Evening Standard food writers try out the best and worst supermarket picnic food

Evening Standard

Transcript

00:00Oh, no.

00:01No.

00:02Oh.

00:02Why?

00:03It's awful.

00:04But that's the perfect part of the incident.

00:07You're putting a sausage roll in hummus?

00:11Don't ever do that.

00:11What are you doing?

00:12I'm not going to do that.

00:14It's the hottest summer on record, probably,

00:17which means it's time to go outside and picnic.

00:19But what do the supermarkets have in store?

00:21Here, we're going to run through the best of them

00:23just to warn you off the bad ones.

00:27Lots of the same sausage rolls.

00:28Thanks, Lidl.

00:29Yeah.

00:29OK, smells good.

00:31Yeah.

00:33Not great.

00:33It's dry.

00:35OK.

00:35Really dry.

00:36Yeah, that's poor.

00:36That is dry.

00:40We've got a lot of quiche here today.

00:44Oh, that is dry.

00:46That's awful.

00:47I just, why do development chefs in supermarkets

00:53think it's OK to give people that food?

00:57Lidl, grow up.

00:58We're going to move on to the next supermarket.

01:01Thank you for sending us the reduced version, Sagebrews.

01:03We know you love us so much.

01:05And a Scotch egg, I think, is canonical in terms of picnics.

01:08And for some reason, it reminds me of David Brent,

01:11and I don't know why.

01:12That's really bad.

01:13Oh, that's horrible, even without the egg.

01:15What are you eating there?

01:17A filet straw.

01:19Really good.

01:20Is it?

01:20Really good, yeah.

01:21OK.

01:23Well done, Sagebrews.

01:23Solid.

01:24OK, we move on to the highlight of any picnic,

01:27the Lemon Meringue Cluster.

01:30The faintest hint of lemon air freshener.

01:32Oh, it's like eating syph.

01:37Well, Aldi get all the marks for their selection,

01:40because it's sausage rolls, olives, some macarons,

01:43and then tons of booze, which, to be honest,

01:45is exactly how I would do a picnic.

01:47All right, get that down you, Josh.

01:48Cheers, Aldi.

01:50It's Aldi.

01:53That's fine.

01:53That's inoffensive.

01:54I think it benefits from being warm, to be honest.

01:57Can I interest you in some Spanish pork?

01:59I don't know how to say this without it

02:01sounding like the police should be called,

02:02but that's perfect part meat.

02:08If I turned up to a field and was presented

02:11with this on a Gingham thing, I'd be excited, would you?

02:15We're going to start with the sausage roll.

02:17OK.

02:19It is soft.

02:22That's decent.

02:23No, it's fine.

02:25But if you look at that, look, not enough pork.

02:28Let's try the quiche.

02:30That's too much egg.

02:31Mm.

02:33That's lovely.

02:35That's a lovely quiche.

02:36Cheesy, soft.

02:37That's a great, that's a good quiche.

02:39Have you ever had one of these at a picnic before?

02:41No.

02:42That's an example of the classic Waitrose overreach,

02:44where they try and make everything really fancy,

02:47and there's just no need.

02:48Just stick to the classics.

02:50Oh, that's bad news.

02:51That's disgusting.

02:52What the fuck?

02:56I think the Tesco have absolutely nailed the brief

02:58here, because they've got crisps,

03:00they've got a truffle dip, they've got olives,

03:01they've got meat, cheese, whatever they are.

03:04Sausage roll and cakes.

03:07Hey, surfboard shaped crisps.

03:08That's new.

03:10That's good news.

03:12Creamy dip, very zingy lime.

03:15Happy days.

03:15I think that's probably the best thing we've had so far.

03:17Yeah, definitely.

03:18Try their cold meats with a dip included in the middle.

03:21That's actually rather smart.

03:23That's a really good spicy dip.

03:25That's really strong.

03:26Get that, that, and that, and you'd be sort of all right.

03:32Morrison's has decided to send us sweet corn fritters,

03:36pepperoni bites, barbecue cheese poppers, hot honey olives,

03:41ham and cheese croquettes, and 17 chicken poppers.

03:45No one needs this much batter.

03:47Ham and cheese croquette, let's give it a go.

03:51Tastes better than it looks.

03:54It's actually not bad.

03:55I think let's do the sweet corn fritters,

03:56they actually look quite decent.

03:58Oh, god.

03:59It's like eating a beach.

04:02I'm not, I'm not, I'm sorry.

04:05Thanks so much for joining us for this picnic taste test.

04:07It was harrowing, I suppose.

04:10For our full thoughts, head to standard.co.uk

04:13forward slash going out.

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