Not so long ago, I was listening to the audio book of White Truffles in Winter by N.M. Kelby. It’s kind of a perfect book for audio, since everything in it is so sensuous and tumultuous and very, very French. Anyway, one of the central conflicts is between the great French chef Escoffier and his wife, Delphine, who spends a lot of years fuming in a French kind of way while her husband sleeps with Sarah Bernhardt and names dishes after her and generally acts like a jerk. And after much eating and cigarette smoking and a couple wars, the dramatic climax hovers around the question of will he or won’t he name a dish after Delphine? But, no joke, it must be pretty awesome to have a food named in your honor, so I’ve cooked up this little quiz about eponymous foods. You need only name the food item, not the person, though I’ll put both in the answers. This is a tricky one, guys, so if you can get eight or more, feel free to name whatever food you want after yourself.
- A salad named for its probable creator, a chef at a famous hotel in Tijuana, Mexico
- A cracker named for a tee-totaling Presbyterian minister and health advocate
- A dish that incorporates the colors of the Italian flag, named for the country’s Queen consort upon her visit to Naples
- An oyster and shrimp-sauce concoction named for the founder of New Orleans
- A lemonade and iced tea beverage named for the an athlete known as “The King”
- A spicy Szechuan dish involving peanuts, named for a palace guardian during the Qing dynasty
- An egg dish named (probably) for a New York stockbroker who stumbled into the Waldorf Hotel one morning requesting a hangover cure
- A flavor of ice cream named for a counterculture icon, a guitarist missing a finger on his right hand
- A bakery item named for a Holy Roman Emperor (his profile was once stamped on the top of each one)
- A brand of wine named for a French Benedictine monk, the maker of the first true champagne
- A raw beef dish named for an Italian painter who used a lot of beef-colored red paint in his work
- A candy bar probably named for a famous baseball player (though the candy company said it was named for a president’s daughter to avoid being sued by said baseball player)
Don’t scroll down or click Continue until you’re ready for the answers…
- Caesar salad (Caesar Cardini)
- Graham cracker (Sylvester Graham)
- Pizza Margherita (Queen Margherita of Savoy)
- Oysters Bienville (Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville)
- Arnold Palmer (Arnold Palmer)
- Kung Pao chicken (Ding Baozhen, whose official title was Gōng Bǎo)
- Eggs Benedict (Lemuel Benedict)
- Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, Jerry Garcia
- Kaiser rolls (Frederick III)
- Dom Pérignon (Dom Pérignon)
- Carpaccio (Vittore Carpaccio)
- Baby Ruth (Babe Ruth, and probably not Ruth Cleveland)