A Snail's Grace Trivia Quiz

Answer: Near a Thousand Tables

From "Near a Thousand Tables" (subtitled "A History of Food"):
"Paleolithic shell mounds contain snail varieties bigger on average than today's equivalents. It therefore looks as though the snail eaters of the late ice age were already selecting for size. Mounds of this age and kind are so common and in some cases so large that only scholarly inhibitions stop us from assuming that they are evidence of systematic food production."

Snails were cultivated first because they were small, easy to confine and feed, produced valuable protein, and were not dangerous. Kind of makes one look at them in a whole new light, doesn't it?

Answer: Cuckoldry

A man with an unfaithful wife was known as a cuckold and was said to "wear a cuckold's horns". Since snails wear horns naturally, they were seen as symbolic of this fate, one of the worst that could befall a man. A woman with an unfaithful husband, however, was not known by any special term.

Answer: True

Similarly, to hunt fish is called "fishing" and to catch shrimp is called "shrimping", but deer or moose hunting is not called "deering" or "moosing". To add to the confusion, if you go "beagling", you're hunting WITH a pack of beagles, not FOR one. Isn't English fascinating?

Answer: Lewis Carroll

Carroll's "Lobster Quadrille" is a parody of Mary Howitt's morally instructive "The Spider and the Fly". Although the snail is the real star of the poem, he gets no billing in the title.

Answer: Henri Matisse

Matisse, who died in 1954, was 84 and confined to his bed when he created "The Snail". It was the first of his works to use torn paper and is vibrant and full of color and life.

Although Matisse is quoted as having said "I have painted almost 1,200 pictures. More than 2,500 of them are in the USA.", "The Snail" is in London, and both the other paintings mentioned in the question are in Russia.

Answer: I Love Lucy

The episode, which first aired on February 27, 1956, is called "Paris at Last". After her very French waiter insists that there is nothing wrong with the food, Lucy puts...oh dear...KETCHUP on her snails. The unlucky French café which Mrs. Ricardo patronized is called Le Café de la Porte-Montmartre, and it was established in 1882.

Answer: The Talented Mr. Ripley

Movies based on these four books were all nominated for 1999 Academy Awards. Patricia Highsmith wrote five novels featuring Tom Ripley, a psychopathic con man and bisexual serial killer.

Answer: The Medusa and the Snail

All of the choices are essay collections by Dr. Thomas, who won the National Book Award for 1974's "The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher". His "The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher" contains, in addition to the title essay, others such as "On Magic in Medicine", "On Warts", and "How to Fix the Premedical Curriculum". All of Dr. Thomas's books are both learned and a pleasure to read.

Answer: Awakening sexuality

Many of Ms. Olds's works concern sexuality. "The Connoisseuse of Slugs" is from 1983 and can be read at www.mrbauld.com/oldspoems.html

In classical painting symbolism, a snail signified resurrection due to its habit of hibernating in the winter and emerging, seemingly reborn, in the springtime. Snails have also appeared as symbols of self-sufficiency, fertility, and many other traits.

Answer: Sesame Street

They have a catchy rhythm, those snails.

Look for much, much more snail information at "The Trail of the Snail" website (www.arnobrosi.com/snail.html), where some of the information for this quiz was found.

"And seeing the snail, which everywhere doth roam,
Carrying his own house still, still is at home;
Follow-for he is easy paced-this snail,
Be thine own palace, or the world's thy gaol." (John Donne)