Cool as a Cucumber Trivia Quiz

Answer: fruit

The cucumber is classified as a fruit because it grows from a flower, and contains seeds. It is however mostly treated as a vegetable in culinary use.

Answer: Married couple

Between 1985 and 2004, The Cucumbers released six albums, including the wonderfully named "Total Vegitility" (1999).

For some years, Deena was also a member of a band called Over the Moon who made "rock music for children".

Answer: The crusts must be cut off

To truly be a part of a British afternoon tea, the cucumber sandwich must be made from fresh white bread, sliced very thinly. It is lightly buttered (never margarine or other spread!) and filled with wafer-thin slices of fresh cucumber. Then, the crusts are carefully cut off and the full (two slices of bread) round is cut into four perfect triangles.

Cucumber sandwiches are also often still served during the tea breaks in a cricket match, although some clubs have been known to offer malt vinegar and even pepper to season them with!

Answer: Heston Blumenthal

The full title of the dish by Heston is "Roast Scallops with cucumber ketchup, roasted cucumber, butter emulsion, broad beans, bergamot and borage" and the recipe for the ketchup can be found in his book "Historic Heston" (2014).

Answer: Mosaic

CMV can affect well over a thousand species of plants, not just cucumbers. It is found worldwide, and is spread by aphids in the spring.

It is one of the most prevalent plant diseases known, and there is no "cure" once a crop is infected. The only means of prevention is eradication of all infected plants.

Answer: India

The Dr KK Mohammed Koya Sea Cucumber Conservation Reserve, around the Lakshadweep Islands, off the south east coast of India, was set up to try and prevent the decline in numbers of many species of sea cucumber. They are widely used for both food and medicine in the Far East, particularly China, and their numbers are under threat.

Export of sea cucumbers was banned by India in the early 1970s, and commercially harvesting them was banned in 2002.

Answer: Vienna

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra uses fresh fruits and vegetables to make new instruments for every concert they give. Leftovers and offcuts are made into delicious soup and served to the audience after the show.

Lots of information about the orchestra, including a picture of a "cucumberphone" is available on their website.

Answer: Cartilaginous

Pliny recorded how cucumbers, being a favourite of Emperor Tiberius, were grown year round by the ingenious use of moveable planters and very early greenhouses with transparent roofs.

Pliny lived and wrote in the first century C.E.

Answer: Bee Gees

"Cucumber Castle" was the Bee Gees' seventh studio album, but only featured Barry and Maurice Gibb, Robin having left the band the previous year.

A film special of the same name was shown on British television in December 1970, which as well as the Bee Gees featured songs and appearances by other stars including Lulu, Eric Clapton, and Spike Milligan.

Probably the best known song from the album is "Don't Forget to Remember" which reached the Top 10 on the singles charts in more than ten countries worldwide.

Answer: False

The phrase was actually first recorded in a poem by the English poet John Gay, in 1732.

The actual verse, from his work "A New Song of Old Similies" is:
"Pert as a pear-monger I'd be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber could see
The rest of womankind."