162 Fun Facts About Food & Drink

What Japanese word refers to thinly sliced raw fish served on its own?

Sashimi means 'pierced flesh' in Japanese, and unlike sushi, which is defined by vinegared rice rather than raw fish, it is always served on its own.

Which spice gives curry powder its distinctive yellow color?

Turmeric's yellow pigment, curcumin, is also what gives American yellow mustard its bright colour.

What type of pasta is shaped like small ear-shaped discs?

Orecchiette literally means 'little ears' in Italian. This pasta shape originates from the Puglia region of southern Italy and is traditionally served with broccoli rabe.

Which espresso drink is topped with just a small spot of milk foam?

Macchiato means 'stained' or 'spotted' in Italian: the espresso is marked with only a spot of milk, so it stays far stronger than a cortado.

What is miso, the ingredient that gives Japanese miso soup its name?

Miso is a fermented soybean paste made with salt and koji, and during Japan's Sengoku wars it was prized as military rations.

Which French cooking term means to cook food slowly in its own fat?

Confit is a French cooking technique where food, traditionally duck or goose, is cooked slowly in its own fat at a low temperature. The word comes from the French verb confire, meaning to preserve.

What grain is used to make traditional Italian risotto?

Arborio rice is named after a town in Piedmont's Po Valley, and as it is stirred its starch rubs off, making risotto creamy with no cream added.

Which nut is the primary ingredient in marzipan?

Almonds and sugar make marzipan, and its cheaper cousin, persipan, swaps the almonds for apricot or peach kernels.

What is the name of the Korean side dish of fermented vegetables, most commonly napa cabbage?

Kimchi is so central to Korean meals that scientists made a special space kimchi for Yi So-yeon, the first South Korean in space, in 2008.

Which cheese is traditionally used in a classic Greek salad?

Feta comes from the Italian fetta, 'slice', probably because the cheese was cut into slices to pack it into barrels.

Champagne belongs to which broad category of drink?

Sparkling wine made only in France's Champagne region gets its fizz from a second fermentation in the bottle.

Which herb is the key ingredient in traditional pesto alla Genovese?

Basil is pounded with garlic and pine nuts in a marble mortar, which is how pesto got its name, from the Genoese pestâ, 'to pound'.

What does the Italian term 'al dente' mean when cooking pasta?

Al dente means 'to the tooth', pasta cooked firm to the bite, and it has a lower glycemic index than pasta cooked soft.

Which spirit is the base of a classic Margarita cocktail?

Tequila margaritas went frozen in 1971, when Dallas restaurateur Mariano Martinez rigged a used ice cream machine; the Smithsonian now holds it.

What is the primary ingredient in hummus?

Hummus is simply Arabic for 'chickpeas', and Lebanon and Israel traded the record for the biggest plate of it until Lebanon's 10,452 kg dish in 2010.

What is the name of the Japanese stock made from kelp and dried bonito flakes?

Dashi is the foundational stock of Japanese cuisine, typically made by simmering kombu (kelp) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). It forms the base of miso soup, ramen broth, and many sauces.

Which vegetable is the main ingredient in traditional borscht?

Beetroot turns borscht red, and UNESCO has listed Ukraine's borscht-cooking culture as heritage in urgent need of safeguarding, citing Russia's invasion.

What does 'umami' translate to in English?

Umami means 'pleasant savory taste'; chemist Kikunae Ikeda traced it to glutamate in kombu broth in 1908, then helped found Ajinomoto to sell MSG.

Paella is the traditional dish of which region on the Mediterranean coast?

In Valencia, paella is the name of the wide, shallow frying pan the rice is cooked in, from the Latin patella, 'pan'.

Which famous Italian cheese has a prized version made from buffalo milk?

Mozzarella takes its name from mozzare, 'to cut off', because the stretched curd is cut into portions to make each ball.

What is the name of the traditional Indian clay oven used for baking naan bread?

A tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven heated with charcoal or wood, capable of reaching extremely high temperatures. It is essential in Indian and Central Asian cooking for breads like naan and dishes like tandoori chicken.

Which fruit is used to make traditional guacamole?

The name comes from the Classical Nahuatl word āhuacamōlli, which literally means 'avocado sauce'.

Sake, the traditional Japanese beverage, is brewed from which grain?

Sake is brewed from polished rice. Unlike beer, where starch is turned to sugar and then sugar to alcohol in two separate steps, in sake both conversions happen at the same time in one vat.

Which cooking method involves submerging food in hot fat or oil?

Deep frying involves fully submerging food in hot oil, typically between 325-375°F (160-190°C). This method cooks food quickly and creates a crispy exterior through the Maillard reaction.

Which spongy Ethiopian flatbread, made from teff, doubles as plate and utensil?

Injera gets its sour tang from teff batter fermented for one to three days, and the spongy bread doubles as the platter and the spoon.

Which Italian dessert layers coffee-soaked ladyfingers with a sweet mascarpone cream?

Tiramisu means 'pick me up', and Treviso in Veneto and restaurants in Friuli have long argued over which region invented it.

What is the name of the Mexican dish of a flour tortilla wrapped closed around a filling?

Burrito means 'little donkey' in Spanish, perhaps because the wrapped bundle looks like the pack a donkey carries.

Italy is famous for olive oil, but which country produced the most of it in 2022?

Spain made about twice as much olive oil as Italy in 2022, even though its share that year fell to about a quarter of world output.

Which French term names the diced onion, carrot and celery that start countless soups, stocks and sauces?

Mirepoix is named after an 18th-century French duke, Lévis-Mirepoix, and Louisiana's Cajun cooks swap its carrot for green bell pepper to make their holy trinity.

Which botanical gives gin its defining flavour?

Juniper berries are the defining botanical ingredient in gin. By legal definition in most countries, gin must derive its predominant flavor from juniper berries.

Which Middle Eastern paste of ground, hulled sesame seeds is a key ingredient in both hummus and halva?

Tahini takes its name from the Arabic verb tahana, 'to grind', since it is simply sesame seeds ground into a paste.

Which vitamin is abundant in citrus fruits like oranges and lemons?

Vitamin C is why British sailors were nicknamed 'limeys': the Royal Navy added lemon or lime juice to their rations to prevent scurvy.

Which Japanese dish of seafood and vegetables is dipped in a light batter and cooked in hot oil?

Tempura descends from peixinhos da horta, battered green beans that Portuguese sailors brought to Japan in the 16th century.

Which flour does the Verace Pizza Napoletana regulation permit for Neapolitan pizza dough?

Tipo 00 and Tipo 0 are the flours the Verace Pizza Napoletana rules allow: finely ground soft wheat of medium strength.

Manchego cheese must be made from the milk of which animal?

Sheep of the Manchega breed supply the only milk allowed for Manchego, and its zigzag rind copies the esparto-grass baskets once used to press the curd.

What is the name of the cooking technique where alcohol is added to a hot pan and set alight?

Flambéing burns off less alcohol than it looks: USDA retention figures show a flamed dish keeps about 75% of its alcohol.

Which tea variety undergoes full oxidation during processing?

Black tea is called hong cha, 'red tea', in China, and it is fully oxidised, while green tea is left unoxidised and oolong only partly oxidised.

What gives blue cheese its distinctive blue-green veins?

Blue cheese is deliberately seeded with a specific type of mold, Penicillium roqueforti or glaucum, then needled during aging to let in the air the mold needs to spread.

Which condiment is brewed from a fermented mash of legumes, roasted wheat and brine?

Soy sauce gave English the word 'soy': it comes from shōyu, the Japanese name for the sauce, and the bean was named after it.

What is the name of the traditional Moroccan clay cooking pot with a cone-shaped lid?

A tagine (also spelled tajine) is both the name of the conical clay cooking vessel and the slow-cooked stew prepared in it. The cone-shaped lid traps steam and returns condensation to the dish.

Which sweetener is traditionally used in China for chrysanthemum tea and Cantonese dessert soups?

Rock sugar gives Chinese red-cooked braises their glossy finish, and Shanghai's red-braised pork uses extra for a sweeter, glossier sauce.

What is the name of the thin, unleavened Indian bread cooked on a flat griddle?

Chapati spooked the British in early 1857, when watchmen passed the flatbreads from village to village across North India just before the rebellion.

Which northern French region is famous for producing Camembert cheese?

Normandy's Camembert became a French icon after the army put it in soldiers' rations during World War I.

What is the chemical process called when sugar is heated until it turns brown?

Caramelization browns sugar alone, while seared steak and toast brown through a different process, the Maillard reaction, which also needs amino acids.

Which country grew the most vanilla in 2023?

Madagascar grew about 42% of the world's vanilla in 2023, though the orchid is native to Mexico, which was the chief producer until the mid-19th century.

Which Italian meal course is typically pasta, risotto or soup?

Primo comes after the antipasto, which is traditionally the first course of a formal Italian meal, and before the secondo of meat or fish.

Which bean variety is traditionally used to make Japanese red bean paste (anko)?

Adzuki beans make anko, the filling of the bun that forms Anpanman's head, a Japanese cartoon hero who lets hungry people eat part of it.

Which chocolate maker built a whole Pennsylvania town, with homes, schools and a trolley line, for his factory workers?

Milton Hershey's company later made the D ration bar for World War II troops, which the Army wanted to taste only a little better than a boiled potato.

Which cocoa ingredient is the only one found in white chocolate?

Cocoa butter is the only cocoa ingredient in white chocolate, alongside milk and sugar, so it has none of the cocoa solids that turn chocolate brown.

Who treated cocoa powder with alkaline salts so that it would mix more easily with water?

Coenraad van Houten's alkali method gave us Dutch-process cocoa, though the 1828 cocoa press often credited to him was patented by his father, Casparus.

Which alkaloid, besides caffeine, is found in chocolate?

Theobromine has no bromine in it: it's named after cacao's genus, Theobroma, 'food of the gods', and dogs break it down so slowly that chocolate can poison them.

Which country produced 31% of the world's coffee in 2023?

Brazil grows the most coffee, and in the Great Depression its government bought up huge amounts of coffee and destroyed it to stop prices falling further.

Legend says a goatherd named Kaldi first noticed the coffee plant in which country?

Ethiopia is where the Kaldi legend is usually set, but the story first appeared in print only in 1671, and the name Kaldi seems to be a 20th-century invention.

Which animal's digestive tract produces the beans for kopi luwak?

Asian palm civets for kopi luwak are often kept in battery cages and fed coffee cherries, conditions that animal-welfare groups have condemned.

Which two coffee bean species dominate world production?

Arabica and robusta supply almost all coffee, and arabica itself arose as a natural hybrid of robusta and another wild species, Coffea eugenioides.

Britain is famous for tea, but which neighbouring country drank more of it per person in 2016?

Ireland out-drinks Britain on tea per person, and in 2016 only Turkey drank more.

Which mythical Chinese figure is credited with discovering tea when leaves drifted into his boiling water?

Shennong is also credited with testing hundreds of herbs on his own body, and legend says those experiments finally killed him.

Whom did the East India Company send to China in 1848 to bring back tea plants?

Robert Fortune's tea plants mostly died in India, but the skilled tea makers and know-how he brought from China helped India's tea industry flourish.

Which 1773 British law provoked colonists to dump chests of cargo into Boston Harbor?

The Tea Act actually made legal tea cheaper, but it kept an existing tax on tea, which colonists saw as taxation without representation.

The Reinheitsgebot, the famous 1516 beer purity law, was adopted in which German state?

Bavaria's 1516 law never listed yeast, though brewers already reused it batch to batch, probably because they saw it as part of the process rather than an ingredient.

In which city was the world's first pale lager brewed in 1842?

Plzeň's burghers built a new brewery and hired brewer Josef Groll, whose first batch in 1842 became the pale lager Pilsner Urquell.

In 15th-century England, which ingredient set imported 'beer' apart from traditional ale?

Hops set beer apart: 'ale' meant an unhopped brew, and the hops' antibacterial effect helped beer resist spoilage.

Near which city have archaeologists found the earliest known traces of grape wine, from about 6000 BC?

Tbilisi's region yielded 8,000-year-old traces of wine, and Georgians still ferment wine in egg-shaped clay jars called qvevri, buried in the ground.

Which Italian sparkling wine takes its name from a village near Trieste?

Prosecco was also the grape's name until 2009, when Italy renamed the grape Glera so that only wine from the protected zone could carry the name.

What term covers a vineyard's slope, soil, climate and growing environment?

Terroir comes from terre, 'land', and Burgundy's Cistercian monks made separate batches from different parts of their Clos de Vougeot vineyard before blending.

What does the Gaelic word behind 'whisky' mean?

Water of life is the full phrase, uisce beatha, a Gaelic translation of the Latin aqua vitae, which also gave Scandinavia its akvavit.

What do distillers call the whisky lost to evaporation during aging?

The angel's share feeds a black whiskey fungus, Baudoinia, that darkens buildings and other surfaces around distillery warehouses.

By law, Scotch whisky must mature for at least three years in casks made of which wood?

Oak is the only wood allowed, and most Scotch matures in second-hand oak casks that once held bourbon, sherry, wine or rum.

Bread is often tied to ancient Egypt, but its oldest known traces were found in which country?

Jordan's northeastern desert held the charred remains of bread baked by Natufian hunter-gatherers over 14,000 years ago, long before farming began.

Which cheese dish is melted by a fire and scraped onto boiled potatoes, pickles and onions?

Raclette comes from the French racler, 'to scrape', and Alpine herders in Valais once softened their cheese by a campfire and scraped it onto bread.

In Homer's Odyssey, which Cyclops's cave held racks of cheeses that Odysseus's men begged to steal?

Polyphemus trapped the men in that cave, and Odysseus escaped by blinding him after saying his name was 'Noman', so the giant cried that Noman was killing him.

What do cheesemakers call the holes in cheeses like Emmental?

Eyes were once a flaw cheesemakers tried to avoid, and they form when bacteria gather on specks of hay dust in the milk and release gas.

In which country did the first industrial cheese factory open in 1815?

Switzerland opened the first cheese factory in 1815, but factory cheese first took off in the US, after Jesse Williams pooled neighbouring farms' milk in Rome, New York, in 1851.

Who is believed to have invented nigiri-zushi?

Hanaya Yohei is generally credited with inventing or perfecting nigiri in 1820s Edo, now Tokyo, where sushi was fast food for ordinary townspeople.

Which Neapolitan pizzaiolo is credited with creating the pizza Margherita in 1889?

Raffaele Esposito's pizza reportedly honoured Queen Margherita in the flag's red, white and green, but historians doubt the story, first promoted in the 1930s.

Which food is named for an earl said to have eaten it at the card table so he could keep playing?

The sandwich is named for John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, though his biographer N. A. M. Rodger thinks he more likely ate it at his desk while working.

Which invading people brought the word 'pizzo', meaning mouthful, to Italy?

The Lombards invaded Italy in the 6th century, and one suggested etymology links pizza to their word pizzo, 'mouthful', a cousin of English bite.

Which chain traces the hamburger to a German cook?

White Castle credits a German cook, while Louis' Lunch in New Haven and Seymour, Wisconsin, home of 'Hamburger Charlie' Nagreen, claim the burger too.

Some sources trace ice cream's origins to which ancient empire around 550 BC?

Persia's yakhchāls kept ice through the summer, letting Persians serve chilled desserts.

Which Chinese language is most often cited as the source of the word 'ketchup'?

Hokkien kê-chiap, a brine of pickled fish, probably reached English via Malay kecap, and early English ketchups used mushrooms, oysters or walnuts.

Why does properly stored honey never spoil?

High sugar and acidic pH stop most microbes, and bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide, which is why honey from ancient digs has proven edible.

Which English word comes from the Latin for salt?

Salary comes from Latin salarium, from sal, 'salt', but the popular story that Roman soldiers were paid in salt has no ancient evidence behind it.

Which compound gives black pepper its heat?

Piperine can also raise how much of some drugs and plant compounds the body absorbs, by slowing their breakdown in the liver and gut.

From which part of the tree is cinnamon obtained?

Cinnamon is the inner bark of Cinnamomum trees, curling into quills as it dries; ancient traders told tales of giant cinnamon birds, which Pliny called fiction to raise prices.

Which country gives Ceylon cinnamon its name?

Sri Lanka was called Ceylon until 1972, and its 'true' cinnamon is only a small share of the trade: most cinnamon sold is cassia from other trees.

Which 12-year-old on Réunion discovered how to hand-pollinate vanilla in 1841?

Edmond Albius, an enslaved 12-year-old, used a thin stick and his thumb to pollinate vanilla flowers, and nearly all vanilla is still pollinated by hand.

Which spice grew on Run, the tiny island the Dutch kept while England kept Manhattan in 1667?

Nutmeg and mace grew only in the Banda Islands until the mid-19th century, which is why the Dutch held on to tiny Run and let New Amsterdam go.

Extra virgin olive oil must earn which verdict from trained tasters?

No defects, plus some fruitiness, is what the panel must find, with acidity of 0.8% or less, while plain virgin olive oil may show slight defects and up to 2% acidity.

In 1893 the U.S. Supreme Court declared the tomato a vegetable for the purposes of what?

A tariff of 10% on imported vegetables, with fruit duty-free, led importers to argue tomatoes were fruit, but the court went by everyday usage.

Which oomycete caused the late blight behind the Great Irish Famine?

Phytophthora infestans, a water mould rather than a true fungus, rotted Ireland's potatoes from 1845; about a million people died and over a million emigrated.

Genetic studies trace the cultivated potato to which region?

Southern Peru and Bolivia is where potatoes were domesticated, and Quechua and Aymara farmers there still freeze-dry them into chuño that can keep for years.

Which banana cultivar dominates Western consumption?

Cavendish took over export plantations in the 1950s after Panama disease wiped out the old favourite, and a new strain of the disease, TR4, now threatens it.

Which banana was the main export variety until Panama disease wiped out its plantations in the 1950s?

Gros Michel plantations in Central America fell to Fusarium wilt, and by the 1960s exporters had switched to resistant cultivars.

Which apple variety began as a chance seedling in Eastwood, near Sydney, in 1868?

Granny Smith is named after Maria Ann Smith, who found it growing where she had dumped crab apple remains; she died just two years later.

About half of new North American apple varieties in the 2020s descend from which cultivar?

Honeycrisp, released by the University of Minnesota in 1991, is a parent of Cosmic Crisp, SweeTango and EverCrisp.

Samuel Johnson's dictionary defined which grain as food for horses in England but for people in Scotland?

Oats had long been a Scottish staple while England saw them as inferior horse feed.

Which wheat was pasta originally made from exclusively?

Durum's hard grains make the semolina that Italian rules still require for dried pasta, and the story that Marco Polo introduced pasta to Italy is considered a myth.

Chinese tradition credits tofu's invention to Prince Liu An of which dynasty?

Han prince Liu An is the traditional inventor, but no record from his own time backs it, and the earliest reliable written mention of tofu dates from about AD 950.

Nobel laureate Ilya Mechnikov credited yogurt for the long lives of peasants in which country?

Bulgaria's yogurt had been studied in 1905 by Bulgarian medical student Stamen Grigorov, whose bacterium was later named Lactobacillus bulgaricus.

From which language does the word 'yogurt' come?

Turkish yoğurt is usually linked to the verb yoğurmak, 'to knead' or 'to thicken', and English spells it yogurt, yoghurt or yoghourt.

What are the spiral bands of tissue called that hold an egg yolk in place within the white?

Chalazae take their name from the Greek for hailstone, and one or two of these spiral bands keep the yolk suspended in the white.

Which sauce of egg yolk, melted butter and lemon juice tops eggs Benedict?

Hollandaise means 'Dutch sauce', yet an early form appears in La Varenne's 1651 cookbook Le Cuisinier françois, spooned over asparagus.

Who designed the Coca-Cola logo?

Frank Mason Robinson, Pemberton's bookkeeper and partner, named the drink and is credited with its logo in Spencerian script, then the standard business hand.

What word did Coca-Cola add to its regular drink's name from 1985 to 2009, after New Coke launched?

Coca-Cola Classic brought back the old formula within three months of New Coke's April 1985 launch, after protests swamped the company.

Which three grapes make almost all champagne?

Pinot noir, Pinot meunier and Chardonnay make almost all champagne: blanc de blancs uses only Chardonnay, and blanc de noirs only the two black Pinots.

What is the champagne process of turning bottles so lees settle in the neck called?

Remuage took off in 1816, when Madame Clicquot invented the riddling table, holding bottles neck-down and turning them until the dead yeast gathered by the cork.

Rum is distilled from which crop's molasses or juice?

Sugarcane molasses, left over from sugar-making, became rum on Caribbean plantations, and a 1651 Barbados account called it 'Kill-Divill', a hot, hellish and terrible liquor.

Which uprising deposed William Bligh as governor of New South Wales, nearly two decades after the Bounty mutiny?

In the Rum Rebellion, 400 soldiers of the New South Wales Corps marched on Government House and arrested Bligh, 19 years after the Bounty mutineers set him adrift.

Birria, the stew behind the quesabirria taco craze, comes from which Mexican state?

Jalisco's name for pit-cooked meat gave us birria, and quesabirria, birria tacos with cheese and a cup of consommé for dipping, began in Tijuana.

The first printed definition of a cocktail, in 1806, listed spirits, sugar, water and what?

Bitters made it a 'bittered sling', and when cocktails later grew fancy, drinkers asked for this simple formula the old-fashioned way.

Which bartender published How to Mix Drinks in 1862?

Jerry Thomas, 'the father of American mixology', wrote the first drink book published in the United States, putting recipes passed on by word of mouth into print.

What is the foam layer on top of an espresso called?

Crema, a dense foam of emulsified coffee oils, forms only when water is forced through the grounds at high pressure.

Which manufacturer pioneered modern high-pressure espresso in the 1940s?

Gaggia's machine forced water through the grounds at high pressure, and lever models like it gave baristas the phrase 'pulling a shot'.

Cappuccino is named after the habits of which religious order?

Capuchin friars, a reformed branch of the Franciscans, wear brown hooded habits, and Habsburg coffee houses named a milky brown coffee Kapuziner after them.

Which Austrian pastry inspired the croissant's shape?

Kipferl were baked in Austria by the 13th century, and the tale that the crescent celebrated the 1683 Ottoman siege of Vienna has no contemporary support.

Which Viennese chocolate cake with apricot jam did a hotel and the Demel bakery fight over in court?

Sachertorte's dispute ended in a 1963 settlement: the hotel kept 'The Original Sachertorte', while Demel may sell its cake with an 'Eduard-Sacher-Torte' seal.

Which bread's artisanal know-how is on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list?

The baguette was inscribed in 2022 for a loaf of just flour, water, salt and yeast, bought fresh daily and even given its own long display racks.

In which country's Jewish communities did the bagel originate?

Poland's Jewish communities gave the bagel its Yiddish name, beygl, from an old Germanic word for a ring or bracelet.

Montreal bagels are boiled in honey-sweetened water, then baked in what kind of oven?

A wood-fired oven bakes authentic Montreal bagels, which come out smaller and sweeter than New York bagels.

Which chemical treatment gives pretzels their traditional skin?

Lye speeds the browning reaction in the oven, giving pretzels and lye rolls their deep brown, glossy skin; baking soda is only a milder stand-in.

Which Dutch treat brought to New York became the doughnut?

Olykoek, 'oil cake', was sweetened dough fried in fat that Dutch settlers brought to New Amsterdam; its cousin, the oliebol, is still eaten on New Year's Eve.

Which organization created Doughnut Day in 1938 to honor its WWI volunteers?

The Salvation Army's WWI 'Donut Lassies' handed out doughnuts to soldiers near the front lines, and its Chicago branch launched Doughnut Day as a Depression fundraiser.

Which agricultural scientist is often wrongly credited with inventing peanut butter?

George Washington Carver published peanut recipes in 1916, but Montreal's Marcellus Gilmore Edson had patented a peanut paste process back in 1884.

Which Canadian province produces about three-quarters of the world's maple syrup?

Quebec's syrup is so valuable that thieves drained about C$18.7 million of it from the province's strategic reserve warehouse in 2011–12.

What builds up inside a heated popcorn kernel until its hull bursts?

Steam pressure from the water inside each kernel reaches about 135 psi, and when the hull gives way the softened starch puffs into foam.

Which pharmacist invented the chili heat scale in 1912?

Wilbur Scoville's 1912 test had tasters sip a pepper extract diluted in sugar water, again and again, until most could no longer feel the heat.

Which explorer's crew called chili plants 'peppers' because their heat reminded them of black pepper?

Christopher Columbus and his crew named chilies after black pepper for their heat, though the plants are unrelated, and chilies spread across Europe after 1493.

Which fish must be prepared by specially trained chefs in Japan because parts of it are deadly poisonous?

Pufferfish liver is one of its most toxic parts, yet kabuki star Bandō Mitsugorō VIII ordered four servings of it at a Kyoto restaurant in 1975 and died.

Which sulfur compound is released by fresh or crushed garlic?

Allicin isn't in an intact clove: chopping or crushing lets the enzyme alliinase turn alliin into it, releasing fresh garlic's sharp smell.

Portobello mushrooms share a species with which other mushroom?

White button, cremini and portobello mushrooms are all Agaricus bisporus: cremini are the species' young brown form, and portobello is the mature one.

Why is lobster blood blue?

It contains copper-based hemocyanin, which is colourless without oxygen and turns lobster blood blue once oxygenated, as in snails and spiders.

Lobster was once seen in New England as food for whom?

Servants and the poor were fed lobster in colonial New England because it was so abundant that it was seen as a poverty food.

Roe from which fish family makes true caviar?

Sturgeon roe alone counts as true caviar, and overfishing hit wild Caspian sturgeon so hard that the US banned beluga caviar imports in 2005.

What is the French term for the force-feeding that produces foie gras?

Gavage, from the verb gaver, 'to force-feed', is written into the legal definition of foie gras, and Switzerland, Israel and California ban producing it that way.

Which Italian towns are most famous for the white truffle?

Alba and Asti sit in Piedmont's Langhe and Montferrat hills, where white truffles are hunted with dogs, since pigs tend to eat the finds.

Which French region gives its name to the prized black truffle Tuber melanosporum?

Périgord lent the black truffle its name, yet about 80% of France's black truffles come from the southeast, around Vaucluse and Drôme.

What material is traditionally used to grate wasabi?

Sharkskin gives an even finer grating surface than metal, much like sandpaper, and turns fresh wasabi root into a smooth paste.

Who invented instant noodles in 1958?

Momofuku Ando's flash-fried Chikin Ramen went on sale in 1958, and the company he founded, Nissin, turned instant noodles into a global staple.

Which alkaline solution gives ramen noodles their springy texture?

Kansui, a solution of sodium and potassium carbonate, turns flour's natural flavones yellow and makes ramen noodles firmer and more elastic.

The English word 'curry' derives from which language family?

Dravidian languages such as Tamil gave English 'curry' via kari, a spiced dish eaten with rice, which Portuguese traders turned into caril.

Taco Bell founder Glen Bell learned to make crispy tacos from a café in which California city?

San Bernardino's Mitla Cafe let Bell see how its tacos were made, and the same city was home to the McDonald brothers' first restaurant in 1940.

Which cola began in 1893 as 'Brad's Drink' at a North Carolina pharmacy?

Pepsi-Cola got its name in 1898, possibly from pepsin or dyspepsia, because pharmacist Caleb Bradham promoted the drink as an aid to digestion.

In 'shish kebab', shish means skewer, so what does kebab mean?

Roast meat is what kebap means, and the word probably goes back to an ancient Semitic root meaning to burn, char or roast.

Earl Grey tea gets its distinctive flavour from the oil of which citrus fruit?

Bergamot, a citrus grown mostly in Calabria, flavours Earl Grey, and the story that a grateful mandarin gave the Earl the recipe appears to be apocryphal.

In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a lease on his Dublin brewery for how many years?

Arthur Guinness signed that 9,000-year lease at £45 a year, but it no longer applies because the brewery later bought the land outright.

The most widely reported story says Count Camillo Negroni asked for a stronger Americano in which Italian city?

Florence's Caffè Casoni is where bartender Fosco Scarselli reportedly swapped the soda for gin, though historians question whether Camillo Negroni was really a count.

Which energy drink did Dietrich Mateschitz discover cured his jet lag, then adapt into Red Bull?

Krating Daeng means 'red gaur', a wild ox, and its creator Chaleo Yoovidhya and Mateschitz each took a 49% stake in the new Red Bull company.

Gatorade was developed in 1965 by researchers in which US state?

Florida's Gators were the first to drink it, and the University of Florida has earned more than $150 million in royalties from Gatorade.

Dr Pepper was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in which Texas city?

Waco's Artesian bottling plant, the first built specifically to bottle Dr Pepper, now houses the Dr Pepper Museum.

Irish coffee is credited to chef Joe Sheridan, who added whiskey to passengers' coffee at which flying-boat terminal?

Foynes was the last flying-boat stop on Europe's side of the Atlantic, and chef Joe Sheridan's whiskey-laced coffee later took off at San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe.

Which author is routinely presented as a devotee of the mojito and of Havana's La Bodeguita del Medio?

Ernest Hemingway supposedly wrote 'My mojito in La Bodeguita, my daiquiri in El Floridita' on the bar's wall, but biographers doubt the note and his taste for mojitos.

Fernand Petiot claimed to have perfected the Bloody Mary in 1934 at the King Cole Room of which New York hotel?

The St. Regis's owners found 'Bloody Mary' too crude, so Petiot tried selling it there as the Red Snapper, a name that never caught on.

Which creamy cocktail does Jeff Bridges's slacker hero the Dude sip throughout The Big Lebowski?

White Russian orders surged after the 1998 film, in which the Dude drinks the mix of vodka, coffee liqueur and cream in scene after scene.

Which sweet drink do Harry, Ron and Hermione order at the Three Broomsticks pub in the Harry Potter films?

Butterbeer has very little alcohol, yet in the books it is strong enough for a house-elf that Winky becomes addicted to it. J. K. Rowling imagines the taste as a less-sickly butterscotch.

In Willy Wonka's factory, how do Charlie and Grandpa Joe descend after sipping Fizzy Lifting Drinks?

Burping brings them back down after they float dangerously close to a large fan. Wonka later cites the stolen sip as the reason Charlie forfeits his lifetime supply of chocolate.

Which malted drink sponsors the radio serial behind Ralphie's prized decoder pin in A Christmas Story?

Ovaltine really did sponsor the Little Orphan Annie serial of the 1930s, and the secret message Ralphie frantically decodes turns out to be nothing but an advert for it.

James Bond names his own gin-and-vodka martini after which woman he meets in Casino Royale?

Vesper Lynd lends her name to the mix of gin, vodka and Kina Lillet that Bond orders in Ian Fleming's 1953 novel. Daniel Craig's Bond gives a barman the same recipe in the 2006 film.

Which red wine grape does Paul Giamatti's wine-loving Miles despise in the road-trip comedy Sideways?

Merlot gets the last laugh on Miles: the prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc he finally drinks comes from an estate planted partly with the same grape. Pinot noir sales rose after the 2004 film.

The blue milk Luke Skywalker drinks at home on Tatooine in Star Wars comes from which shaggy beast?

Bantha milk, poured by Luke's aunt Beru in the 1977 film, is now sold as a real drink at Disneyland's Star Wars land.

In Lost in Translation, Bill Murray's fading film star flies to Tokyo to promote which whisky brand?

Suntory really did hire Hollywood names: its advert with Francis Ford Coppola and Akira Kurosawa gave Coppola's daughter Sofia the idea for Murray's whisky campaign.

In Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds's Bandit helps bootleg 400 cases of which beer to Atlanta?

Coors was sold only in western states in 1977, so fans really did carry it home by the case. Unpasteurised and free of preservatives, it could spoil within a week if left warm.

Robert Shaw's shark hunter Quint crushes a can of which lager in Steven Spielberg's Jaws?

Narragansett was New England's biggest lager brewer in the mid-20th century, and in 2012 it brought back the 1975 can design seen in the film.