Tuesday 29 January 2013

Cherrytree Butchers - Bury St Edmunds - Special Pork Sausage




Third up in the Bury St Edmunds run are the Special Shop-made Pork sausages from Cherrytree Butchers.  You’ll find them halfway up Buttermarket, slap bang in a great position to make the most of the thronging passing trade on market day.  Yet when I visited them the shop was deserted.  Empty as I stood outside for a moment or two before entering, it remained empty when I was inside, and stubbornly failed to attract a single punter while I took photos after buying the bangers.  What’s going on?


The shop is clean, staff friendly, nothing obviously amiss here.  But no customers?  That’s surely a bad sign, especially on market day.  I’ve been to lots of market towns in my time, but the hustle and bustle and sheer numbers of people out and about around the stalls and streets in Bury when I was in town was incredible.  So, logically, either A) I just happened to visit Cherrytree at a rare and unlikely dip in trade, or B) the locals don’t rate them.  Compare this with the hive of activity at the Meat Inn just a few minutes later.





Meat Content:
Good enough.  Adequate.  Sufficient.  Not outstanding terminology to describe these sausages but they were better than I expected (oh when will I become completely un-prejudicial?), and my expectations were based purely on the level of trade in the shop.  We’ve reviewed worse sausages and many, many better ones too, and there’s just not too much that can be said about these.


Flavour:
The first impression as written on the notes “not as bad as I feared”.  The theme of mediocrity continues though.  The seasoning is subtle to the point of absent, and the pork flavour is all on its own inside the skin.  It’s not bad, it’s....it’s....nice.  Just....nice.  If you were served this sausage as part of your £3.29 greasy spoon fry-up you’d be pretty chuffed as they’re a couple of leagues above the usual crap you’d receive, but as a butcher’s own banger – which the butcher has chosen to call “special” – they’re nowt special at all.





Texture:
Very smooth, quite juicy, totally unsurprising.  Every slice is exactly the same, these sausages are uniform throughout.  They need some variation in texture, in flavour, just something to lift them from being blandly predictable.  These sausages looked pretty good before cooking too, what a shame they didn’t taste as interesting.


Shrinkage: 
Average weight uncooked - 61g
Average weight cooked - 48g

Shrinkage - 21%

Unsurprisingly....average.





Value For Money:
£2.01 for six sausages, weighing 367g - this works out as a price of £5.49 per kg, or 33p per snorker.

Cheap and cheerful says it all really.  OK if you’re on a tight budget.


Opening Hours:
Monday: 0700-1700
Tuesday: 0700-1700
Wednesday: 0700-1700
Thursday: 0700-1700
Friday: 0700-1700
Saturday: 0700-1700
Sunday: Closed





And Finally, Esther:
The second best banger in Bury....so far....and out of three....but given the choice I’d walk to Hubbards.





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