A Foodie Christmas Gift Guide

When selecting a Christmas gift for a foodie friend, it’s important to look out something that really speaks to their personality and connects with their interests. Now, we know what you’re thinking – ‘they like X, so I’ll get them a personalised version of X, as nothing says ‘thought-out gift’ quite like a bit of embossing.' Luckily for you, we have a much better solution – our annual food and drink gift guide, featuring something for everyone on your list (providing they all like bizarre kitchen gadgetry and have strong stomachs).

For the Instagram fanatic
You’re out for lunch with a friend, minding your own business, when BAM! A flash of blinding light bounces off the table and leaves you pulling a face like a stunned horse. Is this a paparazzi intrusion? Have you been raptured up to the heavens? Nope, it’s your pal taking a picture of a salad to share on Instagram. That chum’s gift this year is the Say Cheese Instant Slicer by US design firm Gamago. A slicer in the shape of an old school camera, its retro look will please the most fervent ‘grammer whilst simultaneously giving them something cool to take photos of. It’s a win-win (as long as they like cheese). £10, various stockists.

For the bacon-obsessed
The trend for putting bacon on, in, or near everything may have abated somewhat, but there’s still a loyal undercurrent of swine obsessives who’d gladly eat a doormat if it had some snippets of smoked pig sitting on top of it. Unfortunately for gift-buyers, meat tends to go off if you leave it out under the tree, and fully wrapped presents left in fridges tend to be a bit too easy to spot. Into the void, we offer bacon-flavoured toothpaste. It’s functional (in a way), it contains the magic ingredient (or as close as an approximation as can be squeezed into a toothpaste tube), and it’s unique (you can say that again). Essentially, it’s the perfect present. £7, firebox.com

For fans of order and simplicity
Sometimes life just knows how to kick you when you’re down. It’s a Sunday morning, you’re knocking together a nice breakfast made up of flat, square ingredients, when your boiled egg throws a spanner into the works with its stupid, natural, oval shape. The Egg-Q-Ber solves this problem by squashing your hard-boiled eggs into the most logical of all shapes – the cube. No longer will your morning egg roll off your plate or work surface, taking the rest of your breakfast and your fragile temper with it. £5, Tesco Direct.

For night owls and would-be fast food moguls
Home brew? Check. Decent stereo? Check. One friend who you’d rather not have invited, but they’re here now, so you’ll get on with it? Check. All the ingredients for a night out in the comfort of your home are readily available, but until now there was no real home substitute for the classic end-of-night snack. Well, now there is, in the form of the Kebab Rotisserie Grill. It is, as the name suggests, a home rotisserie, complete with all the necessary attachments to dish up a wide range of takeaway-inspired munch in the comfort of your own home. In the hands of the right recipient, you need never sit through another 2am rammy in a takeaway ever again. £79, prezzybox.com

For the vegetarian
Veggies get a little short-changed when it comes to Christmas gifts; it’s all barbecue this and bacon-flavoured that. That said, the Karoto carrot sharpener isn’t half bad; it’s functional, it looks pretty interesting, and its comical size means it could also serve as an ideal gift for fans of The Borrowers. It beats a set of barbecue tongs with a ‘hilarious’ moustache drawn on the side, that’s for sure. £10, Paperchase.

For those hopelessly short on space
It sounds a bit counterintuitive to get a food-based gift for that friend who can’t get a pan out of their kitchen cupboard without touching all four walls, but the Unikia Chop & Serve could just solve all their problems. Its two chopping boards and five trays all clip together in one space-saving unit, then the whole lot flips over to form one big multi-compartment serving dish – this is what the Transformers would be capable of if they gave up blowing things to bits and focussed on their cooking. £46, unikia.com

For the genuine foodie
Not everyone can be easily swayed with a device to square off their eggs or sharpen their vegetables – serious people require serious presents. We know this, and have found just the thing. The Chocolution Botanist kit contains four varieties of cacao beans, the base ingredient for chocolate. There’s guides to the origins and differences between each of the beans, as well as plenty of advice on how best to roast the beans and get to the serious work of making your own chocolate. Serious, but tasty at the same time. £24, thechocolution.com

For the lazy
Some presents sit like an albatross around the neck of the recipient, compelling them to ‘repeat every day’ or ‘wait for the plant to sprout’, and nobody wants their gift to be thought of as that thing that took ages to wither away to nothing. The Stirio automatic pot stirrer is no such gift. It’s ideal for the person who’s always expressed an interest in cooking, but just can’t be bothered most of the time. No more standing over a hot stove, stirring away at their pasta sauce – they’ll be sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea while their saucepan-loving robot puts in the hard graft. God, the 21st century’s good fun sometimes. £40, Menkind

For the beer lovers
Nobody wants a flat pint, but nobody ever wants to throw away nice beer. It's the kind of dilemma we never want to face, and one that it seems can only be answered by a device that looks a little bit like the holodeck transporter from Star Trek. The Sonic Foamer blasts the life back into your pint using ultrasound waves, and claims to make your beer smell and taste better. The ideal gift for those who like a nice craft beer as well as the chance to ooh and aah at science in action. Not sure quite how that venn diagram looks, but it'll do as a present for someone. $30, sonicfoamer.com

For the person who has everything
There’s always one, isn’t there? They have everything, and anything they do want they’ll just buy for themselves without telling you. Still, you have to get this special someone something, and it probably has to be pretty spectacular. Well, they may have everything, but can they make their own face appear on a piece of toast? Not until the 25th, they can’t. Yes, the Vermont Novelty Toaster Corporation – actual phrase used on their website: “Don't let the word "Corporation" fool you, we are a very small company that cares” – have distilled hundreds of years of technological and scientific innovation into the selfie toaster, a product which can etch an image of your loved one’s face on a slice of wholemeal. Turns out we were wrong at the start – sometimes the best gifts really are the personalised ones. $69, burntimpressions.com

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