Q 01/05

The word 'breakfast' literally refers to what?

A) Breaking bread quickly

B) A fast (quick) meal

C) Breaking the night's fast

D) A quick bite at daybreak

Answer · why

C) Breaking the night's fast

Breaking the night's fast is the idea, and 'dinner' shares it: the word comes from a Latin verb meaning 'to break one's fast'.

Q 02/05

In Britain, pancakes are traditionally eaten on which day, historically to use up ingredients before Lent?

A) Shrove Tuesday

B) Ash Wednesday

C) Good Friday

D) Maundy Thursday

Answer · why

A) Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday's pancake race in Olney supposedly began in 1445, when a housewife heard the church bell and ran to church still holding her pan.

Q 03/05

Crêpes are most closely associated with which region of France?

A) Normandy

B) Provence

C) Alsace

D) Brittany

Answer · why

D) Brittany

Brittany's savoury crêpes use buckwheat flour, a crop suited to its wet, poor soils, where ordinary wheat grew badly.

Q 04/05

The word 'waffle' entered English from which language?

A) German

B) Dutch

C) French

D) Swedish

Answer · why

B) Dutch

Dutch wafel gave English its waffle, but 'to waffle', meaning to talk vaguely, is a separate word thought to come from 'waff', to yelp.

Q 05/05

'Bel-Gem' waffles took hold in America at which event?

A) The 1964 New York World's Fair

B) The 1893 Chicago World's Fair

C) The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics

D) The 1976 Bicentennial

Answer · why

A) The 1964 New York World's Fair

The 1964 New York World's Fair stand renamed Brussels waffles Bel-Gems after its Belgian owners found many Americans couldn't place Brussels.