Q 01/05

Wheels of which hard Italian cheese are accepted as loan collateral by the bank Credito Emiliano?

A) Pecorino

B) Parmesan

C) Provolone

D) Asiago

Answer · why

B) Parmesan

Parmesan is aged for at least 12 months before it can be sold, so each wheel is a slow but valuable asset. An industry consortium inspects every wheel...

Q 02/05

Despite its name, Philadelphia cream cheese was first made by dairyman William Lawrence in which US state?

A) Pennsylvania

B) Vermont

C) New York

D) Delaware

Answer · why

C) New York

New York dairyman William Lawrence made it in the village of Chester. A distributor added the Philadelphia name in 1880 because that city was known fo...

Q 03/05

Which gas, given off by bacteria as the cheese ripens, forms the famous holes in Swiss Emmental?

A) Carbon monoxide

B) Sulfur dioxide

C) Nitrous oxide

D) Carbon dioxide

Answer · why

D) Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide bubbles get trapped in the firm cheese and leave the holes, which cheesemakers call eyes. For centuries the eyes were treated as a flaw...

Q 04/05

Which US state, whose football fans wear foam cheese wedges as hats, makes about a quarter of America's cheese?

A) Wisconsin

B) Minnesota

C) Vermont

D) Michigan

Answer · why

A) Wisconsin

Wisconsin leads the nation in cheese production, and its people answer to the nickname Cheeseheads. The foam hats caught on with Packers fans in the 1...

Q 05/05

Which French scientist's 1860s experiments on spoiled wine led to the heat treatment that makes milk safe to drink?

A) Marie Curie

B) Antoine Lavoisier

C) Louis Pasteur

D) Henri Becquerel

Answer · why

C) Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur found in 1864 that briefly heating young wine killed the microbes that soured it. The method, later named after him, was not used on mil...