Tizzabelle's 9 for 10 for Children #3 Quiz

Answer: Corn

You can crack wheat, but popped corn is delicious, especially when there are some simple, yummy additions such as butter and salt. Corn, often known as maize, originated in Mesoamerica with the Mayans and Olmecs developing it as a crop. Its popularity has spread around the world because its succulent and flavoursome, and because it will grow in several climate zones. You can even grow it in your backyard. Just be prepared for your corn plant to grow up to 2.5 metres (8 feet) tall.

Some varieties found in the wild will reach the 12 metre (40 feet) mark!

Answer: Honeydew melon

Honeydews are melons with a pale green, sweet flesh. Related to other melons such as the cassaba and winter melons, the honeydew originally came from the Mediterranean region.

Answer: Omelette

There are many versions of the omelette around the world. The basic form is some beaten eggs put in a hot pan, cooked like a pancake and rolled up on itself, with or without filling. Some people prefer a flat omelette, while others prefer a fluffy one.

Some people like to take things to the extreme though. In 1994, if you'd been visiting Yokohama, Japan, you could have had a part of a record-breaking omelette made of 160,000 eggs. Not be outdone, eight years later in Ontario, Canada, an omelette weighing 2.95 tonnes (that's a smidge over 6,500 lbs) was made, breaking the record.

Answer: Cheese

Cheese has been around a long time. It's estimated that cheese has been in production for about 10,000 years. Archaeologists feel the first cheeses, possibly made in the Middle East, were like the ricottas and fetas we know today - soft cheeses. Over the last ten millennia, cheese has been developed to suit many palates.

There are hard and soft cheeses, white, blue and red cheeses, cheeses for canapes and desserts, cheeses for babies and for adults. A concentrated form of milk, cheese is rich in calcium.

Answer: Olive

Olives have been enjoyed by humans for thousands of years. They began life in the Middle East and around the Mediterranean Sea, but olives are now grown in many regions of the world. There are several types of olive trees, most of which have green unripe fruit which matures into a purple (black) olive. There are a few varieties of olive which have green mature fruit.

Don't try to eat an olive fresh off the tree. They are quite bitter and unpalatable. Olives are pickled to remove the bitterness prior to consumption. Another use of the fruit is olive oil. Tasty olive oil isn't just used for cooking. It can be used as a fuel in lamps, in soaps, and as a ritual ointment in religious practices.

Answer: Lime

Green and pithy could describe Marvin the Martian, but that wasn't a possible answer. The lime is a member of the citrus family. Smaller and less tart than its cousin, the lemon, limes have been cultivated for centuries. As well as its culinary usage, the lime has a delightful fragrance derived from its oils which can be used in the perfume industry.

Answer: Asparagus

Asparagus has been eaten for at least 5,000 years with depictions of the vegetable seen in ancient Egyptian buildings. Asparagus, if left to its own devices, will pop out of the ground and exposure to sunlight will turn it green. If you want white asparagus, you need to cover the plant with soil, a plastic shelter or similar. This prevents exposure to sunlight, stops photosynthesis and keeps the asparagus white. A purple variety of asparagus was developed in Italy. Melted butter is a traditional accompaniment for asparagus, as is hollandaise sauce.

Answer: Tuna

The tuna is an ocean fish built for speed. Indeed, its name 'tuna' comes from an ancient Greek word which meant to 'dart' or 'rush'. There are eight species of tuna and the largest is the Atlantic bluefin tuna. They average around 2m (6.6 ft) in length, but one whopper was measured at 4.5m (15 ft) and weighed 684 kg (1,508 lb). Tuna is fantastic eaten raw as sashimi, barbecued lightly so its still rare, or it can be tinned. Over one million tonnes of tuna is canned every year!

Answer: Egg

For those of you who don't know, 'chook' is an Australian word for a chicken. Eggs can be dealt with in many culinary ways including frying, boiling (soft or hard), coddling, scrambling and my favourite, poaching. You probably know that, but did you know that in the USA every year, 6.6 billion (yes, that's 'b' for billion) dozen eggs are produced by 280 million hard working chickens? That's 79.2 billion eggs.

The average American consumes over 200 eggs per year. It sounds like a lot, but many eggs are used in the production of breads, cakes, batters etc., so the per capita total adds up in hidden eggs you may not realise you're eating.

Answer: Chocolate

You've done the hard work so let's have some fun with chocolate. Did you know that in 2011, a chocolate bar weighing over 12,000 pounds was made by the World's Finest Chocolate company? The bar was a rectangular block of chocolate divided into a few segments. Not much later in the same year, Thorntons, an English chocolate maker, trumped that block of chocolate with one of their own measuring closer to 13,000 pounds in honour of their centenary.

Fancy a hot chocolate? Well, if you'd been in Florida in January, 2013, you could have had a sip of a record-breaking cup of hot chocolate. The largest cup of hot chocolate up till then, it contained 3,331 litres (that's a smidge over 732 gallons) of hot chocolate. Being in a hurry wouldn't have stood you in good stead though. It took several hours to heat the giant hot chocolate up to drinking temperature.

Thorntons were also in the news in 2008 with the world's largest box of chocolates. A promotional item, Thorntons made a box of individually wrapped chocolates that was just under the height of three average men (over 5 metres or 16 feet), was over three metres wide, and contained over 220,000 (yes, that's 220 thousand) wrapped chocolates.