Q 01/05

Rocky Mountain oysters, deep-fried at ranch festivals in the American West, are which part of a bull?

A) The testicles

B) The kidneys

C) The tongue

D) The cheeks

Answer · why

A) The testicles

The testicles come from young bulls castrated at spring branding, and ranch hands fried them up rather than waste the meat, which is how a by-product ...

Q 02/05

Century eggs, preserved in a paste of clay, ash, salt and quicklime, actually cure for roughly how long?

A) A single day

B) Weeks to months

C) About ten years

D) A full century

Answer · why

B) Weeks to months

Weeks to months is all it takes for the paste to raise the egg's pH, which turns the white a translucent dark brown and the yolk creamy and grey-green...

Q 03/05

Haggis, Scotland's pudding of sheep offal and oatmeal, is the butt of a running joke that claims it is what?

A) A type of whisky

B) A small wild animal

C) A breed of sheepdog

D) A Highland dance

Answer · why

B) A small wild animal

A small wild animal with legs longer on one side, the joke goes, so it can run round steep Highland hills without falling over, while real haggis is s...

Q 04/05

Huitlacoche, the swollen corn galls that Mexican cooks prize and fold into quesadillas, is caused by what?

A) A virus

B) An insect

C) A fungus

D) A bacterium

Answer · why

C) A fungus

A fungus, the corn smut Ustilago maydis, swells the kernels into galls that one promotional dinner tried to rebrand as the 'Mexican truffle' to win ov...

Q 05/05

Sardinia's casu martzu, a pecorino eaten with its live cheese-fly larvae, is notorious because the maggots can do what?

A) Bite through the tongue

B) Leap up to 15 cm

C) Burrow into the gums

D) Spit a stinging fluid

Answer · why

B) Leap up to 15 cm

Leap up to 15 cm is what the larvae manage when disturbed, so diners hold a hand over the bread; Guinness World Records named casu martzu the world's ...