Q 01/05

The idiom 'eat humble pie' comes from medieval 'umble pie', which the lower classes made from what?

A) Stale bread

B) Deer innards

C) Boiled mutton

D) Salted herring

Answer · why

B) Deer innards

Deer innards, called umbles, went into umble pie for the lower classes while the lords ate the venison; the word descends from the Middle French nombl...

Q 02/05

What did medieval cooks call a pie's thick, inedible pastry case, using a word that then simply meant a box or basket?

A) Coffins

B) Cradles

C) Barrels

D) Lanterns

Answer · why

A) Coffins

Coffins, spelled coffyns, simply meant a basket or box: the hardened crust was a baking dish so sturdy it had to be cracked open, and it was not neces...

Q 03/05

A 1549 Italian cookbook gave a recipe for pies containing what, a between-courses amusement for 16th-century diners?

A) Gold coins

B) Hidden rings

C) Live birds

D) Live frogs

Answer · why

C) Live birds

Live birds were a 16th-century entremet, a between-courses amusement: the 1549 recipe explains how to make pies so that the birds stay alive inside an...

Q 04/05

Which fictional Fleet Street barber's victims were baked into meat pies by his partner in crime, Mrs Lovett?

A) Bill Sikes

B) Jack Sheppard

C) Spring-heeled Jack

D) Sweeney Todd

Answer · why

D) Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd first appeared in the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls in 1846, dropping customers through a revolving trap door; the stage ver...

Q 05/05

Which jam-filled German pastry powers the urban legend that JFK called himself a doughnut in a 1963 speech?

A) Stollen

B) Lebkuchen

C) Berliner

D) Bienenstich

Answer · why

C) Berliner

Berliner is the jelly doughnut's name across much of Germany, but the idea that 'Ich bin ein Berliner' meant 'I am a doughnut' only emerged two decade...