m not sure you understand what Grützwurst is, then - the base is still meat.
For the Vish 'n Chips, I fully agree. If the names are too easily mixed up, then it should be changed, 100%.
But just using the word
burgerorsausageas part of the productname shouldn’t be banned. As long as you put a clear descriptive of the kind of sausage in front of it likeveggie sausageorquorn sausages. If you gave people asausage, and when they bite into it they find out its chicken sausage or even blood sausage, would their outrage not be equally valid, since they expected a normal pork sausage?Isn’t that basically what the traditional sausage was as well, made from blended scrap parts and organs? Minced meat on its own is processing the meat of an animal until it is unrecognizable
Not quite. It’s to use the leftovers, and also to preserve them to a certain extent. The leftovers can often be tough, so it’s ground. What doesn’t change is that the flavor of the meat is still very present. It’s not trying to taste like something different, which the vegan “sausage” is.
While I agree that there is much more to vegan than just meat replacements, and personally I don’t care what they call it. There are a couple of arguments for recreating meat:
Fair enough. I guess it just often bothers me that I’ll be somewhere, and the choice I get is between meat and something that tries to be meat. I’ve tried the latter a number of times and always been disappointed. Which often ends up preventing me from reducing my meat consumption, because if I don’t want something masquerading as meat, well then there’s nothing other than meat.
Oh yes that is a real issue. It is hard sometimes to get a good vegan/vegetarian meal. I just want something original, not another goat cheese salad or a burger.
We’ve had veggie sausages (the non meat replacement kind) for a very fucking long time. Definitely more than 30 years. Why is the term so precious now?
There have been vegan sausages for years. It’s just recently developed a hype. And they also where called sausages for literally decades.
For decades - but they were much rarer than nowadays. You wouldn’t find them on store shelves like you do nowadays. And sausages have existed for centuries.
So you didn’t do your due diligence as a restaurant patron to find out exactly what you were ordering, and somehow that means others are to blame?
I can’t fathom sincerely making such an argument. You saw a strange name, didn’t ask questions, ordered it, and got disappointed.
Okay, now I know that sounds awfully confrontational, but it’s a harsh truth that we as consumers need to do our own due diligence when making purchases. If something seems off, I’d implore you (and everyone else reading this) to investigate it, for your own sake and safety. We live in a world that’s ready to swindle every one of us at any given chance - no matter what kind of product we’re looking at.
For me that comes down to the same argument as “didn’t you read the fine print?” If I spent time researching the due diligence you’re expecting, I would have time for nothing else anymore.
And I didn’t order wrong, they misunderstood me, because it was so confusing.