Food to absorb alcohol: Christmas hampers reviewed

There is straw inside the Fortnum & Mason Christmas Treat Hamper (£100). As the straw drifts through the house, it begins to resemble a stable. I like this. Hampers are dependent on plants for their mystery: without them they would be just a carrier bag full of food.

Restaurants are closed to those who live apart, unless you are in Cornwall or the Isle of Wight. So, this is the Christmas of hampers; of alcohol, sugar and baked and dried goods. There are gin hampers and beer hampers and vegan hampers. There are hampers for dogs (‘woofly good’) and hampers for cats (‘the hampurr’). There is a Branston Pickle hamper, which is mostly Branston Pickle, plus socks with Branston Pickle written on them. I think that’s excellent.

I love to order food at home. I once had a Victoria sponge cake whose selling point was that it could fit through a letter box. It was too expensive to review — no Spectator reader would spend £60 on a Victoria sponge cake — but they sell out anyway because some people can’t do anything for themselves, and some people don’t want to.

I begin with Fortnum & Mason of St James’s, which sent hampers to Suffragettes after their spell in Holloway prison and delivered 60 tins of quail in foie gras and four dozen bottles of champagne (Montebello 1915) to Mount Everest for the 1922 expedition. It used to have an ‘expeditions’ department; if it still existed, they could send the Prime Minister a specialised hamper for his next trip to Brussels. I would suggest Assorted Creams and Medical Grade Opiates. It also provided condiments to the Empire — Empire-builders could apparently not function without condiments and I believe it — and is also expert in very theatrical jams.