Conor Pope’s Pricewatch column has two items of interest to foodies this week – a feature on high-end ready meals, such as those from M&S and independent outlets such as The Butler’s Pantry; and a taste test on minestrone soup.
Ready meals would appear to be bucking the downward trend apparent in other luxury items and are actually showing an increase in sales. Purveyors of these meals attribute it to people looking for more affordable ways to treat themselves. Even a fancy ready meal will cost much less than going out for dinner, especially when wine is factored in. A note of caution is sounded about the high salt and fat content in many supermarket ready meals. I have noticed this myself, but when the nutritional values are clearly marked on the packet and you can make an informed choice to balance it with healtheir food, I think they’re perfectly ok as an occasional treat. What do you think?
I’ve written here before about how I find minestrone to be the most hit-and-miss of all soups, so I was interested to read the taste test on ready-made minestrone. Sure enough, only one of the minestrones gets a rave review (Casa Rinaldi Minestrone) and it’s the most expensive. All the others are too salty or mushy, with the Avonmore version coming in as the best value.