Reformed Herring Product

So it seems there's a category of meat I'd missed - the stuff I've never heard of before. I'd decided to have a pop at chicken or duck liver pate. (I can't remember the last time I ate it, but when I think about meat I used to like chicken liver pate pops into my head. I've only got a vague recollection of what it tastes like, so it's strange that it springs so readily to mind.) Anyway, I was in a Tesco Metro, and I didn't fancy the pate they had on offer, so was heading out of the meat, cheese and fish aisle with an empty basket, when some feckless dithering lump blocked my way as they struggled to think and walk at the same time. Forced to wait, I glanced at the shelf of fishy products nearest and spotted what looked like a jar of caviar. In a Tesco Metro? Caviar is (unsurprisingly) on my list of meats I haven't tried (or at least non-veggie products), so I took a closer look. Of course it wasn't caviar - it was the delightfully-named Onuga brand Reformed Herring Product. Seriously, look at the picture - Reformed Herring Product! It sounds like it was named by Google Translate on something originally written in Ukrainian.

With a name that appetising my hand was forced (despite a 50g jar costing nigh-on four quid).

From the label it's clear this is meant to be a cheap caviar replacement, but since I've never had caviar before this is going to be judged solely by how good it is as Reformed Herring Product. It's made from smoked herring, seaweed, salt, a thickener made from seaweed, honey, lemon juice and herring extract all coloured with vegetable carbon. Mmm! Herring extract and vegetable carbon - together at last!


Serving
With no blinis to hand, this is getting slapped on a piece of buttered wholemeal toast. I'll cut the crusts off to keep things a little refined though. It looks the part, I guess.

First bite - scoff! Salty. That's all I get at first, salty and slightly sharp. And then the fishiness comes through. Ew! Not too sure about that. It's not overly strong, but it's definitely there, and I haven't tasted anything even remotely close to it in twenty years. For many meats there are obviously veggie alternatives that at least have a stab at getting the taste close to the real thing. As far as I'm aware there's no veggie herring.

Let's have another go. Yeah - that's not getting any more pleasant. The saltiness is fine, and there's a taste of the sea briefly before the full fishiness turns up and that bit I'm really not a fan of. The texture is strange too. It's made of little balls of jelly, but they're quite firm and slippery, and don't easily pop or yield when bitten into - and instead tend to squirm away from your teeth.

I stick with it and finish it off. I like it a little less with each bite. That fishiness is just so alien to me now. This is a worry since two of the things on my meagre list of meat I used to love are fish (fish and chips, and peppered mackerel), as are loads of the items on the list of meats I've never tried. The fishiness of the Reformed Herring Product reminds me of the peppered mackerel I used to really enjoy, but if that memory is accurate then clearly my taste has changed quite a lot. I'm not looking forward to the peppered mackerel at all now.

With most of the pot left I'll perhaps have another go at this tomorrow, but I'm not holding out much hope. Bottom of the league for this, I reckon.