How Christmas hampers have evolved: Vegan, children's, gluten-free...

CHRISTMAS hamper firms say they are now back up to full speed after the long financial crisis years – a time when companies were struggling to stay open, let alone give out free festive food baskets to staff, and the general public was not buying them as it needed to keep to a strict budget year-round.

And with its recovery – a clear sign of Spain's own economic recovery, for all the above reasons – the Christmas hamper industry has swiftly adapted with changing times to keep up with the ever-evolving whims, dietary needs, and long-overlooked preferences of its potential customers.

If you're stuck for present ideas this festive season, a hamper is a great choice – even for long-distance recipients, since many can now be ordered online and delivered to the giftee's door.

 

What's in a Spanish Christmas hamper?

Traditionally, you'll find the typical festive confectionery – turrón, marzipan, chocolate and polvorones, those biscuit-like sweets wrapped in paper and made with crushed almonds and which are powdery, but should be squashed in the hand before opening to give them a more pastry-ish consistency – plus spicy sausages such as chorizo, cheese, sweet filled pastries, and wine or cava, sometimes both; the more expensive ones might even include a leg of Serrano ham, although if yours is a work perk, don't expect your firm to splash out this far (you'd probably prefer its value in cash added to your Christmas pay packet instead, given that they range between €400 and €600 at this time of year). More pricey versions sometimes include bottles of rum, whisky or liqueur.

Prices of a traditional Spanish Christmas hamper can range from €10 to €950, so there's literally one to suit every present budget.

An example of these is seen in the first photograph, by the hamper firm Sadival.

 

Vegetarian and vegan hampers

You might think 'going traditional' when gifting hampers, buying one for yourself or entering one of the numerous local prize draws for them at this time of year is not for you if you've given up eating meat. But what was unheard of in the days of the industry crisis is now becoming a standard option: meat-free and even all-animal-produce-free hampers.

A vegetarian one is apparently easy enough to make up – simply give the Serrano ham and sausages a miss – although you may well have to eliminate the polvorones, too, since some of these contain lard deriving from pig fat.

To fill in the gaps, firms add in other delicacies often found in 'mainstream' hampers, but in larger quantity or two or three different varieties: tinned asparagus, tinned fruit in syrup, nuts, or jam.

A growing number of Spaniards, especially teens and young adults, are turning towards a vegetarian or pescatarian (where fish is eaten but not meat) diet – around 8% of the population falls into these categories – and almost one in 10 of these is vegan.

You might think living in Spain and being vegan is a bit of a dichotomy, but the more the trend grows worldwide, the more Spanish supermarkets and restaurants are starting to adapt and become imaginative, able to offer more interesting fare than simply roasted vegetables, salad and bread.

And vegan Christmas hampers do exist in Spain – some are merely made up of wine, cava and spirits; some are replete with nuts, jam, dried fruit, turrón without egg-white, bars of dark chocolate made with non-milk protein, olive oil, speciality vinegar, spicy herbal infusions for a warming cuppa, different types of bread, tinned fruit and tinned asparagus.

But others are more specifically tailored to the vegan market – rather than simply eliminating what vegans do not eat, they include products that they do, such as egg- and butter-free oat biscuits, vegetable-based pâté (olive pâté, for example), vegan Panettone, vegan cheese (normally made with coconut milk), and vegan 'meat' – slices, sausages or burgers of meat-substitute ingredients, such as quorn, which comes from mushroom protein, soya, seeds, beans and pulses.

They actually sound quite delicious even if you can't live without a juicy slab of rare steak as often as you can afford it; also, vegan food tends to be lower in calories and saturated fat and includes the type of additives to our daily diet that help keep us healthy, such as grains, fruit and vegetables.

As a bonus, many vegan and vegetarian hampers are made up mostly, or entirely, of organic produce.

You can find a wide range of vegetarian, vegan and organic Christmas hampers at Selección Natural, with prices ranging from around €50 to €170, depending upon the level of luxury you're seeking – an example of one of these is shown in the second photograph.

 

Teetotal and children's hampers

Not everyone celebrates Christmas by getting legless and commiserates Boxing Day with a monster hangover. Many people, for many reasons, never drink alcohol – for medical, religious or cultural reasons or, perhaps, like our very own Queen Letizia, they are teetotal because they simply do not like the taste of alcoholic drinks. For this reason, Christmas hampers given as gifts to these people tended to have to be unwrapped by the giver, the bottles extracted, and the entire thing rewrapped, perhaps with something else bought separately to disguise the gaping hole in the basket left by the cava.

Not now, though: you can buy specific alcohol-free hampers which, instead, include bottles of juices, or alcohol-free 'spirits' or beer.

Even for those who do enjoy a glass or two and the feeling of being a bit merry at Christmas, there's usually plenty of alcohol flying around already, so teetotal hampers are a healthier, but still suitable, choice.

Hampers are usually given to adults as raffle prizes, Christmas presents or in the workplace, and then the whole family dives in – the non-alcoholic bits are normally perfectly suitable for children in general. But hampers which are actually geared specifically towards the little people in the household are now becoming popular: baskets containing sweets, chocolates, lollies and biscuits themed on animals, shapes, or cartoon or film characters, for example, may feature, as well as cartons or bottles of chocolate milkshake, juice or other soft drinks, and an array of non-edibles to keep them amused all over the holidays (particularly useful in families who choose to do all their gift-giving over the Three Kings, as the kids will have nearly three present-free weeks before they get a huge toy haul the day before they have to go back to school, leaving them with no time to play with them). Cuddly toys, puzzles, blankets in funky colours and patterns, dolls, toy cars, board games and plenty more come in children's hampers along with the stuff they can actually eat.

 

Gluten-free

Being diagnosed as coeliac, or with a gluten allergy – or even just a gluten intolerance, where this ingredient found in cereals is not totally off-limits but makes you feel a little bit unwell if you consume it – can be a nightmare at the best of times. Although supermarkets and restaurants nearly always offer plenty of gluten-free fare and, under European Union rules, these are clearly labelled and eateries are always able to advise you on what you can and cannot eat, produce for coeliacs is notoriously expensive, and remains limited. This situation is gradually improving, since the number of cases of gluten allergies and intolerances is rising, probably through better diagnosis rather than an actual increase in people affected.

Still, Christmas can be a pain, since you have to avoid so many of the typical foodstuffs that everyone else is enjoying – not just those containing flour, such as bread, pasta and biscuits, but many others that may be made in factories where they could come into contact with these ingredients, or which use wheat germ or wheat protein, even where they would not, on the face of it, appear to be typical red-flag foods; beer, for example, is one of these, as it is made from barley.

Gluten-free hampers are your best Christmas friend, in that case. Stuffed full of the usual cakes, polvorones, chocolate, turrón, and savoury stuff, all made specially for coeliacs, there's enough there to keep you fed for the entire holidays and avoid having to hunt through aisles and read ingredient labels on the back of practically everything you think about buying.

Nut allergies are equally laborious to deal with; one would think it's easy enough to avoid nuts, but biscuits, cakes, breakfast cereal and bread can contain traces of them even where they are not visible to the naked eye, and many types of apparently nut-free food can contain groundnut oil, for example.

Luckily, Christmas hampers suitable for those with nut allergies – obviously devoid of turrón, polvorones and marzipan, but also with other carefully-selected produce that would not have been anywhere near nut sources – are available on the market for the 2019 Yuletide season.

Selección Natural is one of several companies offering hampers suitable for coeliacs and nut-allergy sufferers, as well as those who are allergic to dairy produce or have a lactose intolerance (the vegan versions are also ideal for those in this situation), and they range from €60 to €80.

More and more hamper companies are starting to offer selections for a wider variety of dietary needs and desires – baskets with sugar-free chocolate, for diabetics, for example, and even low-fat versions (again, vegan hampers may fit the bill here) are now on the market.

 

Not just for Christmas: The possible future of the hamper market

With so many selections out there, you could even give a holiday hamper to friends of different cultures and religions who do not normally celebrate Christmas, just to show you are thinking of them – alcohol-free and meat-free, or without ham, pork or beef, for example – and call it a 'New Year hamper', since followers of many faiths in which Christmas does not feature still celebrate New Year's Eve as a holiday.

To that end, it may not be long before hampers containing halal or kosher produce start hitting the market, and not just at Christmas, but to celebrate other faith holidays – keep your eyes open for these. Just imagine the delight on your Muslim friends' and neighbours' faces if you were able to give them a halal hamper as a gift to celebrate Eid ul-Fitr, the massive celebration on the last day of Ramadan, which the community describes to those outside it as 'a bit like your Christmas', or a season of goodwill, family gatherings, best clothes, charity collections for the poor, exchanging gifts, and collective worship.

Now the hamper market has recovered after the crisis, maybe Easter versions will start to pop up, too – in Spain, this would mean monas, or sweet cakes with a painted hard-boiled or chocolate egg on top, as well as chocolate eggs on their own wrapped in colourful foil.

And why not merely some any-time-of-the-year traditional produce hampers? Depending upon region, these might include horchata (sweetened tigernut milk), fartones (iced bun fingers for dipping in horchata), Agua de Valencia (a bit like Buck's Fizz, but more refined, made with Valencia oranges and cava), rice from Pego (Alicante) or the Albufera wetland (Valencia province), corbatas, quesadas and sobaos (in Cantabria), wines and honey made locally, lavender produce from the province of Guadalajara, and just about anything relatively non-perishable specific from the area they are created in.

That's your present list sorted out for every holiday, birthday or wedding anniversary for the rest of the year.