In an age that celebrates global free trade there are still times when we can be grateful that not everything is available everywhere. One of those times is now, Christmas of 2022. Because it means that try as I might – which, to be fair, is not very hard – I’ve been unable to taste for myself the extraordinary cultural artefact that is Christmas pudding flavoured Spam. Or to use its correct name, SPAM® Figgy Pudding, “with notes of cinnamon and nutmeg combined with fig and orange flavours”, and I assume, humping wafts of desperation. Apparently “you’ll taste true holiday comfort that will have you carolling all season long”. Are you absolutely sure about that?
We are not meant to knock that which we haven’t tried. Personally, however, I put Christmas pudding flavoured Spam in the same category as foot fetishism or voting Conservative. I know it happens. I know that’s how some people get their jollies. But I’m having nothing to do with it, thank you very much. While festive Spam may not be readily available here, there are lots of other god-awful edible festive trinkets which we can also not try. Yes, it’s time for my occasional roundup of what I call When New Product Development Goes Bad. Pity the normally sane food professionals who have completely lost their minds in March, when ordered to devise yet another bunch of products that bellow Christmas. Some of these have been around for a few Christmases but like a fungal infection, and just as welcome, they keep returning.
