Hope over fear

On my last trip to Mitsuwa, I took a stroll down the "refrigerated/frozen fish product with packaging that's mostly or only in Japanese" aisle. Maybe I was giddy at the prospect of taking home a kabocha to roast; maybe it was a shopper's high from the morning trip to IKEA; or, maybe it was just that deep-seated sense of masochism that drives me to do awful things to myself. Whatever the reason, I bought fish sausage.

I recalled seeing them on Elyse Sewell's livejournal, but couldn't remember her comments. I most likely disregarded whatever it was, thinking, "bwah, I'll never be in a position to eat fish sausage." If only I had known.

Those pink things in the picture there? Those are the sausages. I didn't realize that when I bought them. For some reason, I thought those were some sort of flower garnish. That doesn't really make sense, but then again, neither does fish sausage.



Aside from the heating (not cooking, mind you) instructions, the thing that really struck me about this instructional business is the nonchalant notice there there's skin fragments in these things. I've purposely eaten fish skin before (yes, Mr. Sushi Chef, I would like some crispy salmon skin), but for some reason it weirded me out in this context.







The package seems so enthusiastic about the different ways of utilizing Fish Sausage! I feel obligated to eat one cold straight from the package. With four sausages in the package and five serving suggestions, one method will have to go un-utilized. That's assuming that I can manage to choke down four of these things.







So, after a month in my fridge, I finally decided to crack these bad boys open. About the size of an army-grade glowstick, they don't seem so tough.

And then you crack it open. I wouldn't call them pungent, but when you get in close there's a distinct smoked fish scent. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of smoked fish. Not just hoity toity smoked salmon (or lox or gravlax). I eat canned kippers for dinner sometimes. A common childhood snack was a head-still-attached smoked chubs that my dad would bring home from the store. I'm not a-feared of the fish.


Of course, grinding up that fish and putting it in "sausage" form is a whole other thing. Sweet Jebus. It had the texture of a hot dog without the casing. Kind of soft; slightly gelatinous. I'll be honest: it squicked me out.

I almost feel like I could eat these. While following the suggested cooking suggestions might improve on the texture, I feel like the flavour couldn't really be helped. It was as if someone combined smoked fish and hot dog, and then made it sort of bland.

A review of Elyse's post suggests that she feels similarly, although her's is an ambivalent appreciation. I suspect if I had access to garlic chili flavoured fish sausage with adorable cartoon crabs, I too would learn to love fish sausage. Or maybe I'd still find it weird.

I plan on using the remaining three sausages; cooking, frying, grilling in an attempt to make this thing somewhat palatable to me.