Cold weather coming. Thinking about comfort food. Yum…pass this test on…

Condiments are often sneered at by non-locals. Of course, their food addictions are always classier.

This quiz reminded me of a beloved professor of mine. He was a great medieval scholar, but a bit of a klutz. One day, we were having lunch in a very nice hotel restaurant near the university. My prof was holding forth on an exciting new project of his. His lunch – a club sandwich – arrived. He kept talking, while struggling with a sticky mayonnaise packet – which let go, rather explosively, just as the department head strolled past our table. The trajectory was unfortunate and involved a rather nice silk tie. Academic life can be fraught.

Here are the answers to the quiz.

1. The oldest book in the Bible, Job, asks the rhetorical question, 'Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt?'
2. The Romans kept garum on their dinner tables. The main ingredient is fermented fish.
3. In Greece, try some tzatziki. To make it, you need to grate a cucumber.
4. Your bread's too dry? Spread some Romanian zacusca on it. It's made of peppers and aubergines.
5. Vinegar goes way back. The word vinegar comes from the French for 'sour wine'.
6. If you don't like vinegar on your chips, try mayonnaise. It's popular in Belgium, and it contains eggs.
7. Ketchup originated in China, but it was a popular homemade condiment in colonial North America. Back then, they didn't add tomatoes, because everybody knew those were poisonous.
8. You like things sweet? How sweet? Sugar cane is sweeter, but in 1747, German chemist Andreas Marggraf made the delicious stuff from beets.
9. In 1837, two chemists, John Lea and William Perrins, manufactured a new sauce that became wildly popular. Where was their chemist's shop? Worcester.
10. Do you suffer from 'Chinese food syndrome'? You may be allergic to the popular flavour enhancer known as MSG, or monosodium glutamate.

This quiz should make you want to write a food-related Guide Entry. First, though, it will probably send you to the fridge.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

07.11.16 Front Page

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