CSI; MORRISONS

Price £2.20

FESTIVITY OF PACKAGING

Orange. The colour orange, festooned with Christmas Trees. They've put all their creative juices into the joined up font on the word "Christmas" on the label, and done the 14 year-old girl's star above the lower case "i" thing. Kind of festive, I suppose, but not as festive as a picture of a Polar bear high fiving Santa. The Christmas Trees are plentiful and of a faux-retro style. I reckon Wayne Hemmingway has pyjamas like this, but that's just speculation. A clunky, half-thought out design, but with a lot of Christmas Trees.

6

DEPTH OF FILLING

Reasonable. I can see everything on offer, it's well spread and there's no deceitful centreloading. The bread's a bit thin and not appealing looking. It's not very exciting this sandwich. It looks fine. A sandwich you'd be happier introducing to your parents over your mates. It's a Ford Focus. I reckon I could comfortably manage a Snickers after this. And a mug of milk.

6

RATIO OF FILLING

Initially, I am heartened by the look of this. There's plenty of poultry, evenly spread. The bacon looks well judged, good coverage, but thin enough to dispel worry it'll overpower the bird. I do worry this might be an arrid sandwich, as there's not much of the ruby red around. Cranberry is the Rebecca Loos of the Christmas Sandwich. It's there to lube up the bacon. Not enough and we may have a problem. Ingredient information initially allays those fears, but flags up other issues. Not as good as I thought.

7



OVERALL FLAVOUR

BITE. Stuffing first, and it tastes pretty decent. Tastes homemade, but by someone who's only *quite* good at cooking. By the end of the last chew, as if beckoned by the Trashmen, the turkey surfs in on the wake of the stuffing. The bird is the word. And it's pretty good. The second bite encompasses all aspects of the sandwich, but tastes like the first, although now the turkey is dominant. There is actually very little flavour from the the bacon that appeared so well judged and, as predicted, the cranberry is nowhere to be found in my fowl-filled-face. The bread's pretty dry and the cranberry's doing nothing to help it. The last little bacon piggy has gone "wee wee wee wee" all the way nowhere. He just stayed in his flat, watching Morecambe and Wise. When he pokes his head round the door, he throws a trotterfull of salt at my tongue, then goes back inside. The turkey is left to sweep bits of stuffing up from his doorstep, rub them into his feathers, then slip down my gullet. A strong start, but a poor finish.

11

12 SANDWICHES OF CHRISTMAS SCORING;

FESTIVITY; 6
FILLING; 6.5
FLAVOUR; 5.5

OVERALL- 6

Conclusion;

Plain. I don't think I ever really expected anything other than average from this. It tastes like a turkey and stuffing sandwich, but it doesn't taste like Christmas.

CSI; BOOTS

FESTIVITY

A deep red box, with the word "delicious" arrogantly splayed on it like the main one off of Mean Girls made it herself after prom. It also says "created by food lovers", but it doesn't say "for a joke" or anything afterwards, so it's clear this sandwich has pretty high opinion of itself. Which, for a package that posting only a heavily regimented pattern of snowflaked baubles, as if placed there by Kim Jung Il himself, is pretty fucking punchy. Not festive enough, and the font is rubbish.

5

DEPTH

Quite reasonable. In keeping with the Great Leader motif, the fillings are uniformly spread out and reach to the edges. There's a weave of bacon and a certain collagen quality to the greenery, which I sense may be slightly deceitful. The bread itself is thicker than many I've seen, so this all may be conspiring to create a fuller sandwich than is actually present. There is a hint of the old "collapsed domino" formation in the turkey, which again is boosting the thickness. I think this is the festive sandwich equivalent to a wonderbra.

6

RATIO

Oh. I had to remove the bread segments like peeling an elastoplast from an armpit. It looks like a slice of bread has been seasoned from a great height by roughly cut pieces of food. It's almost as if they expected the bacon to go to seed in there and sprout more bacon to make up for it. I cant see any stuffing. I can see Peter Rabbit's lunch. The depth WAS deceptive, as I predicted. This is a sparsely loaded sanger. I'll need two rich teas with butter after this, and then another two dry ones to dip in my mug of milk. I look at the ratios in the nutritional information. They are a law unto themselves. A bad law. An outlaw. Flaw.

5

OVERALL FLAVOUR

Bite. Bread. Bread. Hint of bacon. Bread. Still chewing. This sandwich isnt so much dry as "airy". But not pleasant, like a room in a converted barn, but like someone has inflated it with a bacon fart. Bite. Finally get some turkey, which is actually quite reasonable, but sits in splendid isolation. No connection with the bacon or cranberry. And where's the stuffing? Nowhere in my mouth, that's for sure. The turkey itself is good, the sandwich is poor. No cohesion. Nothing to make it anything more than a disparate buffet served up on a yeasty lilo. Hang on- whooosh! I am broadsided by an odd, exceptionally unappealing flavour. Bang! It feels like old mother spinach has stepped onto her front doorstep and sluiced a load of onion into my mouth. Iron, sage and nausea spin me into a vertical dive and, when I do a burp, it feels as though my oesophagus has just lifted the lid off a compost bin. No thanks.

9

12 SANDWICHES OF CHRISTMAS SCORING

FESTIVITY; 5

FILLING; 5.5

FLAVOUR; 4.5

OVERALL- 5

No. Some of the ingredients are fine, but this is a bad sandwich. Like I said, when I'm happy buying condoms from Greggs, that's when I'll buy sandwiches from Boots.

CSI; HARRODS

Price; £4.25

FESTIVITY OF PACKAGING;

Woah. This is bloody rubbish. They've written "Harrods" twice, both in Harrods font. Which you might consider festive if it wasn't the same font they used on all their other products, year round. The only thing not in Harrods font is the word "MEAT", which is written in harsh capitals, like the signage of a stubborn butcher's shop in a village full of vegans. If you think the motif around the lower label might look like Ebeneezer Scrooge's wallpaper, and therefore could be slightly festive- think again. There's pheasant and goose there, yes- but also fishes and pineapples and a crab. This is as festive as a skip filled with dead birds. Never before have I given a zero. Here is a zero.

0

DEPTH OF FILLING;

This solid. It looks like something the legs in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons would sweep with a big broom. A big old doorstep of a sandwich. Full to both edges, contents all visible and good looking. Thin sliced turkey, but that's fine. The green is not deceitful- there's a thin layer only. Not ideal, but ok for thickness purposes. This is solid. It's a gamekeeper's lunchbox. Michael Winner's elevenses. After this, I'll manage nothing more than a hobnob and a mug of milk.

9

RATIO OF FILLING;

Hard to see what's what here. There's a lot of good looking gobblefowl here, which is positive. There's too much spinach, of course, but what's confusing me is the odd meat-like substance that looks a bit sausagey, but isn't, according to the ingredients. Hmm. Is it stuffing with a heavy pork content? I think so. I'm concerned by the apparent lack of cranberry and mayo on show, suggesting this could be a fairly dry sandwich. Indeed, when I lift the sanger out of the box, it does seem fairly dry on the outside. Harrods haven't bothered to give any contents information on the box- just what's in there, no proportional analysis. What are they trying to hide?

6

OVERALL FLAVOUR;

Bite. First flavour I get is really odd. It tastes a bit like paté. I think it might be what they are referring to as stuffing, but it definitely has a liver-like quality to it. It's not nice. The gobblefowl is sliced thinly, which is good as there's a greater surface area of it to bathe on your tonguepiece, and it is tasty. There's none of the regular sagey flavour of Christmas sandwiches, and there's not enough cranberry sweetness. It's a pretty dry experience altogether, and although they've used nice bread, the seeds on it sort of compound the dryness. It's like a satirical comment made by Wurzel Gummidge in July. Dry. It needs seasoning this sandwich. Not only salt and pepper, but most importantly, the season of goodwill. It doesn't taste Christmassy at all this, it tastes like a pensioner's picnic. The turkey and cranberry alone would be good, but the stuffing makes it all a bit livery, leaving a mucky texture around my mouth. Maybe Harrods use these sandwiches to smuggle out illegal foie-gras to their dedicated shoppers. Not for me thanks.

9

CONCLUSION;

I'm surprised at this. I was expecting overpriced and unfestive, but I was also expecting a nice taste. I did not get a nice taste. It tasted like I'd been fed it by an overbearing matron at a school for delinquent rich children in 1952. Is Christmas different in Knightsbridge?


12 SANDWICHES SCORING

FESTIVITY; 0
FILLING; 7.5
FLAVOUR; 4.5

OVERALL; 4