A Toast to Toast! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wheat and barley

Thanks to an archaeological site in Israel, which revealed the remains of over 90,000 plants, scientists were able to deduce that Stone Age humans used wheat and barley to create their own early version of toast. Indeed by mixing these two ingredients with water, our Stone Age ancestors succeeded in making something similar to a flatbread, which they then allowed to harden over a hot fire. Thanks to the heat of the fire, the mixture would then turn brown, hardening the bread and thus allowing it to be kept for several days.

Answer: The growing of mould

The Egyptians may have made toast, but they did not do so because they preferred its texture or flavour. On the contrary, they were more concerned with drying out the bread, in order to stave off mould, and ensure that the bread remained edible for longer. For much like the modern day, bread was also a staple food for the Egyptians, and in order to eliminate the moisture which would inevitably lead to mould, they toasted it.

Answer: Wine

Believe it or not, the Romans regularly used burnt breadcrumbs to make bad wine more palatable. Indeed they believed that by dropping these bits of toast into their cups, the acidity in the wine would decrease due to the charcoal. Moreover the word "toast" also originated from the Romans, as they gave us the word "tostus" which is Latin for "to dry up".

Answer: A hunk of stale or toasted bread used as a makeshift dish or bowl to hold food

During the later years of the Middle Ages, before dinner plates were invented, food was laid out on a hunk of stale or toasted bread that was too hard to be used for anything else. Referred to as trenchers, these pieces of bread were actually ingenious medieval plates, and were even used to hold soups and stews. First recorded around 1300, they were often hollowed out, so that they were not only used as makeshift dishes, but also looked like them.

Answer: Cheese

It was during the Victorian era that people really began to play around with their toast toppings, and everything from honey, veal and ginger began to be used. In Wales, Welsh rarebit was a particularly common dish, and though its first recorded reference was in 1725, it really became immensely popular during the mid to late 1800s. Welsh rarebit is, essentially, cheese on toast, but can be spiced up in many different ways.

Answer: The modern, automatic, pop-up toaster

By 1919, toast had already been around for thousands of years, but it was not until this year that the modern, automatic, pop-up toaster made its first appearance, when it was patented by American, Charles Strite. Though earlier inventors had created several different versions of toasters, it was Strite who pioneered the first automatic, pop-up toaster.

As a result, toast quickly became a 'fast food', although one inconvenience of this early version of the toaster, was that it only toasted one side of bread at a time. Strite's product was an instant success, so much so that during the 1920s, in America, toaster sales tripled, firmly cementing toast's status as a staple food.

Answer: True

It was in 1928 that Frederick Rohwedder invented a machine that not only sliced bread, but also wrapped it. Thus sliced bread was introduced to the world, and the subsequent result was that toast became even quicker and easier to make. In 1930, the brand, Wonder Bread became one of the very first to market this new product, which served to make toast even more popular.

Answer: Screwdrivers with interchangeable heads

Nick Parker's 2002 book on toast called this humble food the "culinary equivalent of those really handy screwdrivers with interchangeable heads". Clearly then, he marvelled at its versatility, and the fact that, like the screwdriver, it has a hundred different uses.

Moreover in a review by "The Guardian" newspaper, Parker's book was hailed as "enthusiastic and knowledgeable", serving to highlight the fact that toast is food not just "for the sick man", but also for "the sober, the rich man and the drunk".

Answer: Because it is fried, not toasted

French toast is, despite its name, not actually toast, due to the fact that the bread is not toasted but rather is fried in a pan. Thus it is not the bread that is browned, only its coating of egg. Also known as eggy bread, in its purest form, French toast is simply bread that has been soaked in beaten eggs before then being fried.

The dish can be made as sweet by adding ingredients such as sugar, fruit and cinnamon, or it can be made savoury by adding things such as cheese, tomato sauce and mayonnaise.

Answer: Soldiers

Soldiers are simply thin strips of toast, which are usually used to dip soft boiled eggs. However they can also accompany other dishes, such as soup or spaghetti shapes, and when accompanying these latter two foods, they are usually found spread around the inside of the dish.

The term "soldiers", when it comes to their association with boiled eggs, is thought to relate to the children's nursery rhyme, "Humpty Dumpty". As Humpty Dumpty has long been portrayed as an egg, the mention of soldiers makes perfect sense, as it is the soldiers of the King that the rhyme describes as coming to Humpty Dumpty's aid, following his "great fall".