Waitrose - Bury St Edmunds - Gourmet Pork Sausage

The final slot in any talent contest is often seen as the prime placement, as the act is fresh in the minds of the judges and voters.  In the Eurovision Song Contest, 48% of the winning acts have performed last.  So the final installment of our Bury St Edmunds odyssey could well be the best banger, yes?  Maybe.

The final Bury banger is a dreaded Supermarket Special, and you probably know our opinion of these usually bloody awful specimens already.  Ninety-nine out of a hundred supermarket sausages are terrible, and we’re not afraid of saying so....equally, when one of their offerings bucks the trend and turns out to be half decent we (uncomfortably) tell you that too – prime example of this being our shock appreciative review of a Tesco sausage last year Pork & Red Leicester

So the final slot is a positive, being a supermarket product is a negative, which way will the Rate My Sausage verdict fall for Waitrose’s Gourmet Pork Sausage?  Well, for a start I thought that lumbering the damned things with the label “gourmet” was loading an unfair extra load of expectation on them before they even saw the kitchen!  The shop in Bury St Edmunds was as you’d expect a Waitrose to be, selling the same produce that you find in all the other main players in the supermarket realm, but for twice the price.  I was expecting to pay quite a high price for their sausages, so imagine my surprise when I spotted these bangers at a special offer price which was £2 per kilogram less than usual.  That must surely help their chances....let’s find out....

Meat Content:

84% and you can tell.  The meat is good quality, no odd looking or tasting bits that we could find (mind you, we like a bit of gristle now and then).  Pork is the dominant force, which is a good thing, and I noted the meat content as “quite good”.  I was quite impressed, as was my Junior Sidekick, who was unusually taking part in the review when the bangers were hot out of the pan.  Talking of the hot pan, the fat that seeped out of these sausages was very dirty, very black and completely nasty looking!  Better out than in though, I suppose. 

Flavour:

Herbs are in abundance and mix in rather well with the pork – this is a good combination.  Each flavour holds its own but gels very well to make these sausages tasty and pleasant to eat.  I doubt very much that they’re made in-house though, although the chap who served me was politeness incarnate, and we had quite a good natter about meat, Christmas and prejudice (!) rather to the barely concealed disapproval of his colleagues!  I found their attitude distasteful, the guy was interacting brilliantly with a customer, and providing exactly the enjoyable experience that the supermarket giants boast so loudly about but fail to provide almost without exception.  Tut tut, butchery counter dudes!

Texture:

Dry-ish, firm and fluffy, quite an unusual texture but we both enjoyed it.  Being a supermarket banger, this texture has probably been designed by committee or computer, but they’ve done a good enough job.  There’s that squeak when you eat them – positive – but they’re not coarse enough for our liking – negative – but overall this is a jolly good attempt.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 73g

Average weight cooked - 49g

Shrinkage - 33%

Absolutely dreadful amount of waste, what a shame.  The supermarket contender has really let itself down here after an encouraging performance otherwise.

Value For Money:

£1.74 for six sausages, weighing 438g - this works out as a price of £3.98 per kg, or 29p per snorker.  That’s the special offer price, but goodness me, that is cheap!  At this price I have to rate Waitrose Gourmet Pork sausages as really good value for money – wait until the offer is repeated and try some for yourself!

Through A Child’s Eyes:

He liked ‘em!  In fact, I am 95% sure he nicked the last half a sausage from my plate when I wasn’t looking.  Denies everything, of course....

The Imaginatively Titled Next Day Cold Sausage Test:

Terribly sorry dear reader, but we polished off all six sausages in one sitting.  What’s the plural of “mea culpa”?

Opening Hours:

Waitrose is a huge multi-national uber-shop intent on world domination, and determined to separate you from as much of your wonga as they can possibly take.  Therefore “open all hours”.

And Finally, Esther:

Right, there’s no easy way to say it, we enjoyed these supermarket sausages.  There.  More proof that we’re objective?  Not the world’s greatest bangers but nice enough for us to give them the RMS seal of approval.  It’s been a while since we’ve tested many of the cheaper supermarket bangers so we’re going to be putting that right, in short order.  First up is a budget banger from a posh supermarket.....but we’ll leave that hanging there for now....