Q 01/05

The word 'spaghetti' is the plural diminutive of the Italian spago, meaning what?

A) String

B) Stick

C) Worm

D) Ribbon

Answer · why

A) String

So a single strand is, strictly, a spaghetto: a little string.

Q 02/05

Standard Italian spaghetti is made from water and the semolina of which grain?

A) Spelt

B) Einkorn

C) Barley

D) Durum

Answer · why

D) Durum

Durum is Latin for 'hard', and the name fits: it is the hardest of all wheats, milled into coarse semolina instead of fine flour.

Q 03/05

In 1154 the geographer al-Idrisi described dried pasta strands being made at Trabia, near which Sicilian city?

A) Catania

B) Messina

C) Palermo

D) Syracuse

Answer · why

C) Palermo

Palermo's neighbour Trabia was already exporting shiploads of dried pasta in 1154, a century before Marco Polo was born, so he can't have brought it h...

Q 04/05

Astronomers use 'spaghettification' for the stretching of anything that falls into what?

A) A black hole

B) A red giant

C) A gas giant

D) A solar flare

Answer · why

A) A black hole

A black hole pulls far harder on your feet than on your head if you fall in feet first, so you'd be squeezed and drawn out long and thin, like a noodl...

Q 05/05

What turns spaghetti al nero di seppia jet black?

A) Cuttlefish ink

B) Black truffle

C) Charred aubergine

D) Black olive paste

Answer · why

A) Cuttlefish ink

Cuttlefish ink, common in Venetian cooking, colours and flavours the sauce; the same ink gave painters the brown pigment sepia, which is simply the La...