Q 01/05

Before they are ground into peanut butter, how are the peanuts usually prepared?

A) Dry roasting

B) Boiling

C) Deep frying

D) Fermenting

Answer · why

A) Dry roasting

Dry roasting comes first at modern plants. One early health-spa recipe boiled the nuts instead, and today's peanut butter fans would likely find that ...

Q 02/05

Despite its name, what is a peanut botanically?

A) A drupe

B) A legume

C) A berry

D) A tuber

Answer · why

B) A legume

A legume, like peas and beans: bacteria in its root nodules put nitrogen back into the soil, which is why farmers rotate peanuts with hungrier crops s...

Q 03/05

Which civilisations are credited with the earliest form of peanut butter?

A) The Egyptians and Nubians

B) The Greeks and Romans

C) The Aztecs and Incas

D) The Persians and Babylonians

Answer · why

C) The Aztecs and Incas

The Aztecs and Incas both ground peanuts into a paste, centuries before the spread was reinvented and first patented in the 1880s.

Q 04/05

Marcellus Gilmore Edson, who patented an early peanut butter in the US in 1884, was a chemist from which country?

A) Mexico

B) England

C) Germany

D) Canada

Answer · why

D) Canada

Canada: Edson, a Montreal chemist, meant his peanut paste to be mixed with sugar to make candy, and there is no evidence it was ever sold as a spread.

Q 05/05

Which cereal pioneer and sanitarium doctor patented a peanut paste in the 1890s for patients unable to chew?

A) John Harvey Kellogg

B) C. W. Post

C) Will Keith Kellogg

D) Sylvester Graham

Answer · why

A) John Harvey Kellogg

John Harvey Kellogg served it at his Battle Creek Sanitarium, so peanut butter began life as a health food for wealthy spa guests before it became a c...