The document is a food quiz from 2017 with 25 questions and answers about various food-related topics. Some key details:
- The prelims score will be doubled for the finals
- Questions 20-24 are connected by a theme
- The answers provided are brief but cover a variety of food topics from around the world such as olives, comfort food, sausages, and more.
2. • 25 questions, answer in writing.
• If a question has more than one part, each
part is worth 1 point.
• Prelims score x2 will carry over into the finals.
• The answers to questions 20-24 are connected
by a theme.
• All the best!
3. • 1) Not surprisingly, what was the first food
item that was put on an Indian stamp, exactly
50 years ago?
6. • 2) The Arabic word for “a round object that has
an opening” is Taqia. It is the same word that
gives us the Hindi/Urdu word for a pillow as
originally pillows were round with an opening.
• The French borrowed this word, and an item of
apparel originally introduced to prevent drops of
sweat falling into the food was given a name
derived from this word.
• What item of apparel?
9. • 3) The term has been traced back at least to 1966, when
the Palm Beach Post used it in a story: “Adults, when under
severe emotional stress, turn to what could be called
‘___1___ __2__’: __2__ associated with the security of
childhood, like a mother’s poached egg or famous chicken
soup. They are believed to be a great coping mechanism for
rapidly soothing negative feelings.”
In India, Khichdi with Ghee and other homemade mother’s
specialities like upma, idly, dosa, misal pav, kachori, samosa
etc would fall in this category.
What term?
12. • 4) An extract from X’s 1975 book The Philosophy of X:
• “What’s great about this country is that America started
the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially
the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and
see a ____ ad, and you know that the President drinks
____, Liz Taylor drinks ____, and just think, you can drink
____, too. A ____ is a ____, and no amount of money can
get you a better ____ than the one the bum on the corner
is drinking. All the ____s are the same and all the ____s are
good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum
knows it, and you know it.”
• Identify X, and fill in the blanks with something depicted by
X many times over the course of his life.
15. • 5) Hand-picking is considered the best way to
harvest these, but it is an expensive & time
consuming process. The ripeness is determined
by its colour – green to light brown, to a vibrant
red and purple, to the deepest, darkest black.
• Most packed ones available in stores are picked
green, then pumped up with oxygen to turn them
black. Their shade then gets fixed with a black
chemical compound called ferrous gluconate.
• What are we talking about?
18. • 6) Moti Mahal was started by KL Gujral in Delhi.
He started two things at his restaurant to keep his
customers engaged.
• One concept was to ensure everyone understood
that while the food was greasy, it was being
cooked hygienically. The other was to ensure that
his restaurant served as a place for family
entertainment.
• Both concepts are still followed in restaurants
across India. What concepts?
21. • 7) These preserved egg delicacies are known in China by
many names. Food historians and contemporary cooks tell
us that they take anywhere between 45-100 days to make.
• The eggs are coated with a claylike mixture of lime, ashes
and salt, then buried in shallow earth for about 100 days.
The lime “petrifies” the eggs: makes the whites firm,
gelatinous and amber-coloured; the yolks, spinach-green
and cheeselike. The English names, although romantic and
exaggerated, describe their antique appearance.
• Give us any one of the several names that they are
popularly known by.
24. • Ancient eggs, century eggs, hundred year-
eggs, Ming Dynasty eggs, or thousand-year
eggs, all of which signify the antiquity of the
eggs.
25. • 8) The Imperial on Janpath in New Delhi has a
well known bar where Jawaharlal Nehru,
Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah and
Lord Mountbatten met several times. The
topic of discussion has given this bar a special
place in history.
• What did they meet for? For an extra point,
tell us the name of the bar.
27. • It was this hotel and the bar where Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten
met to discuss the Partition of India (birth of
Pakistan).
• The bar is called Patiala Peg.
28. • 9) The book (by Venky Iyer)
tells the story of a daring
and unusual
entrepreneurial venture.
Inspired by his love for
_______, one man made it
his mission to build,
promote, transform and
establish a humble street
snack into a national brand.
Complete the name of the
book and give us the name
of the venture?
31. • 10) In 2007, Hotel Crown Plaza in Gurgaon
opened India’s first churrascaria restaurant,
Wildfire. Since then, churrascarias have opened
in other cities like Mumbai, Chennai &
Bangalore.
• The Chennai ones had to briefly shut down
earlier this year, thanks to a story that was in the
national news.
• What does the word “churrascaria” mean, and
why did the restaurants in Chennai pause?
33. • Churrascaria is the Portugese word for
Barbeque.
• Their chief attraction is Cupim – which is cattle
hump meat. The jallikattu agitation scared
the Chennai churrascarias.
34. • 11) The erroneous name was given to this dish in Victorian
times, when raisins were referred to as ______. Until the
16th century, it was a semi-liquid porridge of fruit and
grains. It could perhaps trace its origins to the Roman
pottage (a meat and vegetable concoction).
• It was largely eaten as a ritualistic food around the winter
solstice, signifying a hope for prosperity and regeneration
of the earth after a cold winter in Europe. It was
traditionally made with enough batter for 13 portions and
was stirred clockwise by every member of the household,
while making a secret wish. The modern day versions have
taken the misnomer literally and add ______ to this food
item.
• What food item?
37. • 12) A certain Mr Ayyakkannu started this
restaurant, famous for supposedly inventing fish
head curry, in 1969. Apparently, like KFC, the
founder will not part with the secret of the
masala. Early each morning, a member of the
family arrives at the kitchen and mixes the masala
for the day. The line cooks never have any idea of
what it contains!
What Singapore joint that got its name as their
patrons would praise the founder as _____
(“pearl” in Tamil) after eating the fish head curry?
43. • 14) In much of Europe, and France in particular, food preparation
outside aristocratic households was done by various guilds, who
had a monopoly on certain recipes. One preparation was a
"restorative," highly flavored and rich soups or stews. Their original
purpose was to restore strength and vigor.
• So during the reign of King Henri IV there were guilds for rôtisseurs
who cooked main cuts of meat, vinaigriers, who made sauces,
pâtissiers, who cooked pies and poultry, tamisiers who baked bread,
and the like. Taverns and inns typically served food prepared by
these guilds. Food was not the main focus of these establishments:
drinking and a place to sleep was. Food was an afterthought, and
there was a very limited selection. Food was prepared by the guilds
and brought in. Diners would share a common table and eat family
style.
What word that now has taken a different meaning comes from the
original restorative preparation of soups & stews?
46. • 15) These three single-syllable words are
homophones of each other, and all have uses in
the world of food and/or agriculture.
• __1__ing is one of the several effects produced
when heat is applied to animal flesh, __2__fish is
a subfamily of the Mackerel family of fishes
commonly found in the Indian Ocean, and __3__
is an adjective used to describe dry or withered
plants. Fill in all three blanks, in order.
49. • 16) Perhaps due to its parent company’s legal team not being as powerful
as that of Coke or Pepsi, what soft drink, invented in 1885 (a year before
Coke was invented, and 13 years before Pepsi) has spawned dozens of
imitators, of which some are seen here?
52. • 17) Unlike in India, where it can refer to both a
midday meal and its container, this six-letter
word is used in Scotland to describe a confection
composed of crushed biscuits and raisins covered
in chocolate.
• A version of this confection, minus the raisins,
was once marketed by Cadbury’s India, no doubt
causing confusion around lunchtime across the
country (although the product has long been
discontinued in India). What word?
55. • 18) Post-WWI, these food products
underwent a drastic reduction in quality, with
manufacturers often mixing together meat
scraps and cereal filler, and using much more
water in their recipes than before. This led to
an increased sizzle and sputter when these
items were cooked, sometimes accompanied
by small explosions as they burst open.
• This led to what nickname for these items?
57. • This is why cheap sausages are called bangers.
58. • 19) Aside from the dozens of brands intended
for human consumption that it owns, the
Mars company also owns the world’s two
largest pet food brands, one intended for dogs
and the other for cats, which were introduced
in India in 2009, with Brett Lee as the brand
ambassador. Name both.
62. • 20) The Swedish word for “a table of buttered
bread” became well-known in the English-
speaking world after the 1939 New York
World’s Fair, when a wide array of dishes were
provided for customers at the Swedish
Pavilion’s Three Crowns Restaurant. What
word?
65. • 21) The idea for this story, published in 1953 as part of a
collection of short stories titled Someone Like You, was
supposedly suggested to the author by his good friend Ian
Fleming. In a letter to the author, Fleming wrote: “Why
don't you have someone murder their husband with a
frozen ___ __ ____, which she then roasts and serves to the
detectives who come to investigate the murder?”
• The story has been filmed twice – once as an episode of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and once as part of a television
anthology series titled Tales of the Unexpected (all episodes
of which were based on stories by the same author). Fill in
the blanks OR name the story, and identify the author.
67. • Lamb to the Slaughter (in which housewife
Mary Maloney murders her husband with a
frozen leg of lamb) by Roald Dahl.
68. • 22) The origin of the name of this confectionery
item is disputed. In Europe, the most popular
story is that it is derived from the Italian for
“bread of March”, indicating the month in which
it was most often consumed.
• However, in the Arabic world, where an almost
identical recipe was also very popular, it is said to
be derived from the Persian word for “boundary
guardian”.
• Name this sweetmeat, traditionally made with
almond flour.
70. • Marzipan, which comes from either the Italian
“marzapane” or the Persian “marzban”.
71. • 23) Protein poisoning is a rare form of acute malnutrition caused by a
complete absence of fat (and associated vitamins A, D, E and K) in a
person’s diet. The condition is also known as ______ starvation, since it
was first noted in North American Indian tribes as a consequence of eating
the meat of the Sylvilagus floridanus, or wild ______ (very rich in protein
but containing just 8% fat, compared to 32% fat on average in beef and
pork).
• Arctic explorer Vihjalmur Stefansson wrote: “The groups that depend on
the blubber animals are the most fortunate in the hunting way of life, for
they never suffer from fat-hunger. This trouble is worst among those forest
Indians who depend at times on ______, the leanest animal in the North.
______ eaters, if they have no fat from another source—beaver, moose,
fish—will develop diarrhea in about a week, with headache, lassitude and
vague discomfort. If there are enough ______, the people eat till their
stomachs are distended; but no matter how much they eat they feel
unsatisfied.”
• Fill in the blanks.
74. • 24) On the left are the several images considered by a
particular website to replace something that had been
in use since 2010, and which had come to be
associated with trolls and spammers. On the right is
what they finally chose on March 31st of this year.
What did the image on the right replace?
80. Foods traditionally eaten at Easter
celebrations around the world
• Smörgåsbords of herring, salmon, potatoes, eggs, and
other kinds of food are often laid out at Easter time in
Nordic countries.
• Roast lamb is a common Easter lunch in Great Britain,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and so on.
• Marzipan fruits and cakes are familiar Easter Sunday sights
in Denmark, Norway, England and Malta.
• And of course chocolate Easter bunnies and Easter eggs are
common to celebrations the world over.