Category Archives: Puzzles

These Potatoes Shall Bear Your Name Quiz

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white truffles in winterNot 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.

  1. A salad named for its probable creator, a chef at a famous hotel in Tijuana, Mexico
  2. A cracker named for a tee-totaling Presbyterian minister and health advocate
  3. A dish that incorporates the colors of the Italian flag, named for the country’s Queen consort upon her visit to Naples
  4. An oyster and shrimp-sauce concoction named for the founder of New Orleans
  5. A lemonade and iced tea beverage named for the an athlete known as “The King”
  6. A spicy Szechuan dish involving peanuts, named for a palace guardian during the Qing dynasty
  7. An egg dish named (probably) for a New York stockbroker who stumbled into the Waldorf Hotel one morning requesting a hangover cure
  8. A flavor of ice cream named for a counterculture icon, a guitarist missing a finger on his right hand
  9. A bakery item named for a Holy Roman Emperor (his profile was once stamped on the top of each one)
  10. A brand of wine named for a French Benedictine monk, the maker of the first true champagne
  11. A raw beef dish named for an Italian painter who used a lot of beef-colored red paint in his work
  12. 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)

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Driving-while-Drooling Road Trip Puzzle

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Food-Road-SignIt’s Labor Day, everybody, your last chance for a summer road trip! And since (for me, at least), road trips go hand-in-hand with delicious local specialties, we’ve cooked up this little puzzle to test your knowledge of iconic dishes from specific cities. From the descriptions listed below, can you name the dish and the city with which it is most closely associated? Hint: if you’re in the continental U.S. right now, you could drive to any of these cities, though one would require a border crossing. A few of these are tricky, so if you manage to get ten out of twelve, consider yourself a road food champ.

  1. A crust pressed into a high-edged pan, filled with mozzarella cheese, chunky tomato sauce and toppings, and baked
  2. A French baguette stuffed with roast beef or fried seafood and dressed with lettuce, tomato, pickle and mayonnaise
  3. Shoestring fries topped with guacamole, sour cream, Cotija cheese and seared, chopped beef
  4. A particular kind of seafood, formed into a patty (often seasoned with Old Bay) and broiled, served with a lemon wedge and saltines
  5. A long roll (preferably an Amoroso roll) filled with thinly sliced beef and topped with provolone or Cheez Whiz
  6. An open-faced turkey and bacon sandwich, covered with Mornay cheese sauce and baked or broiled until brown
  7. Black-eyed peas mixed with diced vegetables in a vinegar-based sauce and usually served with tortilla chips
  8. French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and covered in brown gravy
  9. Buttered bread filled with roast pork, glazed ham, Swiss cheese and thinly sliced dill pickles, pressed and toasted in a plancha
  10. A cream-based soup prepared with potatoes, onion and a particular shellfish, but definitely no tomatoes
  11. Cubed red meat, deep-fried and served with toothpicks as utensils, with salt, hot sauce and crackers on the side
  12. A meat sauce spiced with cinnamon and allspice, served atop spaghetti and finished with finely shredded cheddar cheese, onions and kidney beans

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The Even-Movie-Characters-Gotta-Eat Puzzle

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ratatouille

I fell asleep during this movie, so I didn’t use any quotes from it.

We haven’t had a puzzle around these parts for some time now, and since this is the season of free outdoor movies in New York (enabling me to see Sharknado for the first time last week–divine), how about a little silver screen brainteaser to send us all into the weekend? Name the movie from which each of these finger-lickin’ food quotes is taken. Be warned: some of these are tough nuts to crack. (I didn’t use “Take the cannoli,” or “I’ll have what she’s having,” because I respect you more than that.) For bonus points, name the actor and character who uttered each line.

  1. Lunch is for wimps.
  2. Yes, these crackles are made of synthetic goose and these giblets come from artificial squab and even these apples look fake, but at least they’ve got stars on them. I guess my point is, we’ll eat tonight, and we’ll eat together.
  3. Sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone.
  4. But you know what does bother me? You know what makes me really sick to my stomach? It’s watching you stuff your face with those hotdogs! Nobody–I mean nobody–puts ketchup on a hot dog!
  5. And you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in Paris?
  6. Red wine with fish. Well, that should have told me something.
  7. What’s tiramisu? Some woman is gonna want me to do it to her, and I’m not going to know what it is.
  8. When I was a lad I ate four dozen eggs / Ev’ry morning to help me get large / And now that I’m grown I eat five dozen eggs / So I’m roughly the size of a barge!
  9. Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.
  10. Annie, there’s a big lobster behind the refrigerator. I can’t get it out. This thing’s heavy. Maybe if I put a little dish of butter sauce here with a nutcracker, it will run out the other side.

Don’t click Continue or scroll down until you’re ready for the answers.

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The Seduction of Spring: A Seed Catalog Puzzle

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Renee's GardenI woke up this morning feeling, in light of last weekend’s sidewalk thaw, that it might be a good morning for a run. Then I realized it was 14 degrees outside, and my enthusiasm waned considerably. I like winter (I do!), but this is the time of year when gardeners and cooks alike begin to itch for warm weather and the promise of fresh local produce.

Reading through seed catalogs on a morning like this feels illicit, full of sensual but very distant pleasures. This is at least in part due to the descriptions themselves, which are colorful, exuberant and (at least to my cold-addled brain) a touch erotic. Below, I’ve pulled some names and descriptions from the online seed catalog for Renee’s Garden. Can you guess what kind of vegetable is being described in each case? If you can identify all twelve, you’ve got it bad for spring.

1) Chelsea Prize: Elegantly slender, thin-skinned English with absolutely delicious, crispy sweet flesh. Easy to digest. Self-pollinating, vigorous vines.

2) Circus Circus: Our trio of cool colors includes creamy white, bright orange and a deep, dark purple with orange centers. All 3 well-bred Dutch varieties are sweet tasting, crisp and smooth.

3) Garden Babies: These babies have softly folded leaves, a lovely buttery texture and outstanding sweet taste. Ideal for containers, Garden Babies are slow bolting, heat tolerant, and make compact 6-inch heads at maturity.

4) Mandarin Cross: Golden-orange fruits with wonderful creamy texture and a mouthwatering sweet, even flavor finish These gorgeous fruit are borne in abundance and ripen like jewels on strong indeterminate vines.

5) Neon Glow: Color combo of vivid Magenta Sunset and Golden Sunrise stalks that contrast beautifully with green savoyed leaves for bright color and great eating. Eye-catching, productive, and striking in both vegetable and flowerbeds.

6) Profuma di Genova: Our fine Italian import is bred for pure bright flavor without minty/clove overtones, a compact shape and excellent disease resistance.

7) Raven: Dark green, smooth-skinned, cylindrical fruits are glossy and especially tender-fleshed. Delicious flavor picked as babies or at larger sizes. Abundant fruits are born high up on bush style plants that don’t sprawl.

8) Slenderette: The sleek rounded pods of gourmet-quality Slenderette are particularly tender, juicy, and sweet tasting with no tough tips or fiber. Vigorous, productive plants bear delectable, bright green, 5 inch pods early in the season.

9) Striped Chioggia: Italian heirloom with bright, candy-red exteriors & interior flesh beautifully marked in alternating rings of cherry red and white. Delicious sweet flavor & fine texture. Great tasting leafy tops.

10) Sugar Daddy: High yielding bush vines that load up early with double pods, plump and nutty-sweet, at each plant node. Hard to resist eating right on the spot.

11) Sunset: Beautiful heirloom mix yields huge, elongated tapering fruits with thick, meaty flesh that mature to rich red, yellow or orange. Perfect for snacking, salads, sauté, or roasting.

12) Wyatt’s Wonder: Gorgeous, globe-shaped, deeply lobed, rich orange giants. Developed especially for impressive size and beauty.

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Christmas Dinner, Puzzle-Style

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GrinchDinnerThe holiday season is a time for feasting on rich delicacies, but just what form those delicacies take varies widely depending on where you’re sitting down to dinner. Below are some traditional Christmas foods; can you use your knowledge of international cuisine and linguistics to match them to the country whence they came? (Note: the meals described might be served on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, according to each culture’s traditions.) If you can guess all ten, consider yourself worthy to pull up a seat at the table anywhere in the world.

  1. Roast pork, potatoes, red cabbage, gravy, Risalamande (rice pudding with cherry or strawberry sauce), Gløgg, high-alcohol beer
  2. Turkey stuffed with ground beef and peanuts and decorated with fresh slices of pineapple and cherries, marzipan, raisins, almonds, hot chocolate
  3. Hamborgarhryggur (ham steak), reindeer, ptarmigan, hangikjöt (smoked lamb)
  4. Svineribbe (seasoned pork belly), sauerkraut, redcurrant sauce, flatbread, shots of akevitt
  5. Roast turkey with stuffing, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly, roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, parsnips and carrots, plum pudding, mince pies, trifle with brandy butter
  6. Tamales, roast pork leg, torrejas (French toast soaked in dark sugar syrup, cinnamon and cloves), rompopo (eggnog)
  7. 12 dishes to honor the 12 apostles, which can include: stuffed carp, fried carp, herring in wine sauce, herring in cream sauce, fruit compote, pierogi, peas and carrots, sauerkraut, makowiec (poppy seed cake)
  8. Cold meats with cranberry sauce, barbecued prawns or lobster, pavlova (fruit on top of a baked meringue)
  9. Cured leg of pork, queso de bola, pasta, fruit salad, tsokolate (hot cocoa)
  10. Fried carp, Sacher torte, Lebkuchen and sterne (Christmas cookies)
santaAnd the countries…

a. Poland
b. Philippines
c. United Kingdom
d. Honduras
e. Australia
f. Austria
g. Denmark
h. Iceland
i. Peru
j. Norway

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Fried Green Tomatoes and a Food Film Puzzle

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fried green tomatoes

I never met a fried vegetable I didn't like.

Last weekend, during a visit to my parents’ house, my mom fried up some green tomatoes from my dad’s garden that Jason and I scarfed down like they were going out of style. In addition to being tart and crispy and delicious (her secret: use seasoned fish fry for the breading instead of humdrum cornmeal), the tomatoes reminded us of the movie of the same name, particularly the awesome scene in which Kathy Bates wraps herself in Saran Wrap.

But Fried Green Tomatoes was hardly the first or last film to feature a food item in the title. Have you been following Llalan’s beer and movie guidelines? If so, you’ll be able to identify the movies that contain the following quotes. Ten of the titles include something edible; the other two feature beverages.
  1. kathy bates“In telling the story of my father’s life, it’s impossible to separate fact from fiction, the man from the myth. The best I can do is to tell it the way he told me.”
  2. “You realize we’re all going to go to college as virgins. They probably have special dorms for people like us.”
  3. “Seems like the government’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one.”
  4. “Thanks for the compliment, but I know how I look. This is the way I look when I’m sober. It’s enough to make a person drink, wouldn’t you say?”
  5. “No, I can’t. My wife can always tell. She can smell it on my sweater.”
  6. “Apart from you, they’re the most stupid creatures on this planet. They don’t plot, they don’t scheme, and they are not organized.”
  7. “Isaac started the whole thing. He’s a boy preacher who came to this town three years ago. At nine-years-old back then, he had a charming way that appealed to all the kids and teens like us to follow him with his own teachings of the bible and of the Old Testament. But me and Sarah thought he was just plain weird.”
  8. “Centipede, I do not know whether to kill you or kiss you.”
  9. “There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening.”
  10. “This is not gonna work, Little Chef! I’m gonna lose it if we do this any more. We gotta, we gotta figure out something else. Something that doesn’t involve any biting, or nipping, or running up and down my body with your little rat feet.”
  11. “Think of your children pledging allegiance to the maple leaf. Mayonnaise on everything. Winter 11 months of the year. Anne Murray – all day, every day.”
  12. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And that’s all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up – I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.”
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Quotable Vegetables Puzzle

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vegetablequotesIn all the plant kingdom, no food inspires more words of wisdom than garlic. Or so it seemed, at least, as I went searching for questions for our latest food puzzle. Everyone from Cervantes (“Do not eat garlic or onions; for their smell will reveal that you are a peasant.”) to William Shatner (“Stop and smell the garlic! That’s all you have to do.”) has been willing to offer up an opinion on the humble bulb, and a few have even extended their commentary to include other vegetables. Can you identify which vegetable has been removed from each of the quotes below? (Hint: The answer to none of these is garlic, and no vegetable is repeated.)

  1. “_____ is nothing but cabbage with a college education.” –Mark Twain
  2. “The day is coming when a single _____, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” –Paul Cezanne
  3. “For every _____ full of weevils, God supplies a blind grocer.” –Arabic proverb
  4. “When General Lee took possession of Chambersburg on his way to Gettysburg, we happened to be a member of the Committee representing the town. Among the first things he demanded for his army was twenty-five barrels of _____.”—Editor of ‘The Guardian’ (1869)
  5. “We kids feared many things in those days – werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School – but they all paled in comparison with _____.” –Dave Barry
  6. “A man taking _____ from a woman will love her always.” –Sir Thomas Moore
  7. “My boy, the ‘quenelles de sole’ were splendid, but the _____ were poor. You should shake the pan gently, all the time, like this.” –Marie-Antoine Carême (Supposedly his last words, spoken to a favorite pupil, January 12, 1833)
  8. “A cooked _____ is like a cooked oyster: ruined.” –Andre Simon
  9. The ____ is “one of the earth’s monstrosities.” –Pliny
  10. “The _____ is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. ____ are deadly serious.” –Tom Robbins
  11. “Fatherhood is telling your daughter that Michael Jackson loves all his fans, but has special feelings for the ones who eat _____.” –Bill Cosby (1986)
  12. “My idea of heaven is a great big _____ and someone to share it with.” –Oprah Winfrey

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Puzzlum Botanica

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Planting season has arrived! Are you prepared to interpret the scientific names on those seed packets? Find out by matching the Latin-looking jumble of letters below to their more common names. Speakers of Romance languages and those who can remember some high school French (Merci, Mme. Dahlberg!) will have a leg up, but even so, there are a few tricky ones…

  1. Cynara scolymus
  2. Phaseolus vulgaris
  3. Brassica oleracea (Italica group)
  4. Beta vulgaris cicla
  5. Zea mays
  6. Solanum melongena
  7. Allium sativum
  8. Capsicum annuum
  9. Cucumis melo
  10. Arachis hypogaea
  11. Ipomoea batatas
  12. Lycopersicon esculentum

Common names

  • Hot pepper
  • Green Bean
  • Corn
  • Eggplant
  • Artichoke
  • Peanut
  • Tomato
  • Melon
  • Broccoli
  • Yam
  • Garlic
  • Chard

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