Paraphernalia was a spelling challenge, hence the link to wordnik for both spelling and meaning.
Every year during the Christmas season, bakers in German speaking countries as well as other central European lands produce many tens of thousands of sweet bread "little people" as shown in the image below. They are traditional gifts for St. Nicklas (December 6) or St. Martin (November 11) and are typically available from late October to Christmas or so.
If you like sweet bread, get one or two of these warm out of the oven, and savor the arts of baking of old Europe.
There is a twist, which is the reason for the title of this post.
You can see the little guy below has a pipe. The pipe is made out of clay and backed with the doughman.
What's more, the pipe is fully functional, about 2.5 to 3 inches long (since the image has no dimensions attached).
This traditional pastry with the functional pipe does not seem to cause any uproar in the anti-smoking community or with anti-drug warriors.
I have to ask you, my readers, can you buy this pastry in the U.S.? In all my years, I never saw it.
And the second question would be how long could you sell this in California before anti-tobacco groups try to ban them and medical pot dispensaries would start giving away complimentary doughboys during end of the year sales?
Let me know.
Image by Micha L. Rieser licenced under Creative Commons, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stutenkerl
[Update 2014-11-5] Regular and frequent trips to every bakery in the county have resulted in more data on variants of decoration. Some bakeries have two versions, one with a pipe, the other plain - with a few extra raisins.
A new variant seen first this year has a lollipop instead of the traditional pipe.
[Update 2015-10-23] Saw this year's and noticed the local bakery chain only has the lollipop version. Are we seeing a lasting change and if so, why?
Lollipops are most certainly cheaper and represent a second treat.
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