If writing for the Guardian has taught me anything over the years, it is to dread Christmas. For with Christmas, more often than not, comes a horrible food dare. There was the year when I had to try every Christmas-flavoured snack on the market. The year where I ate so many mince pies that I very swiftly lost the will to live. The year where an editor, who I can only assume I had unwittingly wronged at some point, made me eat Christmas cake until I was able to fail a home breathalyser test.
This year, I really thought I was going to make it all the way to 25 December. And then, last week, the news emerged that The Almighty Cod, a fish and chip shop in Hartlepool, had started to sell portions of battered sprouts. For £1.80, it serves up eight to 10 steaming veggie balls (its recommended accompaniment, luxury cheese sauce, costs extra), in a move that some social media users have dubbed “wrong on so many levels”.
