Christmas Food Trivia

C Peppermint. Peppermint, which is also why crushed candy canes work so well in brownies and cocoa.

B Chestnuts. If you roast them at home, cut an X in the shell first so steam can escape, or they can burst.

D Wine. Keep it at a low simmer. Let mulled wine boil and you cook off the alcohol and turn the spices bitter.

B Eggs. The "nog" part is less certain. It may come from "noggin," a small wooden cup, or an old word for strong ale.

B Nutmeg. Freshly grated nutmeg smells far better than the jarred kind, and a whole nutmeg keeps for years.

B Cloves. Score the fat in diamonds and stud each one with a clove before glazing.

C Corn husks. In southern Mexico and Central America, banana leaves are common too.

D Brandy or rum. The alcohol also helps preserve it, which is part of why fruitcakes have a reputation for lasting forever.

A Chocolate. It's a chocolate version of atole, thickened with corn masa and sweetened with piloncillo.

B A silver coin. Usually a silver sixpence, and whoever found it in their slice could expect good luck in the new year. Some families added small charms like a ring or a thimble too.

C Stollen. Dresden's stollen is the most famous, and the city bakes a giant one for its Stollen Festival each December.

A Milan. The dough rises slowly over a day or more, which is why a good panettone is so light and stringy when you pull it apart.

B Small sausages wrapped in bacon. In the US the name usually means little hot dogs baked in crescent dough, so ask before you promise them to a British guest.

D Bûche de Noël. It's a rolled sponge cake frosted to look like bark, a nod to the Yule log families once burned on the hearth.

A Pepparkakor. Lussekatter are the saffron buns for St. Lucia's Day, and kanelbullar are cinnamon rolls.

C Spiced dried fruit. The filling, called mincemeat, really did contain meat centuries ago. Many recipes still use beef suet.

C Salted, dried cod. It's soaked in water for a day or more, with the water changed often, to pull out the salt before cooking.

C Standing rib roast. "Prime" in the name doesn't mean it's USDA Prime grade. Most prime rib sold in stores is Choice.

B A party where friends gather to make tamales. Making tamales by the dozen takes hours, so in many Mexican-American families it's a group job, especially in Texas and the Southwest.

A A Russian ballerina. It honors Anna Pavlova, who toured both countries in the 1920s. Australia and New Zealand still argue about who invented it.

B Nuremberg. Nuremberg Lebkuchen has protected status in the EU, and the top grade, Elisenlebkuchen, is made with lots of nuts and very little flour.

D Coconut. Most recipes use coconut milk, cream of coconut, sweetened condensed milk, cinnamon and rum.

A Pay for the cake. The cake also hides a small figurine, and whoever finds that one gets to wear the paper crown.

C Queen Elizabeth I. It's the first documented case of gingerbread shaped like people, at the English court in the 1500s.

B Kringle. Danish immigrants brought it to Racine. A typical one is about 14 inches long and filled with fruit or nuts.

D 1997. The first ones had a jazzy gift wrap pattern in several colors. The cups turned red two years later, in 1999.

B Pepper nuts. There really is a pinch of black pepper in the dough, and the cookies are about the size of a nut.

A Honey. It's usually topped with colored sprinkles and shaped into a mound or a ring.

C A thin Christmas wafer. The wafer is called opłatek. Everyone breaks off a piece and trades good wishes for the year ahead.

C West Point. Cadets smuggled whiskey and rum into the barracks for Christmas Eve eggnog. About 20 were court-martialed, and Jefferson Davis took part but escaped trial.

A Claxton. Claxton Bakery ships fruitcakes all over the country. Its big rival, Collin Street Bakery, is in Corsicana, Texas.

D Williams Sonoma. It's dark chocolate, white chocolate and crushed peppermint candy. Plenty of stores sell their own versions now.

C The plume. It was added in 1921 partly so shoppers could tell real Kisses from knockoffs. The bell-ringing Kisses Christmas commercial first aired in 1989.

D 1985. They turned 40 in 2025, and since they're only sold for the holidays, fans tend to stock up.

B A whole almond. Whoever finds it wins a prize, often a marzipan pig. Some people hide it in their cheek so everyone else keeps eating.

D A live carp. Carp is the centerpiece of the Christmas Eve meal, and buying it live meant it was fresh. Kids sometimes name it, which makes dinner awkward.

B Tejocote. Tejocotes are a kind of Mexican hawthorn. The punch also usually has guava, sugarcane and cinnamon.

C Carved wooden molds. The pressed dough dries overnight so the design holds in the oven. Anise is the classic flavor.

C Georgia. Bob McCormack started making candy in Albany, Georgia, in 1919. His brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, patented a machine in 1957 that twisted and cut the canes automatically.

B Pat Nixon. Assistant chef Hans Raffert made a German A-frame house that year, and it became a White House holiday fixture.