Punjab's winter foods are built around fat, gur and heat, and they are eaten because a person working outdoors in January in an unheated house needs the calories.
Pinni is wheat flour roasted in ghee with gur, nuts, gum arabic and seeds, rolled into balls and eaten one at a time through the winter. Panjeeri is the same idea unrolled, and is given to women after childbirth.
Gur is eaten plain, in tea, and in rab and shakkar. Til, sesame, is eaten at Lohri. Sarson da saag with makki di roti and white butter is the winter meal.
Kadhi with pakoras, rajma with rice, and chole are the other staples and are eaten across the year.
None of this survives the transition to a household where nobody does physical work, which is most Punjabi households now, and Punjab's diabetes and cardiac disease figures reflect a diet that has outlived the labour it was built for.
Pinni is wheat flour roasted in ghee with gur, dry fruit and gond, pressed into balls, made in quantity in the cold months and kept.
The winter foods are built the same way: saag, makki di roti, gur, sesame, groundnut, and the panjiri given to women after childbirth.
The logic is heat and keeping. Everything on the list is dense, is made in bulk, and lasts without refrigeration, which is what a Punjabi winter kitchen was organised around.