This year, we’re feasting our way around the globe. Every question is a Christmas dish from somewhere in the world – don’t worry, it’s a multiple choice options to help you on your culinary travels (and to throw you off, of course). Good luck – and no googling under the table.
By Gay Pirrie-Weir
1 – Romovay Baba
(a) Gypsy baptismal cake
(b) Russian Christmas rum baba
(c) Unacknowledged papal offspring
2 – Porkkanalaatikka
(a) Spicy mild hogget curry
(b) Finnish carrot and pearl barley pudding
(c) Skandinavian pork cooked in curdled milk
3 – Saganaki
(a) Favourite dish for retiree cruisers
(b) Greek fried hard cheese with lemon
(c) Japanese stuffed lotus blossoms
4 – Julskinka
(a) A Christmas dish made in July with seasonal fruits, and frozen at -7 for a minimum of five months – bring to room temperature before serving
(b) Festive feast to follow deviant sexual practices
(c) Swedish Christmas ham
5 – Rosenkohl
(a) Roses grown in the vicinity of mines, having long-lasting qualities.
(b) German Brussels sprouts
(c) Red chalky eye shadow to wear with currently-fashionable iron-on slugs for eyebrows.
6 – Falsomagra
(a) Long-cooked long grain rice used by vegan anglers.
(b) A US underground movement for bad spellers
(c) Sicilian garlicky stuffed beef
7 – Banketletter
(a) Dutch pastry initials for St Nicholas’ feast table place cards
(b) A letter from an alien bank
(c) A billydoo left surreptitiously on a bench seat in a restaurant.
8 – Polvorones Sevillanos
(a) Christmas almond shortbread
(b) Pulped oranges
(c) VERY LARGE pulped oranges
9 – Jug-Jug
(a) A celebratory cocktail made in more than one shaker, and incorporated
(b) Caribbean haggis
(c) A mixture of canary, sack and malmsey created for Sir Toby Belch
10 – Sopaipillas
(a) Bakers’ butterfly wings, to give Angel Cakes the appearance of flight (no harm to lepidoptera is caused by this dish.)
(b) New Mexican sweet puffs served with honey and pico de gallo
(c) protectors to ensure columns used in layered wedding cakes do not sink into the tier below.
11 – The Rarest Dish in All the Land
(a) Kobe beef, Almas Beluga caviar and black truffle brie, served on a gold flake-infused corn tortilla
(b) A boar’s head
(c) The way Kate Nutbeam eats steak.
12 – Shred pies
(a) A savoury coconut pudding, with a breakfast wheaten topping.
(b) Mince pies with meat
(c) Seville orange marmalade baked in a rough-puff pastry case.
13 – Marzipan
(a) Originating from “bread’ in ancient Romance languages, it started life in Italy.
(b) A sweetmeat long associated with Lubeck in Germany.
(c) one of those very expensive, use-it-once gadgets you buy after watching TV cookery shows, this is the best way to cook a hare, but only in March!
14 – Lambswool
(a) Spun sugar, served cold with sprinkled stiff-peak meringue, representing heavenly wool collection.
(b) A traditional winter drink.
(c) Also known as Tweed Squares, these are chocolate-flecked vanilla cakes.
15 – Christmas Pie
(a) Originally the final resting place of four and twenty young swans, upped in secret.
(b) Invented by Little Jack Horner of Somerset to hide the stolen deeds to Mells.
(c) Loved by fledgeling Masterchefs, a hodgepodge of EVERYTHING left over from the festive table !Warning, highly indigestible!
16 – The Ceremony of the Cheese
(a) Almost 330 year-old Christmas tradition for Chelsea Pensioners.
(b) Performed annually in Somerset, the unwashed harness of the farm’s largest Clydesdale is dragged through cheese curds before squid ink is added.
(c) A toadying pre-Christmas holiday event in the corporate world, when gifts are given to the boss.
17 – Punch
(a) What happens when festive revelry gets out of hand.
(b) A five-ingredient alcoholic festive drink.
(c) What Judy might do with her husband, had the traditional tables been turned.
18 – American Boiled Dinner
(a) The greatest American dish of all time, bigly boiled in a magagigantic pot, served in a very long red tie and craved by every person everywhere, living or dead.
(b) Bacon, chicken and vegetables.
(c) Traditionally served in a gleaming Airstream, and known as “the diner’s dinner” this stew is served with live music from the honkytonk.
19 – Hans Christian Andersen Christmas sandwich
(a) A sandwich with no filling.
(b) A Christmas paté made with wild swans, mermaid tail, duck liver and peas, topped by a marzipan thumb balancing an ice cube.
(c) crisp bacon, liver paté, jellied beef consomme and tomato, on rye bread.
20 – Cockentrice
(a) Tudor feast of half a pig sewn to half a capon. Also known as Cockatrice (a dragon with the head of a cockerel and served at Hogwarts).
(b) A punishment, speedily administered, earnestly promoted by victims, and involving an old-fashioned bacon slicer.
(c) Crocodile, cooked three ways – a Louisiana delicacy traditionally served on Boxing Day
ANSWERS:
1b, 2b, 3b, 4c, 5b, 6c, 7a, 8a, 9b, 10b, 11b*, 12b, 13b, 14b, 15b, 16a, 17b, 18b, 19c, 20a
*Ed’s note on no.11:
I was CONVINCED that the answer for no.11 should be A: after all, Kobe beef is the rarest in the world yes? So I double-checked with Gay, who explained:
‘The boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the rarest dish in all the land,
Which, thus bedecked with a gay garland,
Let us servire cantico.’
The boars head carol, published in 1521 in Wynkyn de Worde’s Christmasse Carolles. Sometimes, that word is given as bravest, but most versions use rarest. Answer A is the most expensive dish ever served.
