Kit Roberts
Warning: This article contains strong language, which some readers might find offensive.
Marks and Spencer has released its Christmas food range, and many people have been left speechless at the cost of one item in particular.
It's no secret that M&S is not exactly known for being a budget supermarket.
The shop offers premium products, including a lot of fancier pre-made meals with a price tag to match.
Advert
But even taking account of that, many people were shocked by the price tag attached to one of the items on the shop's Christmas menu.
This was the M&S Beef Wellington, and people could not fathom just how expensive it was.
An advert released by the supermarket shows that the Beef Wellington, which has been put together by celebrity chef Tom Kerridge.
In a statement on the M&S website, Kerridge says: “I’ve combined top-quality meats and seafood with some pretty magical cooking techniques to create these world-class Wellingtons and smooth-as-silk parfait.
"Because Christmas is about making memories around the table with loved ones, not about making a mess in the kitchen. You can leave that bit to me!”
Those of us who like to cook might disagree - if any time of year is about making a mess in the kitchen, it's Christmas.
Beef Wellington is a British classic and a premium dish, being made up of a joint of beef fillet wrapped in a mushroom duxelles, prosciutto, and sometimes crepes and even fois gras, before the whole thing is wrapped in pastry and baked.
It's a technically difficult dish to pull off because you have to make sure that the pastry gets nice and crispy without over or undercooking the beef, and that the beef is properly cooked without the pastry being burnt.
And for a pre-made one for six people that you just have to pop in the oven, M&S is charging a whopping £195.
People were stunned by the price, with one person taking to social media to write: "Wtf?! That's ludicrous."
Another joked: "So does Tom Kerridge actually come round to your house on Christmas Day and make it?"
A third wrote: "Who buys this? And who actually eats all this food anyway? My whole Christmas grocery bill will be less than the beef wellington. IT’S TWO DAYS ffs."
A fourth fumed: "F**king f**king f**king hell! £195 for beef wellington! Says it serves 6. So really it's gonna be enough for 4, tops. Thats absolutely insane!"
A Beef Wellington is an costly dish to put together, requiring beef fillet, an expensive cut, as well as other potentially luxury ingredients such as wine, truffle, or paté.
But even all those combined is unlikely to come to £195.
Of course, the catch there is that you have to be a skilled enough cook to be able to pull the dish off, and at Christmas the pressure is on. Suddenly £195 might not be looking so bad after all...
"TBF a kilo of fillet mignon is like £65, add the wellie process and it's not *that* outrageous for a pre made one that's 2.1kg," one person commented in M&S' defence.
"Not saying it's good value by any stretch but you can get near that price just off posh ingredients."
FOODBible has approached Marks and Spencer for comment.