£4.50
Tesco Supermarket

Like the cliché scene from a zombie film where the protagonist is forced into an infected-filled mega-mart to get supplies, I found myself sidestepping mindless patrons at my local Tesco for an avocado, and whilst soon looking for a place of respite to catch my breath and steel my fraying nerves, I found a quiet sanctuary. A seemingly unvisited and unloved place at the end of one of the supermarket's long and droning aisles, bereft of the hordes rushing the frozen pizza zone. The meatless meat section.

I quickly scanned the vegetarian meat parade all housed within the samey-same earth-tone packaging and settled on the Meatless Farm Chickenless Roast, as the 'meat' it contained looked less brown and tired than the others. In fact, it looked like un-proofed bread dough that was previously dropped onto week-old lawn trimmings. I dashed my way to the self-service checkout machines and scanned my first item, requested help as the machine wasn't playing ball, scanned the next item, requested help, scanned an item, and requested help... repeating these steps indefinitely until I was finished. Finally, I hurried home to unwrap and discover the technology behind this particular brand of meatless meat, thanking all deities that I made it out of there alive with this gift.

The first thing that struck my senses when I opened it was the muscly scent of plasticine that uppercut its way through my nose and into my brain, giving me a heady mix of concern, slight nausea, and general worriment about who'd name the potentially new smell-borne disease that was cultivating within my blood; me or the World Health Organisation. As it was too late for me now my nose was beginning to die off, I slapped the Chickenless Roast block onto a tray and although it pained by to be taking orders from a cardboard box, I cooked it for-and-at the required time and temperature. Along with the slab of spongey meat substitute, I accompanied it with potatoes, carrots, and other such things one would expect in a roast dinner (I'm someone who doesn't like roast dinners before ya'll slice my shit up about missing items such as Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, condiments, or whatever else has the same mushy texture and is supposed to tag along for the ride).

A bit of time later and the log, along with everything else I threw in the oven, was done and ready to be served and a quick sniff soon painted the same chemical smell as before but warmer. As I cut into it, the Chickenless Roast went with my knife like a scaffolding tube thrown onto a deflating bouncy castle; I had to pierce it like the killing blow in an amateur dramatics society play and then saw it into meatless discs as it bubbled out oil, water, and other waste fluids like my body during a maths exam.

The texture was similar to eating a block of whale blubber and the seasoning was just applied on top for an attempt at some decoration. It just tasted of, according to my notes at the time, 'eating the wrong air', which I can only unfold to be that it felt like something was really not right. I couldn't shake the thought that I was eating festering human tissue as each bite turned my insides with every putrid chew. As mentioned before, all the oil and water would come seeping out coating me with a film of grease that would burn the taste image of the Meatless Farm Chickenless Roast into every part of my mouth for a long time after I threw it all in the trash. This made swallowing anything a real battle against my automatic process as this sour and greasy taste made my stomach feel as if it were ready to jump up into my throat and suffocate me. 

I really can't understand who or what they prepared this for during the R&D for this product as everything about it was terrible and I'm not exaggerating when I say it made my stomach feel like it was filled with rectangles and blunt edges, you know like that feeling a few seconds before being sick. I'm also not exaggerating when I say I had to drink 40 gallons of water to try and wash away that disgusting film of aftertaste from my mouth before slam-dunking that miserable little log into the bin so hard that I nearly dislocated my shoulder in doing so. One of the worst things I've tasted in a long while.