Life Imitates Meat. The first in an in-depth series that looks into the fascinating world of meat, created in it's own image.
Part One: "Flavouring Rolled Squid"
Commodity: Flavouring Rolled Squid
Ingredients: texturized soy protein products
Additives: Sauce, Sugar, Flavour, Spice, less than 0.2% of sorbic acid.
That's what the packaging proclaims, but I can assure you it delivers oh-so-much more. Flavouring Rolled Squid, or "Squid Chews" as they will be called here, presented themselves on the shelves of a local grocery shop next to the Panadol and flu tablets. As the Panadol were locked in an apparently unopenable cabinet, the Squid Chews were purchased in the hope that their textured soy protein powers might prove a suitable substitute for 500mg of Paracetamol.
And indeed, though the headache has long since subsided the Squid Chew's unusual after-taste is still present. And I hazard to guess, won't be going away anytime soon.
Summary
Taste : -7- Very sweet - Similar to the outside bits of Inari sushi, or cardboard with sugar.
Texture : -9- Beef jerky (at least, how I imagine beef jerky), or a bunch of small twigs - something to get your teeth into.
Similarity to the original : -?- Buggered if I know. Are there real Squid Chews?
Overall
Squid Chews, or Flavouring Rolled Squid, gets 8/10 on the TVP-o-Meter for it's sheer chewiness coupled with it's boldness to add so much sugar as to make it difficult to describe as savoury, but not so much as to be able to label it a desert.