Because not all food reviews are about smart restaurants that charge a hundred for a tablespoon of sorbet to cleanse the palate.

Some culinary experiences change you. Others simply make you glad you popped in for milk. The sage and apple sausage rolls at the frozenforyou frozen meal section at our local Spar manage to do both.

On first glance after a quick airfry, they’re unassuming, with golden puff pastry, slightly flaky on the edges, a few crumbs scattered like pixiedust. But take that first bite, and suddenly you’re in another dimension.

Temptation

The sage hits first, warm, herby, and just fragrant enough to whisper of weakness of the flesh. Temptation Then comes the apple: a gentle sweetness that’s neither cloying nor shy, like eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Actually, that may be too much. ‘Like embracing Golden Delicious’ works better. Together, they wrap around the savoury sausage filling like the first little kiss between two people who suddenly realise they’re soulmates. This is not your average sausage roll, I’m sure you have gathered by now.

This is not a stretched-out meat pie you buy at a petrol station at midnight with a pack of Rennies after the pub, and instantly rue. This is the kind you serve at dinner parties.

And here’s the genius: they’re frozen, which means that they’re actually ready whenever you have an airfryer nearby. They fit into any time slot because they’ve transcended the human constraints of mealtimes entirely, and of hunger. You can eat them when you’re full. And you will,

It’s also a small-town thing. These sausage rolls don’t taste like something churned out for a thousand anonymous customers. They might be in the frozen, instant food section of the Spar and a multitude of other retail outlets scattered acorss the country but they taste like someone back there actually cares, someone who knows you by face, if not by name, Does the security camera take photos of people buying them and then maybe send them to the baker to form a subliminal bond? It’s like there’s something bigger happening here, some sort of cosmic sausage connection.

Gloriously Straightforward

In a world obsessed with artisanal-this, deconstructed-that and reduced-jus the other, the sage and apple sausage roll remains gloriously straightforward. No drizzle. Who wants drizzle? Strange word, drizzle. Say it ten times out loud and see where you end up. Not good, is it?

With these sausage rolls there is no foamed garnish, no hippy tie-dyed edible ink markings, no vegetarian, vegan, flexitarian or ayurvedic options. Just pastry, sausage, sage, and apple, combined in a way that feels like a secret you want to tell everyone. But you don’t. Because supplies.

Read more: Oh, Dear, we have to go to Durban – notes from the editor