Alright, shall we give this the benefit of the doubt? That me freezing and thawing this pork and cranberry yuletide log, as recommended a thing you could do on the packaging, actually caused this to be incredibly meh?

We can but I don’t think that would have changed any of the fundamentals with this product; The taste, the texture or the overall impact.

If you’re pulling this out at a party or as part of a festive get together you want to present something with impact. The stars on the pastry don’t become large, puffy and impressive. Though that also applies to all of the pastry. The little touch of red on the top is nice but that’s actually just a bit of beetroot powder and tasted of absolutely nothing.

It’s not the only thing that tasted of absolutely nothing though. There’s supposed to be cranberry in here but, even now weeks later, I am still trying to figure out if I detected even a single bit of fruity or tart tastes. If I’m pondering that then the answer is quite clearly no. And without that extra layer of flavour this becomes very one toned in taste.

And it’s not a great one tone of flavour as it just comes across as black pepper loaded pork. And the pork itself is incredibly dense in texture with just meat. It felt like it could have done with a little extra moisture or perhaps even little pockets of fat that would melt into the pork to give it added moisture. I ended up having to put sauces and chutneys with this just to bring the texture and flavour to life.

Ultimately, I hope that this has been retired at the end of 2025 and that we wont be seeing it in Lidl’s 2026 Christmas range but if we do please just consider saving your money. You, and whoever eats the other nine portions, would only be as disappointed as I was.