Only in Japan surely will you find a sandwich advertised by it’s packaging as vegetable but containing meat! Quite a few months ago I was excites to find a vegetable sandwich in Starbucks, but after buying it discovered the detailed ingredients (on the label nicely hidden in the glass case) contained chicken. Today, same Starbucks, new “vegetable” sandwich. More cautious the second time, I asked to see the label and, surprise, surprise it still contains chicken but now also contains pork!
Ironically, it was also the only savoury item left so I took myself off to Starbucks No. 2 nearby. To my shock, it too had a new version of a “Vegetable Sandwich” with the even more amazing claim “on rye”. Suspecting yet more double dealing, I asked to see the one remaining item. Amazing! No meat! Admittedly, I can’t tell you what the EIGHT different chemical preservatives are or do, but I imagine they’re there to balance the 10 other ingredients: bread, potato salad, tomato, brocoli (I lost mine – the 1 cm long shoot fell out) mayonnaise, lettuce (3 types apparently), and salt. Eagerly, I laid out ¥520 for this tiny object, taking it to a spare seat quivering slightly with anticipation. Well, death inducing additives or no, it wasn’t too bad – even if the fake vegetable sandwich was a whole ¥120 cheaper. Admittedly, describing the bread as being rye was based purely on the tasteless brown flecks, but that’s normal for Japan, and, like the brocoli, certain ingredients were so small in volume as to be unidentifiable, but at least I can say I didn’t eat meat, er, probably.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
