Festive hampers tend, like many things about Christmas, to be more exciting to receive (there’s always a faintly decadent Brideshead Revisited vibe about such wicker-clad bounty) than to consume (So. Much. Chutney!). For obvious practical reasons, many companies focus on preserves and packets of tea which, grateful as you are for the thought, may not be things you’d have chosen to line the back of the cupboard for years to come.
However, the carefully chosen selection below – which, having spent a day tasting my way through, I can personally vouch for – is near guaranteed to bring genuine cheer from delivery to dispatch. Instead of the usual boring biscuits and tedious teabags, there’s stuff you actually want to consume over the holiday, from cheese to champagne. Because the spirit of Christmas is all well and good, but if you’re going to spend your hard-earned money, you want more than the thought to count.
At a glance
The feelgood one:
Ukrainian Christmas hamper
£174.99 at Experience UkraineThe vegan one:
The Yuletide vegan hamper
£165 at Fortnum & MasonThe cheesy one:
Christmas cheeseboard
£55 at Highland Fine CheesesThe traditional one:
Ham and chutney pig board
£94.95 at Emmett’sThe cosy one:
Christmas in a Box
£30 at Ginger BakersThe fancy one:
The Darcy
£260 at Thackray Brown
***
The best food hampers for Christmas 2024
***
The feelgood one
Ukrainian Christmas hamper
£174.99 at Experience Ukraine
This hamper could equally be labelled “the beautiful one”, but I thought it being the work of small Ukrainian producers – and created in collaboration with food writer and activist Olia Hercules – more important than my pleasure in a hand-woven willow basket from Transcarpathia or the wonderfully thick hand-knitted woollen socks from the Carpathian mountains.
The edible contents are similarly unusual: strikingly malty wildflower honey from the Kosiv region; a jar of zingy green herb salt that would be excellent on fish or vegetables; plump dried porcini that are a world away from the usual wizened dusty stalks; colourful wildflower herbal tea. Nothing is overtly festive, save for the fat prunes covered in dark chocolate and the small bottle of Dima’s vodka, but equally there’s nothing you’re likely to find anywhere else.
Nothing in this hamper requires refrigeration or eating up immediately, and there’s very little in the way of plastic to dispose of. It’s not cheap but everything in there is handmade, organic and sustainable, and it feels like a very special gift for someone who appreciates traditional skills and wants to support their continuation.
***
The vegan one
The Yuletide vegan hamper
£165 at Fortnum & Mason
Plant-based hampers can tend towards the unfestively sensible, so I love that this one contains a bottle of silky franciacorta sparkling wine, made with 100% chardonnay to the same method as champagne, but without the animal-based filters used in many French fizzes. There’s also a packet of “reindeer treat” carrot-shaped jelly sweets, another thing that’s often not suitable for vegans.
There’s a surprisingly rich mushroom and paprika paté that makes a very satisfactory replacement for the chicken liver variety, a delicate elderberry and blackberry conserve that would be delicious with some (non-dairy) yoghurt, and a generous helping of festively spiced, cocoa-nib black tea that should be on everyone’s Christmas breakfast table, vegan or not.
Plus of course, being Fortnums, once you’ve scoffed it all you’re left with a sturdy hand-woven hamper and several pleasing reusable tins and caddies rather than a load of disposable packing. That said, though there are lots of nice things to enjoy with the tea and coffee, I would have liked a savoury snack or two to go with the fizz. Vegans like nibbles too!
***
The cheesy one
Christmas cheeseboard
£55 at Highland Fine Cheeses
I can measure the 12 days of Christmas by the shrinking of our cheese board – so bountiful on the big day, reduced to mere rinds for soup by Epiphany – by which you may correctly guess that cheese plays a big part in our family festivities.
Instead of grabbing whatever’s left at the supermarket, a cheese hamper is an opportunity to try something new while you have the leisure to enjoy it. What I particularly like about this selection from the north of Scotland is that you can choose your own trio from the small business’s range. (Despite the dubious name, I’d highly recommend the oozy washed-rind Minger as well as the piquant Strathdon Blue and the buttery Caboc.)
Another nice touch is that instead of the usual oatcakes and chutney, the cheese is paired with a jar of savoury sriracha-like chilli jam, a half bottle of sticky, liquorice-sweet pedro ximénez sherry and a waxed paper-wrapped packet of Andalusian olive oil crackers with aniseed; the Auld Alliance gone south. There’s no Christmas branding; it arrives in a neat pink cardboard box with shredded paper, a recyclable ice pack and a bubble-wrap envelope, so there isn’t much packaging for which to find a home. The cheese will need to go somewhere cold, but remember to bring it to room temperature before serving if you’re ordering for yourself. Christmas cheese sorted with just one click.
***
The traditional one
Ham and chutney pig board
£94.95 at Emmett’s
A Christmas ham is a fine thing to have on the table – especially if it arrives ready-cooked with its own pig-shaped board and chutney. Emmett’s of Peasenhall produces its traditional cooked hams from free-range pigs down the road in Blythburgh and prepares them behind the shop in this lovely East Suffolk village.
As the brand notes, only 3% of UK pigs are entirely free-range throughout their lives, so this makes it a real festive treat; 1.5kg of emphatically porky meat not only makes a handsome centrepiece on its dedicated board, but should also see you through Boxing Day and well beyond. The date and lime chutney, which is made for Emmett’s in Sri Lanka, is fresh and zingy and would also be great with cheese; in fact, the only wrinkle as far as I’m concerned is that the cardboard box comes lined with insulating polystyrene, which isn’t widely recycled domestically. The ham really is exceptional, though.
***
The cosy one
Christmas in a Box
£30 at Ginger Bakers
£34.50 at Yumbles
I have very strong feelings about traditional Christmas baking – in short, I think many retailers are relying on the fact that everyone will buy mince pies regardless of how unpleasant they are and how many they end up throwing away. If you’re sick of half-raw pastry and sour, gritty mincemeat, dry fruitcake and Christmas pudding that feels like it’s phoning in the seasonal cheer, then I’d recommend treating yourself or your host to a present from Cumbria.
Inside are four deep mince pies with a real citrus and brandy kick, a half-kilo slab of rich iced fruit cake made with Lyth valley damsons and a truly excellent two-Great-Taste-award-star-winning fig and orange Christmas pudding, which somehow manages to contain generous quantities of rum and Lake District whisky yet feel lighter than your average cannonball. This little lot is basically a day’s rations for me over the season, though the cake will keep for six months and the pudding a year if you’re more moderate in your consumption. The packaging, tastefully festive in buff and purple, is fairly compact, and mostly cardboard and paper, so easily recyclable. The classics, done properly.
***
The fancy one
The Darcy
£260 at Thackray Brown
£260 at Sir Gordon Bennett
The Darcy is the dream date if you’re having a lovely romantic Christmas a deux (or solo – you’re worth it); while undeniably expensive, it contains everything you need – from soft cheese to sloe gin – to have a really, really good time without leaving the house.
Unlike many hampers, this is all killer, no filler. Thackray Brown sources from small artisan British businesses – specific suppliers will vary according to availability – and the hampers come with a deck of cards giving information on each product, which could come in handy if you run out of conversation. To pick a mere handful of the 23-strong contents in the one I tested, the soft cheese was the superb Baron Bigod, the burnished golden pork pie from Leeson’s of Oakham and the oatcakes from Fife’s Your Piece Bakery, while the booze was a bottle of Sussex pinot noir from Charles Palmer, and the light, almost floral sloe gin came from the sadly shuttered Oxford Artisan Distillery, making it a very limited edition indeed.
Fresh-cut items are wrapped in waxed paper, and the lot arrives in fully biodegradable and compostable mycelium packaging, so you can just chuck it out of the window after you’ve finished the wine (joke!). A luxurious treat.
***
Felicity Cloake is an award-winning food writer, author of the Guardian’s long-running How to cook the perfect ... recipe column and author of seven books, including culinary travelogues, One More Croissant for the Road, a BBC Radio 4 book of the week, and Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey. Her next book, Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast to Coast in Search of American Cuisine, will be published by Mudlark in 2025.
