Mystery Meats, Ranked

"Stef Schrader" (stefschrader) 07/01/2015 at 23:30 • Filed to: useless rankings, meat, foodlopnik, sausages, mystery meat, alternative breakfast meats, semi-useless lists, rankings

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I love the little sausages and strange piles of meat that are ground up to in no way, shape or form resemble a chunk of animal anymore. From worst wurst to best:

25. Speckwurst : Ack blech gah what is this? TRENDY BACON, THIS IS A BRIDGE TOO FAR. Speckwurst is the worst.

24. Turkey brats : This should not be a thing, ever. Ever. Ev-er.

23. Meat loaf : How was this ever considered a good idea? For the sake of ranking, I’m going by the sad meatcake that gets paraded out next to casseroles and the other bland, seemingly pre-chewed stuff I wouldn’t touch from my childhood—not the fancy gourmet versions that might taste like something other than boring mush with ketchup. Meat loaf is bad. It’s just dull and bad.

22. Spam, raw : If I guessed on texture alone, I’d think I was eating paste, spoiled avocados, or perhaps spoiled avocados dipped in paste. Weirdly hammy. Too much salt.

21. Slim Jims and/or other commercially-processed tube-shaped meat snack : Flavor is usually overpowered by salt. More girth would be appreciated here, too. Can the hipsters make artisanal organic fair-trade landjägers A Thing already?

20. Spam, cooked : Huge improvement, but still bizarre. Maybe some of the salt cooks out. Not immediately identifiable as Spam when cooked to non-Spam enthusiasts such as myself. Still not as big a blasphemy as turkey brats.

19. “Hot guts”-style barbeque sausage : Too little hot, too much lard. Yecch. Not a fan of this style at all. It just tastes like a bunch of tough, sad fat that was overcooked in Evangeline sauce.

18. Pimiento loaf : Bologna with weird peppers in it. No thanks? Pimientos are best in cheese, not meat.

17. Cocktail wieners: Usually strangely lardy in taste and texture, despite the small size. Skip the little weenies and just slice up some regular sausage.

16. Bologna : If almost-nothing has a taste, bologna is it. Inoffensive in every single way. Offensively inoffensive.

15. Brats with little pieces of mystery cheese in them: Cheese brats sound like a good idea until you realize that it’s just sad little Velveetalike chunks with minimal flavor interrupting an otherwise okay sausage. I think this is the mystery meat with the highest disparity between your high expectations and your inevitable disappointment.

14. Vienna sausages : I don’t know why I like these so much. I’m not a huge bologna fan. They seem very, very similar in taste and composition. I think it’s the packaging.

13. Hot dogs: At worst, it’s like cooked bologna. Like spam, cooking this weirdly uniform mystery meat seems to help. The ability to be covered in chili and cheese is a plus.

12. Hamburger: Has to be exceptional to stand out in any way, shape or form. Otherwise, meh . Seriously, the only time I’ve been excited over a burger recently was when it was all farm-to-table meat covered in local goat cheese and caramelized onions—and huge. That was a ridiculously good burger. Most burgers are kind of plain and fail, and usually overcooked. Send mine out relatively fresh, thick and still mooing in the middle.

11. TIE: Chorizo/Scrapple : Both have a nice flavor, but tend to have issues with texture. Scrapple has the mystery crunch. Chorizo just tends to get cooked weirdly dry for a sausage. When vegan chorizo is usually more satisfying than the real thing, we’ve got an issue, chorizo. (Either that or our vegetarian taco joints are just that good here. Stop nuking chorizo to death!)

10. Landjägers : The OG handmade Slim Jims, only they’re a thicker, meatier dry tube of meat. If I must have packable mystery meat that doesn’t need refrigeration, this is my pick.

9. Regular, generic, run-of-the-mill barbeque sausage : Hard to screw up, so it’s a sure bet at meh ‘que eateries (unless they go for the hot guts style) and the weakest link at better joints (skip it and bring me more pork ribs).

8. Pepperoni: Tasty, but oh-so-picky on preparation. Vastly outshined by its deli counter bro, salami, but perhaps that has a lot to do with its reputation. Salami is a delicious sandwich topping. Pepperoni is the sad, overcooked meat that makes pizza extra-greasy when it’s done wrong, which is 99% of the time. Pizza joints, do better and pepperoni will jump up the list. Good pepperoni cooked perfectly is a revelation.

7. Summer sausage : Is it Christmas yet? Because summer sausage is awesome. I never understood why it was called summer sausage when I can find it the easiest in winter, though.

6. Breakfast sausage patties : I love breakfast sausage, but it’s so much better in bite-size link form that it’s not even a contest. Best eaten not as a patty, but crumbled and spread over eggs with cheese, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

5. Pork roll: Why did the team have to make pork roll at NJMP? This is a thing I should have never realized existed. Pork roll is delicious, and among the best of all mystery meats.

4. Breakfast sausage links : Let’s be honest, my ideal sit-down breakfast would include a pile of something egg-based (omelette, migas, scrambled eggs, whatever), a few slices of pork roll and an entire plate full of breakfast sausage links.

3: Salami : Best widely available sandwich meat, hands down.

2. TIE: Most other wurst not mentioned anywhere else: Wurst is generally good. Yes, even chicken brats. Chicken brats tend to be strangely tasty. Please, send to Stef. There may be a few less pleasing kinds of wurst I forgot about, but whatever. Send wurst.

1. Weisswurst: Bring. Weisswurst. Remove casing, acquire mustard, nom nom.

Not ranked for trying to masquerade too much as actual food: chicken nuggets, the McRib. Be true to your strange chewed-up origins, or NOPE.

Not ranked for not technically being meat: tofu/seitan/nut-based/etc. non-meat imitation meats. Can be good, but didn’t fit in a ranking of ground-up meat.

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ! (Send pork roll .)

Photo credit: Austin Murphy had an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and licensed the snapshot of it via Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

no, really—send pork roll

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

For Sweden > Stef Schrader 07/01/2015 at 23:36

2

Likes German cars

Hates German meatloaf

Who are you?

ly2v8-Brian > Stef Schrader 07/01/2015 at 23:38

0

This is a shameful wurstist display. All wurst is delicious.

Agrajag > Stef Schrader 07/01/2015 at 23:46

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Y u leave out scrapple?

Stef Schrader > Agrajag 07/01/2015 at 23:53

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#11!

Eli's Got 2 > Stef Schrader 07/01/2015 at 23:55

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This is hilarious. Thanks, needed the laugh. Spam is gross. The McRib is def not food. Tofu is delicious. :)

unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) > Stef Schrader 07/01/2015 at 23:57

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Weisswurst over Chorizo? At least spam, pork roll, and hot dogs made the list. I actually like turkey hot dogs and turkey bacon.

Agrajag > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 00:00

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I’m a dumbass.

I actually dislike chorizo so much that I skipped to the next one before I got to izo.

DrJohannVegas > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 00:15

2

PORK ROLL IS GREATEST ROLL.

6Cylinder > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 00:23

2

Spam fried rice, fried spam and cheese sandwiches, fried spam and eggs.

I’m known to enjoy spam on occasion.

Svend > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 00:24

2

Best sausage in the world is the Cumberland Sausage (often stupidly called Cumberland Ring Sausage because its traditionally cooked in a ring shape to aid cooking but not actually called it). It’s made from at least 80% coarse minced pork and seasoned with ginger, nutmeg and pepper.

For Sweden > Svend 07/02/2015 at 00:28

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says calling it ring sausage is stupid

admits it is often cooked in a ring

For Sweden > unclevanos (Ovaltine Jenkins) 07/02/2015 at 00:29

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turkey bacon is the metaphorical bomb

Svend > For Sweden 07/02/2015 at 00:45

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It’s called just Cumberland Sausage. Named after it’s native area and the Cumberland pig which died out in the 1950s.

It’s traditionally cooked in a ring to aid cooking through as it traditionally is thicker (before the E.U. said it wasn’t to exceed a certain diameter) than a regular sausage and meant rather than turning over several sausages, you would turn over one large coiled sausage and on serving would cut it into desired portions for the number of people it was to serve.

I’m a Cummerlan and have tried so many bad interpretations from outside my county but it now has geographic protected status now and can only be called a Cumberland Sausage if it’s made in Cumbria.

spanfucker retire bitch > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 08:13

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Meat loaf : How was this ever considered a good idea? For the sake of ranking, I’m going by the sad meatcake that gets paraded out next to casseroles and the other bland, seemingly pre-chewed stuff I wouldn’t touch from my childhood—not the fancy gourmet versions that might taste like something other than boring mush with ketchup. Meat loaf is bad. It’s just dull and bad.

Those are fighting words. How can you hate something that is ostensibly just pounds and pounds of ground beef? It’s like a giant fucking burger.

Even better when made with ground Bison. God damn, you are missing out.

X37.9XXS > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 08:42

2

1. Kielbasa

there is no second place winner

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.

.

.

.

And no argument

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 08:54

0

What are your thoughts on braunschweiger?

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 09:30

1

All the chorizo you have had is full of lies and bitterness. The best chorizo is very greasy and properly spiced. Empty out of the casing, let it cook in thepan for a bit to get out all that sweet sweet fatty goodness onto the pan and then scramble eggs in this sausagey/fatty wonderland.

The secret to knowing good chorizo? The cheaper, the better. Dirty chorizo is only chorizo. People are trying to make chorizo healthy. My response to those people?

punkgoose17 > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 11:03

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2.1 Kielbasa - great any time of the day with anymeal. It can also go on hamburgers.

2 Tied with Brautwurst: Italian Sausage hot or sweet

I agree Pepperoni is bad on pizza but great on sandwiches.

I don’t think you have ever had a good meatloaf. It should include egg, diced green pepper, yellow pepper, and onion and seaon it with ground coriander, fennel, basil, garlic, salt, pepper, (plus what ever else you like) and crushed corn chips for the binding starch for the best flavor.

Stef Schrader > For Sweden 07/02/2015 at 11:47

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Turkey tastes like chicken that’s gone rotten. Yecch. Turkey bacon is perhaps the worst thing I can imagine.

Stef Schrader > Svend 07/02/2015 at 11:47

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I would eat this.

Stef Schrader > themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles 07/02/2015 at 11:50

2

Chorizo’s ranking suffered for the same reason pepperoni’s did: when people ruin it, they really, really ruin it, and it’s really, really terrible. Chorizo even more so than pepperoni. There’s a lot of genuinely terrible, Kibbles ‘n’ Bits-like hard bleh chorizo out there.

Stef Schrader > spanfucker retire bitch 07/02/2015 at 11:51

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Yes, but how can they make that much delicious meat taste so blah? Meatloaf is terrible.

Stef Schrader > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/02/2015 at 11:52

1

Haven’t tried it yet. Would probably enjoy.

Stef Schrader > punkgoose17 07/02/2015 at 11:54

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I’ve had various meatloaves over the years and a lot of my repulsion to it is texture-based. It feels pre-chewed in a terrible way. Also, the overwhelming ketchup flavor a lot of meatloaves have is simply disgusting. I went with the garden variety potluck meatloaf over a fancy version for simplicity’s sake, but honestly, a gourmet version wouldn’t fare much better because you’ve got to leave me something to chew, man.

themanwithsauce - has as many vehicles as job titles > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 11:55

2

Grocery store chorizo is three day old sausage with extra pepper, I swear.....Mexican store chorizo is heroin you can eat.

Stef Schrader > X37.9XXS 07/02/2015 at 11:55

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Dang it! I knew I left something off. It’d be tied with all the delicious wursts, though. Kielbasa is goodbasa.

For Sweden > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 12:04

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Turkey tastes like Thanksgiving. Turkey tastes like America.

You can buy an entire package of turkey bacon, fry it up with some peppers, and eat it without immediately developing fatal diabetes.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 12:21

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I like it, but Mrs. addiction thinks it’s gross.

Only3Pedals > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 14:09

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After years of working in a Deli, it’s disappointing that Head Cheese was not included after “#47,892: Getting hit by a car”

DrScientist > For Sweden 07/02/2015 at 14:30

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i know this is a month old post, but i saw the title and had to click.

and now because i’m a pedantic nitwit, i have to say: frying up and eating an entire package of pork belly bacon is unlikely to give you the beetus. but it very well may cause hypertension and atherosclerosis, which are likely to cause other things, like, you know, strokes and heart attacks.

MyFriendsCallMeKeith > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 15:00

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Okay, and our breakfast special today is chorizo and eggs.

crunchy bar ftw > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 15:03

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teewurst, chourico, black pudding, imo

HoistwithhisownPicard > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 15:53

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Lebanon bologna makes my top five. It’s not actually bologna (which is what you’d get if you flattened a hot dog with a rolling pin), and it’s delicious.

Kareem N'dKoffe > For Sweden 07/02/2015 at 16:03

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Except not know that you’ve eaten anything closely resembling bacon.

Bacon is bacon.

Kareem N'dKoffe > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 16:08

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“They” is the problem. If you can eff up meatloaf, get “them” out the g-d kitchen.

Kaboomcity > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 16:18

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You clearly are doing meat loaf wrong. Meat loaf is a gift from the gods. Although, maybe your poor ranking will turn people away from meat loaf ... which means more for ME!

For Sweden > DrScientist 07/02/2015 at 16:38

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This was posted yesterday...

Crappedinmyhat > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 17:14

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I live up in North Dakota and we have some amazing choices when it comes to homemade rope style sausage. My current favorite is German sausage with green onions. I’ve been thinking about writing a book about regional groceries.

Birddog > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 17:22

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I see Ketchup as a main complaint in a lot of your Meatloaf comments.

You’re right too.. If it’s loaded with Ketchup it’s going to be bad. I don’t care what anyone tells you. Now, there are Meatloaf recipes out there that don’t suck believe it or not.

If I were Emperor Of the United States I’d set an Executive Order banning Ketchup and Catsup in all forms permanently! Ketchup is the single worst condiment ever created. It belongs on nothing!

DoubleOJoe > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 17:53

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There’s a solution to your pepperoni conundrum: put salami on your pizzas instead. The difference is astounding.

Stef Schrader > For Sweden 07/02/2015 at 21:27

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No, America tastes like fireworks. Fireworks*!

*in my pants, from living in the part of America with good, spicy food

Stef Schrader > Only3Pedals 07/02/2015 at 21:29

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I still need to try this...for science!

No, really, that looks like a science experiment . Will it give me superhuman strength and the ability to fart through walls?

Stef Schrader > Crappedinmyhat 07/02/2015 at 21:30

0

I would eat this sausage with green onions.

Stef Schrader > DoubleOJoe 07/02/2015 at 21:30

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Salami on pizza (when not burnt to a crisp) is goooooood.

Stef Schrader > MyFriendsCallMeKeith 07/02/2015 at 21:31

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I’m okay with this.

Stef Schrader > Kaboomcity 07/02/2015 at 21:31

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Yes, more for you.

All of it, for you.

Please take.

Stef Schrader > HoistwithhisownPicard 07/02/2015 at 21:32

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I would eat this. I would probably also enjoy this. That looks good.

Stef Schrader > crunchy bar ftw 07/02/2015 at 21:32

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Ooh—black pudding. There’s a mystery meat I need to try.

Stef Schrader > Birddog 07/02/2015 at 21:34

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Some ketchup is not bad. Curry ketchup is the best variety, IMHO. Mayonnaise is better on fries and, well, everything else, though. Apparently I missed out by not hitting up the fry stands at Le Mans.

Meatloaf is gross, though. Texture, flavor, err’thang. Gross.

thesailormansaysfuckjimspanfellerforever > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 22:28

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Meatloaf is a superior sandwich filling. With the brown seedy mustard only.

For Sweden > Stef Schrader 07/02/2015 at 22:56

1

Stef has hot knickers because they are literally on fire.

Iowaish > Stef Schrader 07/03/2015 at 08:43

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Where is Salisbury steak? This list was made for it.

Stef Schrader > Iowaish 07/03/2015 at 09:41

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Probably tied with meatloaf. It’s been so long since I’ve had it (because gravy is usually nasty) that I kind of forgot its slimy, be-yucked existence.

opiumsmabytch > Stef Schrader 07/03/2015 at 09:44

1

The only thing on this list I won’t eat willingly are Slim Jims.

They’re like rolled boot leather soaked in salt brine.

Don’t even want to know what they use to make the oil orange.

Stef Schrader > For Sweden 07/03/2015 at 21:17

0

Bad decisions: eating Freebirds before working out.

“Wait for a bathroom. Wait for a bathroom. Can’t poot. Nope. Hold it hold it hold it holditholditholdit.”

Your boy, BJR > Stef Schrader 07/14/2016 at 19:42

0

Pork roll should be #1