It's Still Tasting a Lot Like Christmas Quiz

Of course, you can find these sweet dried-fruit puddings in many places around the world (especially in countries that are or were part of the British Commonwealth), but Great Britain is their home. Despite the name, they do not contain plums - that was an old word used for what we now call raisins. They can be cooked and eaten at any time of the year, but for Christmas the preparation is often an annual tradition involving everyone having a stir of the mixture (which may include hidden items to be discovered by lucky diners, such as a coin or small metal token) as it is prepared for its first lengthy steaming.

While the pudding can be prepared and eaten on the same day, it is common to let it stand for a period of several weeks, to allow the flavours of the spices to blend. (And, if the recipe includes alcohol, for that taste to permeate pudding.) It then just needs to be reheated before serving. When the whole pudding is being presented at the table for service, it is usually decorated, possibly with a sprig of mistletoe (real or plastic) or some other Christmas-themed flourish.

At the table, the pudding may be doused in brandy and set alight before slicing it. After slicing, it may be presented with ice cream or custard (plain vanilla, or flavoured with a fruit or alcohol). Or both. My personal preference is hard sauce and vanilla ice cream. Hard sauce is made by creaming butter and sugar with generous amounts of alcohol such as brandy, rum or sherry.

Australia is not the only place where you will find pavlova being featured at Christmas - neighbouring New Zealand also lays claim to the pav. It is usually a circular (rather than ring-shaped as in the image) meringue mixture, baked to have a crispy outer layer while remaining fluffy inside. It is topped with a generous layer of whipped cream.

The intense sweetness of the meringue is set off by the selection of fruit toppings that provide a bit of fruit acid as well as sweetness. As Christmas is in the summer, seasonal fruits include strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and kiwi fruit. When you add a generous amount of passionfruit pulp and a few decorative sprigs of mint, you have a riot of delicious colour for the festive table.

These spiced biscuits are common in the northern part of Europe; in Dutch they are called speculaas, in French spéculoos, and in German spekulatius. These names refer to the mixture of spices that provides their flavour, which includes cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamon and ginger. They are made in traditional shapes, some of which are shown in the image, and this has led to them also being called windmill cookies - especially when they are being made during other seasons than around Christmas.

These cookies are actually associated with the feast of St Nicholas (December 5-6), when tradition has children placing their shoes by the chimney as they go to bed, hoping to waken in the morning to find them filled with spekulaas if they are deemed to have been good.

Panettone is a sweet yeast bread, with candied fruits, that originated in Milan - and has spread around the world. It is usually baked in a deep cylindrical shape shown here, although other shapes such as a hexagon or octagon are sometimes used. They all have a domed top which bulges outwards from the vertical sides.

Preparation is lengthy, as the dough needs to be cured and proofed for several days to give the light fluffy texture expected in the finished product. The candied fruits include orange, citron and orange and lemon zest; raisins are also usually added just before baking (so that they do not absorb too much moisture). The finished panettone may be glazed, iced, or dusted with sugar.

Æbleskiver (a name meaning apple slices in Danish) are fried balls of sweet dough, which do not actually contain apple these days, although a bit of apple or applesauce was originally placed in their centre. They are cooked on the stovetop, in a special pan with circular depressions in which some oil is placed before the batter, which includes a leavening agent such as yeast or baking powder, is added. They are turned as they cook and puff, to produce a spherical shape.

The batter is not sweet, although it may include a bit some flavouring agents such as vanilla or other spices. They are very sweet as served, being traditionally dipped in a sweet fruit jam and dusted with powdered sugar. Alternatively, they can be served like pancakes, with butter and maple syrup (or treacle), with or without whipped cream. For a "healthy" version, you can replace the jam with some fresh fruit - but when you add the sugar or whipped cream, and given that they were fried in the first place, you may be deluding yourself a bit.

These are the Ukrainian version of the filled dumplings found in many eastern and southern European cuisines, with names that include variants on the two Russian names, pirogi and vereniki. The former group of names basically mean pie; the latter refer to the way they are prepared, by boiling.

Varenyky are one of Ukraine's national dishes, commonly served for all celebrations, and especially at Christmas. They may be savoury or sweet. A savoury filling might be cheese and onion, potato and mushrooms, meat and cabbage - the options are endless, really. They are usually served topped with sour cream, and possibly other garnishes. A sweet varenyky may have a fruit filling, and the sour cream dollop is likely to be sweetened.

Ukraine is one of the many eastern European countries with a tradition of a twelve-dish supper served on Christmas Eve. The dishes are selected to have religious significance, so there are many common aspects, but also regional variation. In Ukraine, varenyky with a poppy seed filling are served as a symbol of prosperity in the year to come.

As mentioned in the previous question, many European countries have traditional meals that are served around Christmas, and this is the Scandinavian version: 'julbord' literally means Christmas table. Sweden is a bit different in having the meal presented as a smörgåsbord (or buffet style) rather than in multiple courses, as is common in Norway and Denmark. Participants serve themselves, one course at a time. There is a traditional pattern, starting with some fish courses (pickled, then cold, then hot), then cold meats, followed by a range of hot dishes, and finishing with a cheese course and then a dessert course. The dessert course traditionally includes rice pudding, with an almond hidden in it that will bring good luck to the finder.

The image shows a domestic julbord, with the following dishes from which to choose (moving roughly from left to right): a range of breads, boiled sausage, Christmas ham, boiled potatoes, potatoes gratiné, Janssons frestelse (potato, onion and sprats casserole), meatballs, brown cabbage, boiled red cabbage, prinskorf (fried mini-sausages served with mustard), Västerbottenpaj (cheese pie), creamy beetroot salad, pickled beetroot, a range of cheeses, pea and apple salad with creamy dressing, liver paste, carrot and cabbage salad, several types of pickled herrings, egg halves with creamy roe topping, gravlax and caviar, and a (non-traditional) Ethiopian stew served with white bread.

This sweet nougat treat is eaten as a dessert food in Spain, Portugal and Italy - and a number of places around the world where they spread their cuisine during colonial times. I used the Spanish name, the others are similar.

Turrón is made from honey, sugar and egg white, into which almonds (or another type of nut, depending on the region) have been generously added before it is set into a rectangular or circular slab. The balance of ingredients can produce a hard or soft product. The Alicante variant is chock full of almonds, so the turrón is a hard block - so hard it can be hard to break into pieces! the Xixona variety, on the other hand, adds oil and crushes the almonds to a paste, producing a much softer and crumbly texture. The image looks to me as if it is showing a sample of each type.

This baked rice cake from the Philippines (and the eastern parts of nearby Indonesia) is eaten either for breakfast or as a snack, especially during the Christmas season. It is a tradition to eat them after the night masses attended on nine nights in the leadup to Christmas, so stalls selling them get set up near the larger churches.

Preparation traditionally starts with letting glutinous rice ferment overnight before it is ground into a powder and combined with eggs and milk. This mixture is cooked in a shallow bowl lined with a banana leaf; a topping of cheese and slices of salted egg is added, and a final banana leaf placed on top. The bowl is placed on coals to cook, and a lid on top contains more hot coals, so the cake is cooked from both top and bottom.

Modern cooks using metal pans and ovens lose the smoky taste of the coals cooking, but as long as they keep the banana leaves that important component is preserved. The one in the image is quite large - they are commonly closer in size to a cupcake, so that the banana leaves can securely line the pan.

Specifically, KFC found themselves a niche which they have successfully exploited in recent years. It started in 1970, when the manager of the first KFC in Japan decided to promote the Colonel's bucket as a party dish that could replace more traditional turkey with which the Japanese were familiar from American influences. Since there was no other particular Japanese tradition for celebrating Christmas, this one went well, and expanded nationwide in 1974. Fifty years later, Christmas Eve sales produce almost a twentieth of the company's annual sales.