What exactly does the baby Jesus taste like? Or to put it in a rather more obliging manner, how would you describe the flavour of Christmas? Because a defined flavour it must now have. In recent years, for example, a high-street coffee-shop chain (once famous for avoiding tax and therefore doesn’t get a name check), has launched a website specifically to count down to the launch of its Christmas offerings: cue outbreaks of desiccated cinnamon, stale gingerbread and eggnog with the consistency of late winter snot. You fancy a bit of that cosy Danish hygge you’ve heard so much about? You want a multinational corporation to give you a cuddle? Well, get out your wallet, because nothing says Christmas more than a toffee nut latte.

This isn’t actually unreasonable. There is no greater route to memory than through taste and smell. With each spiced waft we are attempting to access a lost feeling: that of being a kid, when Christmas still meant something. And so to the increasingly omnipresent Christmas sandwich, without which no high-street food operation would be complete. You know what we’re talking about: some combination of turkey, stuffing, a sweet jellied sauce claiming to be cranberry, maybe some bacon, perhaps some greens, all slammed between granary bread with the texture of Grandma’s eiderdown.

It is an attempt to capture in a single portable item, consumable within 180 seconds, the genuine warmth and delight of the Christmas lunch surrounded by our loved ones. And all that despite the fact Christmas lunch is a massively dysfunctional psychodrama, populated by family members we dislike, distrust or simply don’t know. And if you’re the one who cooked the damn thing there’s the added pleasure of the picky eaters, and the children already full to the earlobes with Quality Street, and the teenager who only last night decided they were vegan.

Christmas lunch is one of the most fraught meals of the year. The idea that it’s worth celebrating in a series of snatched working lunches is, on the face of it, baffling. But perhaps it’s the very brevity of the sandwich experience which makes it work. Eating a Christmas sandwich is so short, the hit of turkey, sage-infested stuffing and cranberry so fleeting, that we only get as far as the warm moist feelings. There isn’t time to be assaulted by the dark, bitter memories of Christmases completely ruined that lurk just behind those flavours.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer

The naysayers will argue that the whole notion of the Christmas sandwich is wrong because they are available so early, in some cases from October. They have a point, though only if they buy in completely to the whole “virgin birth, three wise men, follow yonder star” guff. Which, funnily enough, I don’t. If we recognise the modern Christmas for what it is – a winter festival nicked wholesale by the Christians from the pagans to keep the devout in line – then it makes total sense.

Historically, poultry was the meat of choice for winter feasts because it was in season. When the turkey arrived over here from the New World in the early 16th century it joined the roster because a single bird could feed so many. Indeed, the nobility rather favoured turkey because it was nicer to eat than peacock, which tells you exactly how awful roast peacock must be. In turn, according to the food historian Dr Annie Gray, “Turkey was one of the birds the Puritans hated during the English civil war”, because it represented indulgence. Although turkey was eaten in Britain at feasts, it didn’t become the top bird for Christmas until the 1950s when images of American Thanksgiving reached us, first via cinema, then television. Likewise cranberry sauce was an import from over the water (though we’d long had a tradition of chutneys with meats). As to the sandwich, stuff shoved between bread existed long before the Earl of Sandwich demanded something portable to be brought to him (by legend at the gaming table, but probably at his desk; he was a notorious workaholic). But it’s his name on the thing so he gets the credit.

And so in the Christmas sandwich, a heap of British myths and legends come together in the service of catching a whiff of comfort. Throw in a little charitable endeavour as M&S, Pret a Manger and others are doing this year, and eating one becomes practically a national duty. But are they actually nice? To find out I blind-tasted 10 of them. I did this so you wouldn’t have to. Merry bloody Christmas.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Christmas sandwiches from Benugo, Pret and EAT Photograph: Pål Hansen/The Observer

BEST BUY

Benugo Roast British Turkey & Bacon Hot Meat Sandwich

£5.50, benugo.com

This is the best looking sandwich; human hands have been involved in this. Really good bacon, lots of rocket. Properly filled. It’s got substance.

★★★★★

Pret A Manger Christmas Lunch Sandwich

£3.60, pret.co.uk

Best stuffing by far, with little crunchy bits in there. Turkey that tastes of something. This doesn’t have any bacon and I think it benefits from that.

★★★★

EAT Festive Full Works Bloomer

£3.65, eat.co.uk

It’s trying to make a statement by being deep-filled, but the filling looks processed. The mayo lubricates it. You’d have it for lunch.

★★★★

Waitrose Turkey, Stuffing & Bacon Sandwich

£3.20, waitrose.com

There’s something quite rugged about the way the turkey has been cut, it doesn’t look machine-sliced. A bit of greenery helps. Rather nice.

★★★★

Sainsbury’s Turkey Feast

£2.30, sainsburys.co.uk

Seems to be a generous sandwich. The greenery was a good idea, though it’s not seasoned enough. A solid sandwich: not offensive, but not brilliant.

★★★

Tesco Finest Turkey Feast Sandwich

£3, tesco.com

Looks like you’re getting quite a lot for whatever your money is. Cranberry dominates. The stuffing is actually rather good, just a little bit dense.

★★★

Marks & Spencer Help Shelter Turkey Feast

£3.30, marksandspencer.com

Looks hand-processed and there’s a bit of mayo which is a good sign. Well seasoned, this tastes of something; I’m getting all of the different layers.

★★★

Morrisons Turkey Dinner Sandwich

£2.30, groceries.morrisons.com

My immediate response is that it’s way too sweet and the stuffing is like a paste – a weird sandwich paste. Flimsy bread.

★

Lidl Festive Feast Sandwich

£1.59, lidl.co.uk

Awful. Truly awful. Stuffing that’s a paste and bacon that tastes like turkey that tastes like bacon … You can’t tell. It’s just a big squidgy mass.

No stars

Greggs Christmas Lunch Toastie

£3, greggs.co.uk

Unpleasant sage taste. It just overwhelmingly tastes of sage and that has ruined it. Really quite horrible … You’ll want to eat something after to get rid of that flavour.

No stars

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