Q 01/05

What does the Italian name of the dessert tiramisu literally mean?

A) Sweet dream

B) Little cloud

C) Pick me up

D) Cool me down

Answer · why

C) Pick me up

The layered coffee-and-mascarpone dessert seems to have appeared in northeastern Italy only in the late 1960s; no cookbook mentions it before then.

Q 02/05

Which New York restaurant is credited with naming baked Alaska after the 1867 purchase from Russia?

A) Sardi's

B) Tavern on the Green

C) Delmonico's

D) Keens Steakhouse

Answer · why

C) Delmonico's

The restaurant's own recipe was originally called 'Alaska, Florida' for its contrast of frozen ice cream and hot meringue.

Q 03/05

The pavlova, fought over by Australia and New Zealand, is named after a famous Russian what?

A) Opera singer

B) Ballerina

C) Empress

D) Novelist

Answer · why

B) Ballerina

Anna Pavlova toured both countries in the 1920s, and each still claims to have created the dessert in her honour.

Q 04/05

Franz Sacher, who created the Sachertorte as a teenager, served in the Vienna kitchen of which statesman?

A) Otto von Bismarck

B) Archduke Ferdinand

C) Emperor Franz Joseph

D) Prince Metternich

Answer · why

D) Prince Metternich

The word torte is German for a filled layer cake; the original hotel and the Demel bakery later fought a long court battle over who owned the 'Origina...

Q 05/05

Tarte Tatin, the upside-down caramelised apple tart, is named after two sisters who ran what kind of business?

A) A hotel

B) A dairy farm

C) A railway café

D) A convent bakery

Answer · why

A) A hotel

Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin served it as the signature dish of the Hôtel Tatin in Lamotte-Beuvron, about 169 km south of Paris.