LinkedIn Pinpoint #778 Answer & Analysis

Every clue is a food or dish whose name comes from a city, which makes the city-based naming pattern the precise match.

• Gouda is a cheese named after Gouda, a city in the Netherlands.
• Frankfurters are named after Frankfurt, the German city associated with the sausage.
• Peking Duck uses the older English name for Beijing, so the dish is named for a city.
• Brussels sprouts are named after Brussels, the capital city of Belgium.
• New York cheesecake is explicitly named for New York, referring to the city style most people recognize.

Because all five clues are foods tied directly to city names, “Foods named for cities!” fits every clue cleanly and more precisely than a broader category like place-named foods.

This set becomes solvable once you stop grouping the clues by cuisine and start examining the place words inside the names.

• Begin with Gouda and Frankfurters and ask whether the names point beyond the foods themselves.
• Notice that Frankfurt is a city, which suggests the puzzle may be about geographic naming rather than ingredients.
• Use Peking Duck as the turning point: Peking is also a city name, confirming that the clue link is not random.
• Check Brussels sprouts next. Brussels is unmistakably a city, so the pattern now looks consistent across multiple cuisines.
• Finish with New York Cheesecake, which makes the naming pattern obvious and broad enough to cover all five clues.

Every clue is a food whose name is derived from a city.

This puzzle starts in the food world, but the real connection comes from geography hidden inside the names.

• Gouda opens LinkedIn Pinpoint 778 with a clue that feels broad at first. Most solvers think of the cheese before the Dutch city, so the first clue suggests a culinary category but does not yet lock in a pattern. It quietly plants the idea that a place name may matter.
• Frankfurters is the clue that begins to narrow the search. Once you connect the word to Frankfurt, it becomes clear that the puzzle may not be about cheese, meat, or side dishes at all. Instead, it hints that these foods may share a naming origin tied to geography.
• Peking Duck is the turning point. Unlike Gouda, where the city connection can be missed, this clue makes the place element much more visible. Peking, an older English form of Beijing, strongly confirms that the puzzle is grouping foods by the cities they are named after, not by cuisine or ingredients.
• Brussels sprouts acts as a strong confirmation. Brussels is instantly recognizable as a city, so by this stage the pattern becomes very hard to ignore. The clue also helps show that the set is broad, since the foods include vegetables, meats, cheeses, and desserts rather than one food type.
• New York Cheesecake finishes the set with the clearest modern example. Even if someone hesitated on Peking or Gouda, this clue makes the place-based naming scheme unmistakable. It confirms that the connection is not just famous foods, but foods whose names come from specific cities.

The full clue set—Gouda, Frankfurters, Peking Duck, Brussels sprouts, and New York Cheesecake—fits “Foods named for cities!” perfectly, because each item is identified by a city-based name and no broader category explains all five as precisely.