Fruity Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cowberry

The lingonberry or cowberry grows in northern countries, such as Canada, Russia, Scandinavia and the Baltic states, and the state of Alaska. It is used to make jams and jellies, and pies; the Iñupiat, who live in the far north of Canada, mix it with seal blubber and fish eggs to make a pudding.

In Scandinavia, lingonberry sauce is a popular accompaniment for reindeer meat. Lingonberry juice is also used as a preservative for pears in Sweden. (Dogberry is a comedy character in Shakespeare's 'Much Ado About Nothing'.)

Answer: India

India produced 45% of the 55 million tons of guavas sold throughout the world in 2019. The guavas pictured are from an Indian market, and it is sold as a street food in several countries. In the Philippines, it's used in a sour vegetable soup called sinigang, and it can be used as a pastel (pastry) filling in Cuba.

Guava has a lot of pectin, so it's a popular jam or jelly choice. In Brazil, it is used to make a jelly called goiabada; a similar guava jelly called bocadillo, which contains panela sugar, is consumed in Spanish-speaking Central and South American countries. 'Guava Jelly' is also a song by Bob Marley and the Wailers (not to be confused with the song of the same name by 'American Idol 3' contestant Camile Velasco).

Answer: Plum

Greengages are sweeter than your average purple or red plum, and originate from a green wild plum grown in Iran. Nowadays, they are mainly found in western Europe, particularly in France and southwest England; the Reine Claude is the most commonly available variety, and has yellowish-green skin. Regional variants of Reine Claude such as the Portuguese Rainha Cláudia and the Polish renklody, are used as catch-all terms for greengages in other countries.

They are often used in compote and in Portugal, they are boiled multiple times in sugar syrup before being eaten with cheese, or a lemony egg pudding called sericaia.

Answer: Sloe gin

The fruit in the picture is the sloe, the fruit of the blackthorn tree and a relative of the plum (being in the Prunus family). Sloe gin is a British liqueur in which sloes are soaked in gin (my brother once got given a bottle for Christmas by his then girlfriend, and it tasted somewhat medicinal). Sugar can be added, but some prefer to leave it out as the fruit adds its own natural sugars when left to mature in the spirit. In Spain, there is a similar drink called Patxaran, which also contains coffee beans and cinnamon and is made with anisette, an anise liqueur.

As well as gin, sloes are also used as pie fillings or jam ingredients, and when pickled in vinegar, they make a preserve similar to the Japanese umeboshi. The juice can also be used as a blue dye.

Answer: Sharon fruit

In British greengrocers, you're more likely to find Sharon fruit than persimmons. Unlike other persimmon species, Sharon fruit are almost seedless and do not have a core, and are not as astringent, but much sweeter due to ripening on the tree. They are named for the Sharon plain in Israel.

In Japan, the leaves of persimmons are used to make tea. Dried persimmons are used to make sujeonggwa, a spicy cinnamon-flavoured punch, in Korea; persimmons are also used to make a type of vinegar called gamsikcho. In the USA, persimmon pudding is a brownie-like pudding with a texture similar to gingerbread, and features in a contest to make the best pudding at the annual Persimmon Festival in Mitchell, Indiana.

Answer: Pomelo

The pomelo comes from Southeast Asia and is the ancestor of the grapefruit. It is the biggest of the citrus fruits and has been used to create multiple hybrid fruits, such as the bitter orange or the mandelos. Like grapefruit, it should be consumed with caution when also taking medication, as it can interact with some medications. Its rind can be candied or used to make preserves, and it is eaten as a dessert in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia, where it can be sprinkled with sugar or salt.

Pomelos can be used to create uglis (also known as Jamaican tangelos) by crossing them with oranges or tangerines. As for the other two answers, they are both Japanese citrus fruit; a yuzu is a fruit that looks like a small grapefruit, and the setoka is a tangor, a mandarin orange/sweet orange hybrid.

Answer: Dyes

Mangosteens are native to India and Southeast Asia, although they have also been introduced to South and Central America. As well as jams and desserts, they are also used as a salad ingredient in Vietnam. In Indonesia, the peels of mangosteens are used to make dark red, purple and brown dyes, which are used in traditional batik and ikat prints (ikat being a dyeing technique used for materials that are usually dye-resistant). Combining the dye with alum makes the material brighter, while iron makes it darker.

Besides dye, mangosteens - both the fruit and the bark - are also used in traditional medicine in Southeast Asian countries, and as a tanning agent in China. The wood of the mangosteen tree is used to make spears and furniture in Thailand.

Answer: China

The kumquat is consumed and sold in many countries, but it is native to China. Although it looks like an orange, it's much smaller, about the size of a big olive. Some versions such as the oval kumquat are eaten whole, including the skin, as it has a sweet taste, while the fruit itself is sour. Kumquats can be used in marmalades and jellies, fruit salads, pies, and can also be candied and eaten whole or used as garnishes.

The kumquat is a symbol of good luck and prosperity in China and is given as a Lunar New Year's gift. They are also kept as houseplants.

Answer: Sukkot

On the Jewish festival of Sukkot, one of the Pilgrim Festivals, it is customary to hold the four species: the etrog, the hadass (myrtle), the aravah (willow) and the lulav (a palm frond, and also the generic term for when the three plants are bound together). The lulav is shaken in various directions while the etrog is held in the other hand. The etrog must keep its stem, or pitam, or it is no longer kosher.

After Sukkot is over, some Ashkenazi Jews save the etrog until the festival of Tu B'Shvat (when it is customary to eat fruit) and use it for candied peel or marmalade. It can also be turned into a pomander for the Havdalah ceremony by sticking cloves into it. According to superstition, if a pregnant woman eats an etrog, she will have an easy childbirth.

Answer: Yes

The bell pepper is similar to the tomato in that respect. You might think the bell pepper is a vegetable, as it is often used in salads and stir-fries and on pizzas, and can also be stuffed with rice and other savoury fillings, but it's actually a fruit. In fact, it is botanically classed as a berry because it comes from a plant with one ovary and doesn't contain a pit, just a core and seeds, although it has an airy space around its seeds rather than pulp like other berry fruits.

The red, orange and yellow bell peppers pictured here are the ones you're most likely to see in a supermarket, along with the less sweet green pepper (which is actually an unripe red pepper), but brown, purple and white bell peppers also exist.