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May is National Egg Month, as well as International Pickle Month!
and
International Pickle
Week (Worldwide) is May 20-30
(Yes, we know there
are seven days in a standard week, while International Pickle Week has 10 days.
First celebrated in 1948, International Pickle Week spans two full weekends and
includes the traditional start of the summer season, Memorial Day weekend.)
Eggs-plore your food savvy with this month's trivia game!
Become an eggs-pert, as you learn some eggs-traordinary information about eggs and pickles.
(ok, ok, you can quit groaning now... but come on, what did you eggs-pect from this dilly of a topic?)
Answers appear when you hover over the egg or pickle by each question... but NO FAIR PEEKING!
Answers are also given at the end of the questions, in case someone pickled the eggs!
Egg History
1. Europe has had domesticated hens since
A) World War I
B) 1777
C) 1095
D) 600 B.C.
2. Chickens came to the New World with
A) The Indians
B) Christopher Columbus
C) The Pilgrims
D) None
3. Long before Christian times, as part of the rites of spring, eggs were
A) Colored
B) Blessed
C) Exchanged
D) Eaten
E) A and B
F) A and C
G) All of the above
4. True or False: While it is customary to throw rice at weddings in many countries, French brides break an egg on the threshold of their new home before stepping in- for luck and healthy babies.
5. At the time of the French Revolution, the clever French already knew ___ different ways of preparing eggs
A) 25
B) 137
C) 432
D) 685
Egg Production (top)
6. True or False: About 280 million laying hens produce some 60 billion eggs each year in the United States.
7. Brown shelled eggs are produced by hens with
A) Brown eyes and feet
B) Red feathers and red ear lobes.
C) Too much melanin in their feathers
D) Owners who dye them before selling them
8. An average hen lays how many eggs a year?
A) 825-850
B) 600-675
C) 300 to 325
D) 150-175
9. Yolk color depends on
A) The season of the year
B) The diet of the hen
C) The color of the hen’s feathers
D) The amount of sunlight to which the egg is exposed.
10. Why does a mother hen turns over her egg about fifty times per day?
A) So the yolk won't stick to the sides of the shell
B) So the egg receives uniform heat during incubation
C) So the egg is rounded, and not flattened as the hen sits on it
D) To check for cracks and other flaws
11. Eggshells are made of calcium carbonate, also called
A) Calcarb
B) Calcium compound
C) Limestone
D) Carbo-Cal
Egg Handling (top)
12. True or False: The egg shell may have as many as 1,000 tiny pores over its surface.
13. Why are eggs are placed in their cartons large end up?
A) To keep the air cell in place and the yolk centered
B) They fit better in the carton
C) It makes them easier to remove from the carton
D) US Government regulations dictate this packaging of eggs
14. True or False: Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than in one week in the refrigerator
15. A hard-cooked egg will peel more easily if it is
A) Cooked in dry heat
B) Boiled for an hour
C) A week or two old before it is cooked
D) Soaked in vinegar for 15 minutes after cooking
16. To easily clean up an egg that is accidentally dropped on the floor,
A) Sprinkle it heavily with salt
B) Use a blow torch to cook it, then use a spatula to flip it into the garbage
C) Cover it with paper towel until it is absorbed
D) Call in the dog to clean it up for you
17. In cooking, eggs are
A) “The food fanatic’s favorite fun food
B) "The cement that holds the castle of cuisine together"
C) “The universal protein”
D) Flavor enhancers
18. True or False: Egg whites will beat to a better volume if they're cold, right from the refrigerator.
19. The stringy piece of material in the egg is a special protein called chalazae which
A) Keeps the shell together
B) Contains all the cholesterol in the egg
C) Acts as a shock absorber for the yolk so it doesn't break
D) Is an embryo
Egg Nutrition (top)
20. True or False: Eggs contain the highest quality protein you can buy.
21. Egg yolk is the major source of the egg's
A) Vitamins and minerals.
B) Protein
C) Carbohydrates
D) Nutrition
Egg-cetera (top)
22. Egg Tempera is an art medium. How are eggs used in this painting process?
A) Eggs are dipped in wax and then dyed
B) Paint is made from mixing pigment, water and egg yolk
C) Eggshells are crushed, dipped in paint and sprinkled over a canvas
D) Egg whites are used to thicken thin paint
23. Which of the following is an egg sport?
A) Egg-stomping
B) Egg-balancing
C) Egg-dancing
D) Egg-specking
24. The Easter Bunny exists in many European and North American traditions. In some European countries however, bunnies are not only animals to bring brightly-colored eggs. Which of the following does NOT bring colored eggs at Easter?
A) Panda bear
B) Cuckoo
C) Fox
D) Stork
25. The largest single chicken egg ever laid weighed
A) 4 ounces
B) 8 ounces
C) 12 ounces
D) a pound
Pickle Posers (top)
26. In 850 B.C., Aristotle praised the ____________ of cured cucumbers.
A) Nutritional value
B) Healing effects
C) Fulfilling taste
D) Evils
27. True or False: Cucumbers are mentioned at least twice in the Bible.
28. Cleopatra was a devotee of the pickle thinking it
A) Cured acne
B) Served as a breath freshener
C) Enhanced her beauty
D) Whitened her teeth
29. Julius Caesar shared pickles with his legions because he thought pickles
A) Had an invigorating effect
B) Made good “pellets” to hurl at the enemy
C) Brought good luck
D) Were easier to transport than other vegetables
30. The pickle got its name in the 1300s when English-speaking people mispronounced the name of William Beukelz, a Dutch fisherman known for
A) His gigantic pickle garden
B) Pickling fish
C) Designing the brine barrel
D) Eating a pickle at every meal
31. Pickles were brought to the New World by
C) The Pilgrims
D) Birds
32. The phrase "in a pickle" was coined by
A) H.J. Heinz
B) William Shakespeare
C) Bugs Bunny
D) Julius Caesar
33. There is a German tradition of hiding a glass pickle
A) In an Easter Basket
B) Under a bed pillow
C) Behind a door
D) In the Christmas tree
34. According to Pickle Packers International Inc., the perfect pickle should exhibit ___ warts per square inch
A) 5
B) 7
C) 14
D) 12
35. The 57 on the Heinz ketchup bottle represents
A) 57 varieties of food products in general
B) The number of varieties of pickles the company once had
C) The number of steps in the process of making ketchup
D) The address of the Heinz Company
36. According to Pickle Packers International, the crunch of a pickle should be audible, at ___ paces.
A) 1
B) 6
C) 10
D) 8
37. What happens if electrodes are inserted at opposite ends of a pickle, and electricity is passed through?
A) The pickle will glow - Isn't science amazing?!
B) The pickle will explode
C) The pickle will cook
D) Nothing
38. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that the average American eats __ pounds of pickles a year.
A) 8.5
B) 6.4
C) 3.75
D) 10
39. How many basic types of pickles are there?
A) 15
B) 8
C) 20
D) More than 36
40. In colonial America, the pickle patch was an important adjunct to good living. Pickles were highly regarded by all of America's pioneering generations because pickles were
A) considered a delicacy
B) the only zesty, juicy, green, succulent vegetable available for many months of the year.
C) rare and brought a high price at market
D) easily dried and kept for months
(top)
Egg History
1. D) 600 B.C.
2. B) Christopher Columbus on his second trip in 1493. There are now 200 breeds of chickens.
3. G) All of the above
4. True
5. D) 685 (including, of course, the omelet).
Egg Production
6. True - That's roughly one hen for every man, women and child in the country.
7. B) Red feathers and red ear lobes - White shelled eggs are produced by hens with white feathers and ear lobes. There is no difference in taste or nutrition between white and brown eggs.
8. C) 300 to 325 - A hen starts laying eggs at 19 weeks of age. A lot goes into an egg. The hen must eat 4 pounds of feed to make a dozen eggs. To produce one egg, it takes a hen 24-26 hours, and to do so, she requires 5 oz. of food and 10 oz. of water. Thirty minutes later she starts all over again. As a hen grows older she produces larger eggs. Occasionally, a hen will produce double-yolked eggs throughout her egg-laying career. It is rare, but not unusual, for a young hen to produce an egg with no yolk at all.
9. B) The diet of the hen - Feed containing yellow corn or alfalfa produces medium yellow yolks while feed containing wheat or barely produces lighter color yolks. Natural yellow-orange substances such as marigold petals may be added to light colored feeds to enhance the yolk color. Artificial color additives are not permitted in chicken feed.
10. A) So the yolk won't stick to the sides of the shell
11. C) Limestone
Egg Handling
12. False – They may have as many as 17,000 of them! Through them, the egg can absorb flavors and odors. Storing eggs in the carton helps keep them fresh.
13. A) To keep the air cell in place and the yolk centered
14. True - Eggs can be kept refrigerated in their carton for at least 4 to 5 weeks beyond the pack date. By the way, a cloudy white is a sign of freshness, not age, because of a high carbon dioxide content put in when the egg is laid. Tip: If eggs crack on the way home from the grocery store, you can break them into a clean container, cover them, and use them within two days.
15. C) A week or two old before it is cooked. To tell if an egg is raw or hard-cooked, spin it! If the egg spins easily, it is hard-cooked but if it wobbles, it is raw. A greenish ring around a hard-cooked egg yolk is due to either overcooking or a high iron content in the cooking water. This can be avoided using proper cooking time and temperature, and by rapidly cooling the cooked egg
16. A) Sprinkle it heavily with salt (of course, the dog would likely be happy to oblige instead!)
17. B) "The cement that holds the castle of cuisine together" - because of their ability to bind, leaven, thicken, emulsify, clarify, and more in all types of recipes.
18. False - Egg whites will beat to a better volume if they're allowed to stand at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before whipping. The egg yolk and white separate best when cold.
19. C) Acts as a shock absorber for the yolk so it doesn't break (it is not an embryo)
Egg Nutrition
20. True - Egg protein has just the right mix of essential amino acids needed by humans to build tissues. In addition, eggs have thirteen essential vitamins and minerals. It is second only to mother's milk for human nutrition. A large egg contains only 75 calories and 5 grams of fat.
21. A) Vitamins and minerals - Egg yolks are one of the few foods that naturally contain Vitamin D
Egg-cetera
22. B) Paint is made from mixing pigment, water and egg yolk - Sandro Botticelli, who created "The Birth of Venus," is one famous artist who worked with Egg Tempera. Eggs dipped in wax and then dyed is called pysanky, the way Ukranian Easter eggs are made.
23. Both B) and D) – Egg-balancing is a game where people race while carrying eggs on spoons, and the first person to cross the finish line with their egg intact wins. In egg-specking, eggs are rolled against each other on a lawn or down a hill, and the person with the uncracked egg at the end, wins. Egg-specking originated in Europe and is practiced at the White House every Easter.
24. A) Panda bear – Panda bears don’t even live in Europe. Swiss children believe that cuckoos bring brightly-coloured eggs at Easter. Germans believe that foxes (along with bunnies, roosters and storks) bring brightly-coloured eggs at Easter.
25. D) a pound – it had a double yolk and double shell
Pickle Posers
26. B) Healing effects
27. True: The children of Israel, wandering around in the desert, pined for those cucumbers (pre-pickles) back in Egypt: "We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic," in Numbers 11:5 and Isaiah 1:8. History records their usage over 3,000 years ago in Western Asia, ancient Egypt and Greece. Pliny's writings mention spiced and preserved cucumbers; in other words, pickles, and the Roman Emperor Tiberius consumed pickles on a daily basis.
28. C) Enhanced her beauty
29. A) Had an invigorating effect - Troops led by Napoleon relished their pickles too. And forty percent of all pickles produced in the U.S. during WWII were earmarked for the Armed Forces.
30. TB) Pickling fish – And speaking of the Dutch, in the sixteenth century, Dutch fine food fanciers cultivated pickles as one of their prized delicacies. Then, In 1659, Dutch farmers in New York grew cucumbers in what is now Brooklyn. These cukes were sold to dealers who cured them in barrels and sold them from market stalls on Washington, Canal and Fulton Streets. As it turns out, these pickle purveyors started the nation's commercial pickle industry.
31. A) Christopher Columbus – he is known to have grown them on the island of Haiti. Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named, was was actually a pickle peddler in Seville, Spain before becoming an explorer.. He supplied ships with pickled vegetables to prevent sailors from getting scurvy on long voyages. In 1820, Frenchman Nicholas Appert was the first person to commercially pack pickles in jars.
32. B) William Shakespeare - He writes, in The Tempest, "How cam'st thou in this pickle?" and "I have been in such a pickle...." This translates into old southern slang to I'm in a dilly of a pickle (I wonder what William would think).
33. D) In the Christmas tree - on Christmas Eve. Whoever finds the pickle first would get a special gift. But the idea of pickles and Christmas goes back even further. A folktale suggests that during medieval times a horrible innkeeper stuffed two children into a pickle barrel and St. Nicholas just happened to pass by the inn later that day and heard of the children's predicament. So, he tapped the barrel with his staff and freed the children who hurried home for Christmas dinner. (Legend of the Christmas Pickle)
34. B) 7 - for North American tastes, that is. Europeans prefer wartless pickles. Proportion is also important - the perfect cucumber for pickling has a length-to-diameter ratio of 3:1.
35. A) 57 varieties of food products in general - Heinz corporate history indicates that in 1896, Henry John Heinz noticed an advertisement for "21 styles of shoes." He decided that his own products were not styles, but varieties. Although there were many more than 57 foods in production at the time, because the numbers "5" and "7" held a special significance for him and his wife, he adopted the slogan "57 Varieties." Thus, a new advertising campaign was launched for Heinz 57 Varieties — and the rest is history! As for Heinz and pickles… H.J. Heinz, a marketing and advertising pioneer, introduced the pickle pin at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. It's considered by some to be one of the most effective promotional items in the history of retailing, often referred to as the P.T. Barnum of pickles. He erected a sign 6 stories high that dazzled tourists with a 40-foot long electric pickle in the heart of mid-town Manhattan (1900) and a 70 foot pickle perched heroically at the end of a 900 foot pier in Atlantic City. It was even rumored that he planned to carve a giant pickle into the side of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga Tennessee - there was a general uproar, with one partisan threatening to pickle Heinz 57 ways if he tried it. The Heinz people are still quite attached to the number 57. The phone number at corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh is ends in 5757, and the address is P.O. Box 57. One of their salesmen was a player for the Pittsburgh Steelers at one time, and you'll never guess what his number was. It is enough to make you want to swear off ketchup forever.
36. C) 10 - This can be measured at "crunch-off" using the "scientific" device known as the Audible Crunch Meter. Pickles that can be heard at only one pace are known as denture dills.
37. A) The pickle will glow - Isn't science amazing?!
38. A) 8.5 - And since it takes almost 4 billion pickles to reach the moon, all the pickles we eat would reach the moon and back more than 3 times! More than half the cucumbers grown in the U.S. are made into pickles. 26 billion pickles are packed each year in the U.S.
39. D) More than 36 - Dill pickles are the most popular variety, being twice as popular as sweet pickles, which comes in second.
40. B) the only zesty, juicy, green, succulent vegetable available for many months of the year - By the way, technically speaking, pickles are a fruit (according to the U.S. Supreme Court), but they are generally known as a vegetable. In colonial times, and, much later, on farms and in villages, homemakers expected to "put down" some pickles in stone crocks, and to "put up" some pickles and pickle relishes in glass jars. George Washington was a pickle enthusiast. So were John Adams and Dolly Madison. Pickles inspired Thomas Jefferson to write the following: "On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar."
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