Top Ten Christmas Gifts
for Lovers of English Food

More food? I hear you groan. As if there wasn't enough of it around already during December. Don't grumble, this is special, the real deal, real classics. Food that's been around for ages. Food that has been rediscovered or re-created by people who are nuts about English food. And not just food ... there's kitchen gear, too. Eccentric, slightly loopy, but so what? It's Christmas.

So if you love English food - or cooking for that matter - then you won't mind these top ten Christmas gifts with a distinctly English feel.

This Essentially English Hamper could have been put together just for us. It has all the traditional stuff you expect from a good hamper of English food: Cheese, chutney and biscuits, tea and fruitcake, fudge and sweets. Plus a bottle of tasty apple juice, most of it from Prince Charles' Duchy Originals brand.

So go on, treat the England lover in your life!

If you find Christmas Pudding a little on the rich side, or simply want to try something different, why not sample this very tasty and moreish Sharrow Bay Sticky Toffee Pudding?

The Sharrow Bay Hotel, in the Lake District, is renowned as the home of sticky toffee pudding... and it is said that their sweet, sticky sponge is 'still the finest you will find anywhere in the world'. I suppose the only remaining question now is: do you agree?

Here's something Mr Darcy or the Scarlet Pimpernel would have been familiar with!

This Port decanter set, made from hand-blown glass, takes you right back to Regency England. Drinking port was an art form back then, and there's nothing wrong with reviving the tradition. And with its unusual looks it also makes a great conversation piece.

This is high on my list of top ten Christmas gifts. A must-have item for serious pudding fanatics: The Pudding Sleeve from Lakeland.

This hard-anodised sleeve from Mermaid creates the best Spotted Dick, Jam Roly Poly and suet puddings we've ever tasted, and it couldn't be easier to use... place the mixture in the base of the sleeve, close and pop into your steamer for a taste even better than you remember!

If you love reading about food, as well as cooking and eating it, then Clarissa Dickson Wright's A History of English Food should be on your list of Top Ten Christmas Gifts.

Anyone who has ever watched her TV shows cannot deny her love for food and history, and this book brings both gloriously together. It makes great reading for a wet afternoon by the fire with a glass of something nice!

These small boxes of British Heritage Teas may look a little twee, but they make a great gift or stocking filler.

The tea isn't bad, either. Each tin contains 25g of loose leaf tea - English Breakfast Tea in the Telephone Box, English Afternoon Tea in the Post Box, and London Tea in the Doubledecker Bus.

Very Victorian, these Rose and Violet Creams.

Delicate rose and violet petals dipped in sugar and turned into fondant-centred chocolates. One for mum or grandma, I think, unless you have a very sweet tooth.

Also good if you're all thumbs with the wrapping paper. The box looks good enough to eat - which gives it added pretty points for later.

I adore cheese and wine. It's a real English winter classic. And since it can't get any more classic than port & stilton, this hamper makes it onto my list of top ten Christmas gifts.

The port is Dow's 2005 lbv, the Stilton comes in a traditional ceramic jar and the wicker basket finely complements the contents.

If you're not used to it, English mustard can really take your breath away. It's much sharper than French or German mustard. Still, once you get a taste for it, you don't want to be without, so this Mustard Medley Carousel from Devon's Dart Valley Foods, will come in handy over the Christmas festivities.

Eating for England is hardly the first book by food writer / cook Nigel Slater that I'm recommending on Essentially England. And there's a good reason for that: his writing is as delicious as his recipes.

I freely admit that I read Nigel Slater's books not to find something to cook for dinner, but for sheer entertainment. So any book of his that I haven't yet in my library has to go onto my list of top ten Christmas gifts. It should be on yours, too.

Right, that's - for the moment - my list of top ten Christmas gifts for food lovers. There's plenty more where that came from, of course, so keep checking back as I add other delicious things.