Foods Mentioned in Christmas Songs That You've Probably Never Eaten

Today's food that you've sung about in Christmas carols but probably have never eaten or drank is wassail.

Here We Come A-Wassailing

Our wassail cup is made
Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer
Of the best barley

Although you probably haven't had a traditional cup of wassail, you've likely had something quite similar—mulled cider. The name for the drink came from a greeting, "Waes hael," meaning "Be well." It's what people would say while they held up a mug of spiced cider to toast to a good cider apple harvest for the following year. In Shakespeare's time, wassail was a mulled punch that was made by boiling mead (an alcoholic beverage brewed with honey) with crab apples.