Salmon Sausages: Not for the Faint of Heart

Husband and i were out grocery shopping, which is the only type of shopping i find in the slightest bit enjoyable, and we found ourselves in the meat section chatting with a man who claims that salmon sausages are the next big thing. There’s no filler, no binders, no artificial flavors, they aren’t made of pigs, and they come in two types – spicy, and not so spicy. We tried them in a wrap, and they were lovely. Expensive, though, two cost about the same as a steak, but since we aren’t big steak eaters, we supposed we could give salmon sausages a go.

And then, we cooked them.

The smell of cooking fish sausage, i think, would be hard to replicate. There’s the slight fish smell: note that i said fish, not fishy. Seafood should never, ever taste fishy, or smell fishy, if it does, it has been prepared wrong, or gone off. So, fish smell. Added to which, the smell was spicy, like sausages without the permeating smell of grease.

Unfortunately, spicy fish smell permeates just as well as grease scent. It has the same lingering charm, and smells worse as time wears on. Ever been to a wharf about 3pmish, when the boats have been in for a few hours, and what remains of the bait is semi-cooking in the sun? No? Well, i entreat you to bake some salmon sausages, because it is a reasonable facsimile. Or, conversely, go to the wharf around three pm, and put red chilies, pepper, and some other seasonings on the bait that even the seagulls won’t touch, and you have the smell, except you’re missing the benefit of the odor in an enclosed space.

Husband, the love of my life, and consumer of Things Most Foul, most notably chicken head soup and ten-thousand-year-old eggs and squid tubes, was becoming nauseated as the sausages baked and burbled. When they came out i managed four heroic bites, and then the unsavory-ness of eating a seafood product that tasted kind of like sausage hit me. We hid the fish sausage in the oven. We burned eucalyptus oil to kill the stench of the pungent fish, which i am now convinced bound with the paint and the mold in our walls to become a lingering warning for our successors. Husband bravely suggested he’d eat the remaining sausage for breakfast.

While sitting on the couch the next day, occasionally a waft of the reek assailed my nostrils. Husband and I gave the remainder to Lucas. He hesitated. He paused before he ate it, this creature who views garbage as a culinary delight, who has been known to eat cat poop and roommate boogers, rancid foodstuffs, and cow patties; this dog who once barfed up a beer bottle cap after one of his dining expeditions actually faltered in his decision to eat the fish sausage.

I write this as a warning to you. Salmon sausage is ok to try. Really. Uh, sort of. If you can ignore, or you’re all right with the knowledge that you’re eating a fish product in sausage form, then try it. Just make sure someone else, preferably someone who lives far away, makes it for you.