Q 01/05

Vanilla beans are the cured seed pods of a climbing vine that belongs to which family of flowering plants?

A) Legumes

B) Orchids

C) Lilies

D) Nightshades

Answer · why

B) Orchids

Orchids are grown mostly for show, and vanilla is the only one widely used to flavour food. Its pods are not true beans, which belong to the unrelated...

Q 02/05

Hand-pollinated flower by flower, vanilla is the world's second most expensive spice by weight, behind which one?

A) Cardamom

B) Turmeric

C) Cinnamon

D) Saffron

Answer · why

D) Saffron

Saffron is even more laborious: each crocus flower offers just three crimson stigmas to collect and dry. Vanilla's cost comes from tending, pollinatin...

Q 03/05

Which island country off East Africa became the world's chief vanilla grower after French colonists planted it there?

A) Mauritius

B) Madagascar

C) Seychelles

D) Comoros

Answer · why

B) Madagascar

Madagascar received its first vines along with instructions for pollinating them by hand. Most of its crop now grows in Sava, a north-eastern region n...

Q 04/05

Castoreum, a secretion that has flavoured vanilla substitutes and scented leathery perfumes, comes from which animal?

A) Skunk

B) Muskrat

C) Beaver

D) Otter

Answer · why

C) Beaver

Beaver castor sacs make it for marking territory, and US regulators list the extract as safe to eat. Hardly any reaches food now: about 100 kilograms ...

Q 05/05

Mayu Yamamoto won an Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for extracting vanilla's main flavour compound from which material?

A) Old newspapers

B) Coffee grounds

C) Cow dung

D) Sawdust

Answer · why

C) Cow dung

Cow dung earned her the 2007 prize, a spoof award for research that makes people laugh, then think. A Massachusetts ice cream parlour unveiled a flavo...