Mega box
Rebecca Jed This year, the prize for the most lavish hamper goes to Fortnums for their £20,000 compilation of inessentials. Nothing in moderation here. 'For one year only, we've pushed the galleon out,' reads the literature. 'This is no tuneless hymn to opulence, no gormless glut of gilded lilies. Everything is here on depth of merit. Search where you will, you won't find better... Delivery is an event in itself. Within a day's return ride, its three tiered hampers will arrive on the Fortnums horse and cart... . '
Goodness me I want to know where that horse and cart will end up, with its cargo of foie gras en croute for 25 and its five-litre jeroboam of Chateau d'Yquem Sauternes, its cake tin of Beluga caviar and its cashmere socks, its Highgrove ham and vat of lemon curd and tea cosy (of all things) and leather luggage tags. This is insane-wealth territory. Still — quite a green mode of transport, horse and cart.
After that, the Chairman's Choice hamper from Harrods seems, at £5,000, almost lowly — kind of `Meh, whatever.' It comes in two leather chests, and contains a rib of Aberdeen Angus, a truffled ham, a side of salmon, plenty of terrific and rare wines, a special limited-edition bottle of 30-yearold Glenmorangie, a Christmas pudding, and so on. 'There's more emphasis on food this year than there used to be,' says Harrods's Andre Dang. 'Quite often hampers have things in them that you don't get round to using, like bottled fruit in alcohol. We've tried to put in things that people will want to use right away or that will be good store-cupboard essentials.'
Harrods has a large overseas customer base, and used to fly kippers to Alfred Hitchcock in LA weekly, but fresh food can no longer be flown abroad to most countries because of customs regulations. Sometimes, though, an order will come through to deliver a hamper to Stansted, where it will be loaded on to a private jet. They also, of course, do bespoke, and one year arranged someone's entire Christmas to order. How did that work? 'Well, it cost £20,000 and a display team went along with a 6ft tree and decorations and decorated it and did the flower arrangements, and we took along all the Christmas foods you can think of — turkey and hams and wine. You'd be surprised how many people want the celebration but not the work.'
It was Selfridges that pioneered the mass-market hamper in the 1930s, with boxes ranging from £60 to £300 in the equivalent of today's money. Back then turtle soup and crystallised fruits were the height of luxury, morphing as the decades passed into sandwich spread and orange squash in the 'provision parcels' of the war years (oh how sweet), thence into German salami and Dutch cheeses in the 1950s, through the pate and tins of pineapple in syrup of the 1960s into the 1970s liqueur chocolates and Turkish delight.
This year Selfridges has a range of 17 lovely hampers, from £30 to £800. The £800 Ultimate has luxy Christmas fare leaning towards the traditional: Chateauneuf du Pape, Sauternes, Champagne; potted lobster and caviar and ham; Christmas pudding and Stilton. All the Christmas essentials are here, with the added lure of a visit for two to a chocolate studio. The £600 Connoisseur has much less variety but has been especially designed for the foodie: Iberico ham, foie gras with truffles, Beluga caviar, and so on. Many of the Selfridges hampers are aimed at specific types of people; at chocolate lovers or wine buffs, for instance.
The 'targeted hamper' is a good way, I can't help thinking, to get round the issue of hamper envy. Because if you are lucky enough to receive a hamper, however glorious its contents, you can't help knowing there is almost certainly one bigger, better, more superabundant. Just as the £20,000 hamper laughs in the face of the Chairman's Choice, so the average £100 one puts a lesser one in the shade. It's sad, really.
On the other hand, look through the websites of the various hamper people (the big three are Selfridges, Fortnums and Harrods, but there is also Harvey Nicks and others) and survey the riches. It's quite bedazzling. Me, I will never tire of reading the list of contents of Partridges' £500 Buckingham hamper. Poetry.
Pol Roger White Foil Champagne 75c1 Naude 2006 Chenin Red 75c1 Queens Vodka 70c1 Kings Wild Oscietra Caviar 50g George Bruck Goose Foie Gras in Terrine 255g Urg Smoked Salmon 450g Castle of Mey Oat Biscuits 250g Iberico Ham 250g Quenby Hall Stilton 233g approx White Truffle Salt 30g Fergusons Lobster Oil 100m1 Sicilian Grapefruit Marmalade 460g Sicilian Orange Blossom Honey 500g Sicilian Sliced oranges in syrup 460g Amedei Pralines 180g Amedei Cru Chocolate 2kg Organic Dark Roast Coffee 250g Jewel Fruit and Nut Cake 250g Out of Africa Macadamia Nuts 250g 4 Mother of Pearl Spoons Packed in a wicker basket.
fortnumandmason.com; selfridges.com; harrods.corn; partridges.co.uk.
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