Food Quiz Number 32 For A Friday

PinkPolkaDot has posted Friday’s Food Quiz Number 32 on food24. Here are my answers.

1. What are Maraschino cherries?

Maraschino is a colourless liqueur made from the distillate of fermented marasca black cherries. It originated in Dalmatia and is much used in flavouring sweet dishes. Maraschino cherries are cherries that have been bleached, stoned, then steeped in a sugar syrup flavoured with maraschino liqueur. They are used in baking and as a garnish for cocktails.

2. Which bulb, that we use frequently, is a member of the Lily family?

Garlic, leeks, shallots and onions are members of the Allium genus.

3. What is wakame?

edible seaweed

4. Crackers, like salty cracks, are famous for serving with cheese because it does not interfere with the taste of cheese. What are these called in North America?

water biscuits

5. What is the difference between koeksisters and koesisters?

they are both a sweet braided doughnut

6. What is Marog?

I have no clue!

7. Leeks, Scallion and Shallot are different kinds of what?

onions

8. What is the difference between condensed milk and evaporated milk?

condensed milk is a thick, creamy sweetened canned milk whereas evaporated milk is treated milk for long life use

9. What is baba ganoush?

A mezze or vegetable side dish eaten throughout the Middle East. The smoky flesh of grilled aubergine with garlic, salt, lemon juice and good olive oil and tahini to make a paste known as poor man’s caviar. Widely eaten in the West, the dish started the whole tradition of vegetable caviars, while this name is an inspired translation of ‘spoilt old daddy’, which is its Lebanese meaning

10. Why is saffron so expensive?

Saffron is a spice consisting of the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus, a bulbous plant originating in the East, introduced into Spain by the Arabs, and later cultivated in Mediterranean regions and elsewhere in Europe. In France it has been grown by the safraniers in the Gâtinais and the Angoumois regions since the 16th Century. In England, the Essex town of Saffron Walden became the centre of saffron cultivation.

The spice, which takes the form of an orange-yellow powder or dried brownish filaments called strands or threads, has a pungent smell or bitter flavour. The best saffron comes from Valencia in Spain, but is also cultivated in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Kashmir and Morocco. Since between 70 000 and 80 000 stigmas are required to make 500g saffron, it is very expensive and various substitutes are used, for example safflower and turmeric.

Until the Middle Ages, saffron played an important role in cooking, magic and medicine. It was widely used before the Renaissance as a perfume and colouring agent, in baking and cookery, but had lost much of its former importance by the 19th century when Dumas noted that this flower was used to colour cakes, vermicelli and butter.

Saffron today has a privileged place in cookery, particularly in bouillabaisse, paella, the mourtayrol (a chicken soup) of Périgord, risotto, some recipes for mussels, white meats and tripe, as well as in Persian-influenced Indian dishes such as pilau and biryani. In desserts, it is used to flavour rice cooked in milk, semolina puddings and some brioches. Saffron should be blended into hot liquid, never fried quickly in very hot fat.

Sources used: Larousse Gastronomique, Recipe Encyclopaedia

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