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‘It looks like fresh sewage!’: We taste test Christmas dinner flavoured foods – from soup and crisps to sarnies

<span>Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian</span>
Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

The world is awash with products flavoured like the festive feast, whether you fancy turkey in your gyoza or on your pizza. Are any actually nice to eat?


Something has gone badly, wildly wrong in the world of Christmas cuisine. Where Christmas dinner used to be a once-a-year extravagance, the concept has become nebulous and all-encompassing. “Christmas dinner” is no longer a meal – it is a flavour, spread indiscriminately across every foodstuff imaginable in a desperate bid to seize upon good cheer.

There have long been Christmas dinner sandwiches, but now we also have Christmas dinner crisps, Christmas dinner pizza, Christmas dinner pasties, Christmas dinner soup. And, while the thought of someone sullenly microwaving a bowl of Christmas soup barefoot in their kitchen between Zoom calls on a Thursday in November is genuinely the most dispiriting thing you could think of, it is possible that some of these products are actually good. There’s only one thing for it: time to put on a novelty jumper and try them all at once.

Starbucks ’Tis the Season turkey sandwich (£3.79)

Starbucks Tis the Season turkey sandwich.
Starbucks Tis the Season turkey sandwich.

There is a lot to be disappointed about here. First, nobody has ever travelled to Starbucks specifically to eat a sandwich, and this is because no sandwich made by Starbucks has ever been palatable. Second, in a world that has long since diversified beyond the Christmas sandwich, this just seems old hat. Third, this sandwich tastes exactly like every pre-packed chicken-and-stuffing sandwich you have ever bought from a petrol station in a fit of self-loathing. Please try harder, Starbucks.
How nice is it? 2/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 3/5

Sainsbury’s Rudolph’s Christmas Feast sandwich (£2.50)

Sainsbury’s Rudolph’s Christmas Feast sandwich.
Sainsbury’s Rudolph’s Christmas Feast sandwich.

Although the name of this sandwich might suggest that Sainsbury’s has completely lost the plot and started selling venison sarnies at Christmas, the happier truth is that this is a vegan festive sandwich. Served in a Christmassy star-shaped bun, it comes filled with a root-vegetable patty, along with carrot strips and carrot chutney. Not that you would know, of course, because the bread-to-filling ratio here is so catastrophically out of whack you don’t so much eat it as get suffocated by it.
How nice is it? 3/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 2/5

Tesco Free From turkey and stuffing tortilla chips (£1)

Tesco turkey and stuffing tortilla chips.
Tesco turkey and stuffing tortilla chips.

While everyone was distracted by sandwiches, the humble Christmas crisp has been quietly reaching its apex. These tortilla chips are everything you could possibly ask for. Are they crunchy? Yes. Are they moreish? Yes. Does their gluten-free nature represent the dawning of a more inclusive snacking landscape? Yes. Are they shaped like little Christmas trees? Probably at first, but they will be smashed into unrecognisable smithereens by the time you open a packet. Do they taste like turkey and stuffing? Well, no, not really. But, hey, you can’t win them all.
How nice is it? 4/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 2/5

Tesco Finest crinkle-cut pigs in blankets crisps (90p)

Tesco pigs in blankets crisps.
Tesco pigs in blankets crisps.

Here’s a question: do you like smoky bacon flavoured crisps? If you do, you should buy some of these. If you don’t like smoky bacon flavoured crisps, you shouldn’t buy these, because they are basically smoky bacon flavoured crisps. They are crisps that someone has chucked a load of pork-flavoured powder on, and that doesn’t seem particularly Christmassy to me. But does everything you eat have to be relentlessly festive? Can’t you just be happy eating some crisps for once? Honestly, you people.
How nice is it? 3/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 2/5

Greggs festive bake (£1.60)

Greggs festive bake.
Greggs festive bake.

This won’t surprise anybody who has ever seen me, but I love Greggs. A warm Greggs pastry slice in your hands on a cold winter’s morning is one of life’s great joys. As such, my expectations for its festive bake – chicken, stuffing and bacon in a sage-and-cranberry sauce – were through the roof. But those expectations were firmly dashed when I ate one. All the ingredients had been reduced to an unidentifiable mush inside the slice, and the sauce carried the faint taste of wax. Only buy this in an emergency.
How nice is it? 2/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 3/5

Cornwall Hamper Store Christmas Cornish pasty (£18.99 for four)

The Cornwall Hamper Store Christmas Cornish pasty.
The Cornwall Hamper Store Christmas Cornish pasty.

This, on the other hand, was an unexpected treat. It arrives at your house frozen, to be heated in your oven for 45 minutes, so you can eat it freshly baked. I’m a little worried about the filling, though. The pasty contains ham, turkey and stuffing, which is nothing like a traditional Cornish pasty. Nothing makes Cornish people angrier than a devil-may-care attitude towards Cornish pasty tradition. Anyway, it’s quite peppery.
How nice is it? 3/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 3/5

Domino’s The Festive One pizza (£18.99)

Dominos Christmas pizza.
Dominos Christmas pizza.

One of the big benefits of Domino’s pizza is that, no matter what you order, it all tastes the same. You could blindfold yourself and jab wildly at the Domino’s app, and you can reliably assume that whatever turns up at your home will taste just like every other Domino’s pizza you have ever ordered. As such, despite being topped with bacon, sausage and something called “turkey sage and onion”, the Festive One is just a generic pizza. You wouldn’t buy it to celebrate Christmas. You wouldn’t buy it to avoid Christmas. It just exists, like dust or clouds.
How nice is it? 2/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 2/5

Costa pigs in blankets mac and cheese (£4)

Costa pigs-in-blankets mac and cheese.
Costa pigs-in-blankets mac and cheese.

Costa sells mac and cheese boxes all year round, and they generally taste like something that gets slid underneath prison doors during budget cuts. But now that it is Christmas, Costa has unveiled its pigs in blankets mac and cheese, which is – brace yourself – regular mac and cheese, but with some cocktail sausages balanced on top. First, this isn’t remotely Christmassy. It’s the sort of thing that restaurants put on children’s menus for kids who don’t yet know how to chew. Second, eating it made me so miserable that my soul gave up and left my body. Thanks a lot, Costa.
How nice is it? 1/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 1/5

Itsu Christmas gyoza (£3, ocado.com)

Itsu Christmas gyoza.
Itsu Christmas gyoza.

We should hate Itsu for making these. They are gyoza filled with bacon, turkey, cranberry and sage, and therefore constitute several hundred simultaneous cultural appropriations. There is nothing remotely Japanese about these gyoza. I’m sure nobody in Japan celebrates Christmas by ramming measly little teaspoons of pureed turkey into dumplings. However, to my utter astonishment, these were a hit. They’re unbelievably Christmassy to eat, and I think I’ve figured out why. As a society, we have become obsessed with padding out our Christmas dinner ingredients with bread, pastry and who knows what else. Here, though, only the thinnest sliver of dough separates you from your turkey. The filling just explodes in your mouth. Delightful.
How nice is it? 5/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 4/5

Heinz Christmas dinner Big Soup (£1.50)

Heinz Christmas dinner Big Soup.
Heinz Christmas dinner Big Soup.

This, meanwhile, is a travesty. It’s a tinned soup that contains turkey, stuffing balls, potatoes, brussel sprouts and pigs in blankets, and, not to be indelicate, it looks like fresh sewage. It smells bad. I can’t accurately describe the mouthfeel because I have never had to swallow contraband human organs to sell on the black market. It tastes like punishment. Heinz, you invented the precise opposite of Christmas. It is genuinely impossible to eat this nightmare with even a trace of festivity in your body. Merry Christmas to nobody.
How nice is it? -50/5
How much like Christmas dinner is it? 0/5