SPROUT PIZZA? HO-HO- NO!
We try the ghastliest festive grub so you don’t have to...
THe shops have been overflowing with festive foods since September, as supermarkets vie for their share of Britain’s £22.5 billion Christmas groceries market. In their bids to fill festive coffers, retailers routinely bring out weird and wonderful food and drink, designed to grab shoppers’ attention and, with any luck, drop into their trolleys.
Some of the most stomach- churning offerings over the years have included Christmas dinner popcorn ( thanks, Selfridges), a chocolate-cherry sandwich at Tesco and a green smoothie made from Brussels sprouts courtesy of M&S.
This year, supermarkets have gone further than ever in their ‘twists’ on traditional dishes.
From pigs-in-blankets tea to pine treeflavoured crisps, SARAH RAINEY tried the ghastliest festive foods on offer, so you don’t have to. Some were a pleasant surprise — while others are guaranteed to give you nightmares before Christmas . . .
CHRISTMAS TREE CRISPS £1 for 180g, iceland.co.uk
WHAT THEY SAY: Some bright spark was clearly feted by Iceland for coming up with the novelty of putting the essence of pine needles into a bag of crisps.
The packet, billed as ‘ pine salt flavour hand-cooked potato crisps’ features an unappetising picture of a pine cone and some needles.
The ‘tree’ flavour is pine oil, made by distilling tree stumps, needles and twigs in a steam bath, and is commonly used in household cleaning products! TASTE TEST: Generally, taste testers have been far from impressed. ‘I have never had any desire to eat my Christmas tree,’ wrote one critic on Twitter.
Neither have I. They may look like ordinary salted crisps, but the smell — eau de toilet cleaner — and the taste, like licking a forest floor, are anything but.
There is nothing moreish, appealing or even palatable about them. A sixth of a pack contains nearly 9g fat, 12 per cent of your recommended daily intake — so they’re very unhealthy, too. REPULSIVE RATING: 5/5
BRUSSELS SPROUTS PIZZA £5.25, Co-op stores
WHAT THEY SAY: For those who think eating Christmas dinner off a plate is passe, why not eat it off a pizza base instead? This pizza (pictured above) is made with hand- stretched Italian sourdough and ‘ delicious, festive-inspired flavours’.
What this boils down to is shredded Brussels sprouts, chestnut puree and cranberry and port chutney, as well as mozzarella, pancetta and tomato sauce.
The limited- edition ‘ pizza natale’ (Christmas pizza) from the Co-op’s premium Irresistible range serves two and packs a hefty 513 calories per portion. TASTE TEST: If you ignore the fact that it’s topped with all the bits of Christmas dinner nobody likes, this isn’t a bad option.
The sprouts have been roasted and shredded so finely that even sprout-haters like me would struggle to identify them, while the chestnuts and ham are a nice balance of sweet and salty. The base crisps up well — and cooks in only 12 minutes. REPULSIVE RATING: 2/5
PIGS-IN-BLANKETS TEA £1 for 20 teabags, sainsburys.co.uk
WHAT THEY SAY: There’s very little information on this bizarre product other than that it can make a lovely stocking filler.
But who on earth wants a steaming, sausage- flavoured cuppa? Not me.
Mercifully, at least there’s no pork — or any meat — in the tea itself. Instead, it’s a blend of lapsang souchong, apple pieces, sage and rosemary.
TASTE TEST: I love pigs in blankets. And tea. But putting them together in one product is not a winning combination.
The aroma is like week- old roast dinner, wafting out of my mug in meaty waves, while the taste is what I imagine to be the flavour of smelly feet. REPULSIVE RATING: 5/5
CHRISTMAS PUDDING CHEESE £2.50 for 200g, tesco.com
WHAT THEY SAY: This truckle of white stilton, shaped like a Christmas pudding with wax ‘icing’, contains raisins, crystallised ginger, candied orange peel and rum.
It’s a nice idea but badly executed: they seem to have taken a black-waxed Stilton, added a layer of white wax — and adorned it with a crude sticker of some holly. A six-yearold could’ve done it better. Dark