{"id":17285,"date":"2025-01-27T10:49:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T10:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=17285"},"modified":"2025-01-27T10:49:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T10:49:55","slug":"ode-to-the-sausage-roll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2025\/01\/27\/ode-to-the-sausage-roll\/","title":{"rendered":"Ode to the Sausage Roll"},"content":{"rendered":"

In George Orwell\u2019s 1939 novel Coming Up For Air<\/a><\/em><\/span>, at the beginning of chapter 4, issue is taken with substandard food products, which do not taste like the product promoted and, indeed, taste like something else:<\/span><\/p>\n

At this moment I bit into one of my frankfurters, and\u2014Christ!<\/em><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t honestly say that I\u2019d expected the thing to have a pleasant taste. I\u2019d expected it to taste of nothing, like the roll. But this\u2014well, it was quite an experience. Let me try and describe it to you.<\/em><\/p>\n

The frankfurter had a rubber skin, of course, and my temporary teeth weren\u2019t much of a fit. I had to do a kind of sawing movement before I could get my teeth through the skin. And then suddenly\u2014pop! The thing burst in my mouth like a rotten pear. A sort of horrible soft stuff was oozing all over my tongue. But the taste! For a moment I just couldn\u2019t believe it. Then I rolled my tongue round it again and had another try. It was\u00a0fish! A sausage, a thing calling itself a frankfurter, filled with fish! I got up and walked straight out without touching my coffee. God knows what that might have tasted of.<\/em><\/p>\n

This brings me to mass-produced sausage rolls. We have been socially engineered to accept inferior products due to being \u2018always on the go\u2019 and \u2018eating on the hoof.\u2019 Thus one may enter a high-street establishment \u2013 the name of which I will not mention here \u2013 to purchase one of their sausage rolls in an act to stave off the morning hunger<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Yet, it is a tube of pink cooked sludge \u2013 faintly reminiscent of pork \u2013encompassed in a uniform pastry that is almost parcel-tight; a small, perfectly wrapped parcel.<\/p>\n

Imagine venturing into the post office and asking the lady behind the counter,<\/p>\n

\u2018Can I post this sausage roll to Scandinavia here, please<\/em>?\u2019 With a stamp attached to one corner and a Sharpie scrawl to its destination. Would a mass-produced sausage roll make it in one piece to say, Gothenburg?<\/p>\n

I have eaten them.<\/p>\n

In a pinch.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me started on their bean thingy, which gives me rising acid reflux like molten lava in the chambers and corridors of the heart.<\/p>\n

The problem is with quality<\/em>, which the main protagonist is concerned with in Robert M. Pirsig\u2019s modern, philosophical treatise work, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Quality<\/em> has dissipated due to mass-produced products.<\/p>\n

I remember in Botanic, Belfast, on the city side of the small hill, there was a bakery beside a laundrette. This was twenty-odd years ago. I remember they sold great sausage rolls. Inside, along with the pork meat was a little chopped-up white onion. The flaky, buttery pastry was fresh and delicious. A wee drop of red or brown sauce and I was in foodie heaven. The staff were friendly locals, and I recall the hearty chatter and warmth of the welcome. That bakery is long gone. I am unsure of its name now, which escapes me. Sadly.<\/p>\n

Wee bakeries \u2013 the one on Chapel Lane, city centre Belfast \u2013 served great homemade vegetable soup and sausage rolls. And Fifteens. Oh, yes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There was one near The Arches, East Belfast, and I was in one day as the baker was letting warm soda farls clatter onto the baking table. They were still steaming warm, fresh from the oven. I wanted to hit one with a drop of butter and strawberry jam, taken with a mug of tea. Who hasn\u2019t wanted a fresh soda farl with crumbed ham, cheese, and tomato? Or a soda farl made with treacle? Or with Indian cornmeal?<\/p>\n

Years later, I would work with very that baker during nightshifts in a homeless hostel \u2013 how strange being in Belfast is at times, an almost Jungian synchronicity on the one hand, but due to the size of the city, perhaps no happenstance<\/em> at all. He told me about the early morning starts and the wee bakery on the Woodstock Road, the cramped workspace above the shop. The lone baker works away in the early morning, while patrons sleep deeply through the morning darkness. Hard, honest graft<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 2001, I recall being in Sallynoggin, Dublin. I was labouring for a plasterer at the time. We were in Dublin, travelling up and down from the North over the course of a month or so, and in a Spar, I saw chicken-filet burgers \u2013 proper ones, bread-chicken-filet burgers with lettuce and tomato \u2013 and they looked delicious<\/em>. There were also big sausage rolls with grated cheese in them, so when you warmed them up, they created an unctuous cheesy goodness with the meat and pastry. Oh my<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When we enter a reality of accepting inferior products, we become \u2018modified\u2019 slaves to the corporate dominion and accept the way things are\u2026<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t accept.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to call into a high-street establishment without thinking.<\/p>\n

It takes a bit of choice to make a better decision to opt for a better product to consume.<\/p>\n

The other day, I was in a wee \u2018local\u2019 bakery and had a sausage roll with a drop of red sauce and a hot cup of tea; on a cold January day, it hit the spot. I left refreshed and warm, entering the biting, frosty air, wrapped up in my coat as I trudged home.<\/p>\n

You could support the local bakery. Goodness knows they need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In George Orwell\u2019s 1939 novel Coming Up For Air, at the beginning of chapter 4, issue is taken with substandard food products, which do not taste like the product promoted and, indeed, taste like something else: At this moment I bit into one of my frankfurters, and\u2014Christ! I can\u2019t honestly say that I\u2019d expected the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":17287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1360,1818,1819,3673,6460,6464,6475,6478,6777,6779,7896,7943,8153,8922,10285],"class_list":["post-17285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment","tag-cassandra-voices-comment","tag-coming-up-for-air","tag-comment","tag-george-orwell-coming-up-for-air","tag-neil-burns","tag-neil-burns-cassandra-voices","tag-neil-burns-sausage-roll","tag-neil-burns-writer","tag-ode","tag-ode-to-the-sausage-roll","tag-robert-m-pirsig","tag-roll","tag-sausage","tag-the","tag-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}