I've been having a lot of canned meat lately, haven't I? I suppose it's just an unappetizing subject for me. Generally, these meats have been less offensive than expected. Today's Vienna sausages, especially were not so bad. I was expecting them to be more Spam-like. They were really just sort of cheap, thin-skinned hot dogs. In a can, of course.The amusing thing to me about Vienna sausage is that the name makes it sound like something fancy, something European, and while these guys have their roots in Vienna just like any other sausage we might call a Wiener (Wien being Vienna's real name and -er meaning from, so from Vienna) they feel cheap to me. And when I eat cheap-tasting food, I assume it's American, or that it's at least been Americanized. Really, it's probably not the sausage itself that is the American part, but the packaging. You have to admit, we love our cans. (If you're looking for an interesting read about American food manufacturing and distribution and its development in the 1940s & 1950s, go get Sallie Tisdale's The Best Thing I Ever Ate.)
Anyway, heated up, Vienna sausage was fine. I can't imagine eating them cold, but I also can't imagine eating a hot dog cold, so that makes sense. Which is apparently what others think, too, as I discovered on this blog.
I used to give them to my kids when they were small, but I'd have to cut off the "casing," which was a pain, because for whatever reason they didn't like it. I've never actually tried them, though, and I always thought they'd be nasty, but now I sort of know without having to try it myself. :)
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