Food Quiz — 50 Questions with Answers

What is tofu made from?

Answer Soybeans

Soy milk is curdled with a mineral salt and the curds pressed, which makes tofu to soy milk exactly what cheese is to dairy milk — the same process applied to a different milk. How hard it is pressed is the only difference between silken and firm.

Caramel is made by heating what?

Answer Sugar

Sugar alone, with no protein involved, which is what separates this from the browning that happens on meat. It begins around 160 degrees and the bitterness that develops along the way is the point: pure sugar browned without it would just be sweeter.

Which fruit is famous for enzymes that tenderize meat?

Answer Pineapple

The enzyme is why raw pineapple stops gelatin from setting, and why eating a lot of it makes your tongue tingle — it is breaking down protein, including yours. Cooking or canning destroys the enzyme, which is why canned pineapple is safe in a jelly.

Which microorganism makes bread rise?

Answer Yeast

It eats the sugars in the dough and gives off carbon dioxide and alcohol; the gas raises the bread and the alcohol bakes away. Bread and beer are made by the same organism doing the same thing — one keeps the gas, the other keeps the liquid.

Sauerkraut and kimchi ferment thanks to which process?

Answer Lactic acid fermentation

The bacteria are already on the vegetable when it arrives. Salt does not cause the fermentation; it holds back the organisms that would rot the vegetable while the acid-producing ones get to work, which is why no starter is needed.

To 'blanch' a vegetable means to...?

Answer Dip it briefly in boiling water

A few seconds in boiling water, usually followed straight by ice water. The point is to switch off the enzymes that dull color and flavor, and the ice is not optional — without it the vegetable keeps cooking in its own heat.

Whipping egg whites hard produces what?

Answer Meringue

The proteins in the white unfold and wrap around air bubbles. A trace of yolk will stop it, because fat gets between the proteins and the air, which is why the bowl has to be spotless and why one broken yolk ruins the batch.

The top grade of olive oil is called...?

Answer Extra virgin

It is a legal and chemical grade, not a flavor claim: pressed mechanically without heat or solvents, and below a set limit of free acidity, with a tasting panel to confirm no defects. The common warning against cooking with it is overstated for ordinary pan temperatures.

Resting rice after cooking mainly lets...?

Answer The moisture spread evenly

The outside of each grain is wetter than the center right after cooking, and resting lets that even out. Skip it and the rice is simultaneously sticky outside and firm inside — the same total water, badly distributed.

Searing meat over high heat exists mainly to...?

Answer Build flavor through browning

It does not seal in juices; that idea was tested and a seared steak actually loses slightly more moisture than an unseared one. What searing does is create hundreds of aromatic compounds on the surface, which is a good enough reason on its own.

'Umami', the fifth taste, was first named in which country?

Answer Japan

A chemist there isolated it from kelp broth in 1908 and named it. The West took most of a century to accept it as a taste in its own right, and the argument only really ended when the receptors for it were identified.

Spiciness is technically not a taste but a form of...?

Answer Pain sensation

Capsaicin binds to a receptor that also fires at temperatures above about forty-three degrees, so the nerve sends the same signal it would send for real heat and the brain cannot tell them apart. The burn is not a metaphor — it is the wiring being fooled.

A cut apple turns brown because of...?

Answer Oxidizing enzymes

An enzyme in the flesh meets oxygen the moment the cell walls are cut and produces brown pigments. Lemon juice slows it because the enzyme works poorly in acid, and the browning itself is harmless — it changes color and texture, not safety.

Salt preserves food mainly by...?

Answer Drawing out water by osmosis

Microbes need liquid water, and salt pulls it out of both the food and them. Sugar does the same thing by the same mechanism, which is why jam keeps, and it explains why very salty and very sweet preserves both work without refrigeration.

The browning reaction that builds flavor on steak and toast is called...?

Answer The Maillard reaction

Named after the French physician who described it in 1912, it needs amino acids and sugars together and real heat. It produces hundreds of new compounds, which is why toast, roasted coffee and a browned crust smell like relatives of one another.

Aged beef grows more savory because proteins break down into...?

Answer Amino acids

Enzymes in the meat keep working after slaughter, cutting proteins into amino acids — glutamate among them, which is the savory one. Dry aging adds a second effect by losing water, so what remains is more concentrated as well as more savory.

The heat in chili peppers comes from...?

Answer Capsaicin

It is oil-soluble, which is why water spreads the burn around while milk or yogurt actually helps. The scale used to rate it was originally built on human tasters diluting an extract until nobody could feel it.

The stretchy protein network in wheat dough is called...?

Answer Gluten

Two proteins in wheat link into a stretchy web once the flour is wetted and worked. That is why kneading changes dough so much, and why a tender cake is made with low-protein flour and a light hand rather than by leaving something out.

Canning was developed thanks to a prize offered for preserving food for...?

Answer Napoleon's army

A prize was offered in 1795 for a way to keep food for the army, and it was won about fourteen years later using sealed glass jars — before anyone knew why it worked, since germs had not been discovered. The tin can followed soon after; a practical can opener took roughly another fifty years.

Milk becomes yogurt through the work of...?

Answer Lactic acid bacteria

Two specific bacteria turn the milk sugar into lactic acid, and the acid makes the milk protein clump into a gel. Nothing is added to thicken it — the sourness and the texture are the same event.

Penne pasta is shaped like...?

Answer Slanted tubes

The name means quills, and the angled cut is the reason: it was shaped to look like a cut pen nib. The angle also gives sauce more surface to hold, and the ridged version holds still more than the smooth one.

Cheese is made from...?

Answer Milk

Milk is coagulated so the protein forms curds and the watery whey drains away. It takes roughly ten liters of milk for a kilogram of hard cheese, which is most of what explains the price.

Chocolate starts from which bean?

Answer Cacao

The beans are fermented in their own pulp for several days before drying, and that is where chocolate flavor is actually created. A raw, unfermented bean tastes nothing like chocolate — the plant supplies the material, the fermentation supplies the taste.

Pasta cooked 'al dente' is...?

Answer Firm to the bite

Literally to the tooth. The firm core is starch that has not fully absorbed water, and besides texture it has a measurable effect: the same pasta cooked soft is digested faster and raises blood sugar more.

A medium-rare steak is...?

Answer Browned outside, warm red center

Around fifty-five degrees in the center. The red liquid is not blood — blood is drained at slaughter — but a protein called myoglobin that holds oxygen in muscle, and it is the same protein that makes some cuts darker than others.

Sparkling wine may be called 'Champagne' only if it comes from...?

Answer The Champagne region of France

The name is a protected origin, not a method. The same technique used elsewhere has to be called something else, which is why bottles say traditional method, or carry a regional name of their own.

The spice that gives curry its yellow color is...?

Answer Turmeric

The pigment is so strong it was used as a dye long before it was valued as a spice, and it will stain a plastic spoon permanently. In most commercial curry powder it is there for color first and flavor second.

What holds mayonnaise together as an emulsion of oil and water?

Answer Egg yolk

It works because the yolk contains a substance that can hold oil and water together, letting oil break into droplets small enough to stay suspended. That is also why the oil goes in slowly at the start — add it too fast and there is nothing to coat the droplets.

Balsamic vinegar is made from...?

Answer Grapes

The traditional kind is cooked grape juice aged for years through a series of ever smaller barrels, and it is priced accordingly. Most supermarket bottles are wine vinegar with coloring and sweetener, which is a different product wearing the same name.

Sourdough bread rises using...?

Answer A wild yeast starter

A starter holds both wild yeasts and lactic bacteria, and the two do different jobs: the yeast provides the lift and the bacteria provide the sour. That is why it rises slowly, and the long rise is also why the flavor is deeper.

Tiramisu is made with which Italian cheese?

Answer Mascarpone

It is made by curdling cream with acid rather than with rennet, so it sits closer to a thickened cream than to a conventional cheese. Its fat content is why the dessert holds together without gelatin.

Macaron shells are based on which flour?

Answer Almond flour

Almond flour has no gluten, so nothing in the shell can stretch — the structure comes entirely from beaten egg white. That is also why the batter is deliberately deflated to a specific consistency, and why the recipe is unforgiving.

The main difference between green and black tea is...?

Answer The degree of oxidation

Both come from the same plant. Green tea is heated early to stop the leaf's enzymes, black tea is allowed to oxidize first, and the process is often called fermentation even though no microbes are involved.

The fizz in soda comes from...?

Answer Carbon dioxide

The gas is dissolved under pressure, and cold liquid holds more of it than warm. Opening the bottle releases the pressure, so a drink goes flat by simply returning to the amount of gas the liquid can hold at that temperature.

Ice cream stays soft because it is...?

Answer Churned to fold in air

Churning does two things at once: it folds in air, and it keeps the ice crystals small by breaking them up as they form. Cheap ice cream contains more air, and the difference in how much is a real difference in what you are buying by weight.

A croissant's flaky layers come from...?

Answer Folding butter into the dough

The dough is folded around a sheet of butter and rolled repeatedly, ending up with dozens of alternating layers. In the oven the water in the butter turns to steam and pushes the layers apart, so the pastry is inflated from the inside.

Cold brew coffee is made by...?

Answer Steeping in cold water for hours

Time replaces heat. Some of the bitter and sour compounds need heat to dissolve, so brewing cold for many hours extracts the rest without them, which is why the result tastes smoother rather than merely cold.

The animal-derived setting agent in jelly is...?

Answer Gelatin

It is collagen from animal skin and bone, taken apart and set again. The plant alternative made from seaweed sets firmer, holds at higher temperatures, and does not melt in the mouth the same way, which is why substituting one for the other changes the dessert.

Higher cacao content makes chocolate taste more...?

Answer Bitter

A higher percentage means more cocoa solids and less sugar, so bitterness increases from both directions at once. The compounds behind it are the same family found in tea and red wine, which is why the descriptions overlap.

Espresso differs from drip coffee mainly by...?

Answer Pressure forcing water through fine grounds

It is a brewing method, not a bean or a roast, which is the most common misunderstanding about it. Around nine atmospheres of pressure push hot water through finely ground coffee in under half a minute, and the pressure is what creates the layer of foam on top.

The most expensive spice by weight is generally...?

Answer Saffron

Each flower yields three threads and they must be picked by hand, so a single kilogram takes something like a hundred and fifty thousand flowers. The price is almost entirely labor, not rarity of the plant.

Which nut is used to make marzipan?

Answer Almond

Ground almonds and sugar, worked into a paste that can be shaped and colored. The proportion of almond to sugar is what separates the confectionery grade from the cheap version, and it is regulated in some countries.

MSG delivers which taste?

Answer Umami

It is the sodium salt of glutamate, the same compound that occurs naturally in tomatoes, aged cheese and seaweed. The reputation it acquired from a single letter to a medical journal in 1968 has not been supported by controlled studies since.

True wasabi is a...?

Answer Grated root

It is a rhizome, grated fresh, and its heat is volatile — it starts fading within minutes, which is why it is grated at the table. Most of what is served under the name outside Japan is horseradish, mustard and green coloring.

Tempering chocolate controls what?

Answer Its crystal structure and snap

Cocoa butter can set into several different crystal forms and only one of them gives a glossy surface and a clean snap. Tempering is the business of encouraging that form, and chocolate that was melted and cooled carelessly develops a pale bloom because the wrong crystals took over.

The gas that makes Swiss-style cheese holes is produced by...?

Answer Bacteria during aging

Specific bacteria release carbon dioxide as the cheese matures and the gas collects in pockets. Modern milk became so clean that the holes started disappearing, and it turned out that tiny particles of hay dust were what the bubbles had been forming around.

Kombucha is a fermented...?

Answer Tea

Sweetened tea, fermented by a mixed culture of bacteria and yeast that forms a rubbery layer on the surface. The sugar is food for the culture rather than an ingredient of the finished drink, which is why the result is sour rather than sweet.

Nixtamalization, soaking corn in alkaline water, is essential to...?

Answer Tortillas

Soaking corn in an alkaline solution frees a vitamin the grain otherwise holds in a form the body cannot use. Where corn was adopted as a staple without this step, deficiency disease followed — a case where a cooking technique was carrying essential nutrition.

'Sous vide' cooking means...?

Answer Vacuum-sealed low-temperature water bath

Food is sealed and held in water at exactly the temperature it should reach, so it cannot go past that point no matter how long it stays. The trade-off is that nothing browns underwater, which is why the searing is done afterward.

Honey resists spoiling mainly because of its...?

Answer Low water content and acidity

It holds very little free water and is mildly acidic, and an enzyme the bees add produces a small amount of hydrogen peroxide. Between them there is nothing for microbes to grow in, which is why sealed honey keeps almost indefinitely.