Wintertime Food and Drink

1. When this meaty dinner staple is served on Dec. 25, it is often preceded by the word “Christmas.” But its status as a traditional wintertime meal began as a tribute to Freyr, the pagan god of boars.

2. Also an epithet for an insane or effeminate person, this festive dessert with an unknown shelf life is an edible punchline, punctuated by Johnny Carson’s joke about it being a single specimen that is annually re-gifted.

3. The prominent spice of this dessert is Asian and has nothing to do with redheads, but as a baked good, it typically takes on an anthropomorphic or residential shape.

4. A German candy man created these sweet treats for kids to enjoy during services, but to justify candy in church, he gave them their curvy shape so they’d be reminiscent of the shepherds who visited baby Jesus.

5. This dairy beverage is rich, tasty, but better with bourbon. Anyway, its first syllable is from its farmland ingredient and its second syllable is from the Old English word for “mug.”

6. Closely related to the acorn, this treat is the first word of the Christmas song, “The Christmas Song.”

7. This is not a traditional Christmas Eve dish in Italy but seems to have taken hold among Italian-Americans, but besides its lucky number quantity, it isn’t very specific on type.