Much of it is pointless, but that only adds to its charm: Fortnum & Mason hampers reviewed

Stop the clocks: Fortnum & Mason is still delivering hampers. I am not surprised, because this shop — or rather this myth disguised as a shop — sold condiments to the Empire, and it wouldn’t let a global pandemic thwart the consumption of those condiments. It was among the earliest fans of globalisation, which is now something I have to explain to my son.

He doesn’t understand globalisation, although he knows some dogs come from abroad. He does understand a Fortnum & Mason hamper though; he knows it is a consolation, although he wouldn’t call it that. As soon as the lockdown began, I ordered an Easter basket and an Easter egg.

However you may feel about the commercialisation of Christian holidays — and Easter is the one that matters — it is an objective truth that Easter eggs improved when Cadbury, and now Fortnum & Mason, got their hands on them. Consumer capitalism gets some things right. (Goodbye Jeremy Corbyn. Slink back under your Jew-hating rock.) I may love the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem — and you should go when this is over, to touch the rock of Golgotha and gawp at the pilgrims fighting to get to Christ’s tomb. (‘Hello,’ said my friend, when we fought our way in, ‘you caused a lot of trouble.’) But I don’t love early Christian Easter eggs with the same fervour. They weren’t made of chocolate. They were birds’ eggs painted red to symbolise Christ’s suffering which — in Christianity — is renewal. I wouldn’t put that in my mouth. I usually buy a giant £8 Cadbury egg with two small packets of Mini Eggs inside. After ten years of restaurant criticism, I still maintain that Cadbury’s Mini Eggs are one of the great foods.

But as a non-Jewish Jew — squashed up against a ghetto wall, which is internal now, but still feels powerful — I prefer to shop at Fortnum & Mason.