Camels to Carrots: A Food For All Quiz

Answer: Australia

"Foodreference.com" not only maintains that ancient Romans happily consumed grilled camel's feet but that the Voison Restaurant of Paris had Camel as an item on its Christmas Eve menu in 1870. (Of course, Paris was under siege at the time.) A modern French cookbook is reported to include "pieds de chameau a la vinaigrette" - "feet of camel in vinaigrette sauce".

When motorized transportation superseded the use of camels, Australian camel owners released their animals into the wild. Australia exports meat from its camel "farms" not from the camel herds that roam the remote Australian deserts. Estimates of the Australian wild camel population run as high as 500,000.

Camel hoof paste might be worth trying should an opportunity present itself. The camel hoofs seem to be used mainly as a thickening agent. Other ingredients include mushrooms, ham slices, salt, chives, ginger, rice wine, and pepper.

Answer: Cyanide

Although a high cyanide content renders some varieties of candlenuts unfit for consumption, non-toxic candlenuts are used as a thickening agent in some commercial food products. However, the non-dietary uses of candlenuts are legion. Candlenuts are strung together to make necklaces; candlenut oil is incorporated into varnishes and soaps; medicinal candlenut oil is ingested as a laxative, rubbed on painful joints and applied to the head to treat headaches and lower fever.

Candlenuts, although marginally edible, offered the ancient natives of the islands of Oceania indirect assistance in increasing their food supply. Natives strung together the nuts of candlenut trees and lit them to provide illumination for night fishing. Early Polynesians brought the candlenut tree to the Hawaiian Islands. In ancient Hawaii, only Ali'i (chiefs) were permitted to wear candlenut necklaces. The candlenut tree, also called "kuku'i", is now Hawaii's state tree.

Answer: White kidney beans

Italian immigrants cultivated Cannellini beans in Argentina before bringing them back to Italy where the white kidney beans have become an important ingredient in Italian cuisine. "Cannellini's" etymologic relatives include "canasta", "canyon" and "cannon", all of which share a Semitic root "qanaw", a noun meaning "reed".

Answer: A mosquito

The etymologic journey from mosquitoes to canapés included some twists and turns. The "konopos" (mosquito) gave birth to the "konopion", the curtain around the couch to keep the mosquitoes away. Via Latin, "canapé" came into the French language, referring to the couch rather than the curtain. "Canape" was then applied to bread squares with a savory topping because of the snack's perceived resemblance to a couch.

In English, the sense of "curtain" prevailed and resulted in the English word "canopy".

Answer: Turkey

"Limpin' Susan" features Okra, bacon and rice. "Cape Cod Turkey" is cod stuffed with oysters, shrimp and bread cubes. According to "epodunk.com", other deceptive American "food" names include the following:

Georgia ice cream - grits
Kansas City sheep dip - whiskey
West Virginia coleslaw - chewing tobacco

The plain truth is that many people, particularly children, will eat fish only when deceived or under duress. To lessen his guilt at his occasional violations of his family's "fish-on-Friday" stricture, my father referred to the occasional steak he consumed on Friday as "Red Snapper". Somewhat analogously, it is hypothesized that the deception in name "Cape Cod Turkey" was intended to sidestep the fact that fish was the dish's main ingredient.

Answer: A star

Thought to have originated in Sri Lanka or Southern India, the Carambola tree is now cultivated throughout Southeast Asia, in Hawaii and in the Caribbean. Also called "star fruit" because of the shape visible when the fruit is sliced, both sweet and bitter varieties of the fruit are cultivated.

Some hold that the Portuguese word "carambola" originated from "karambal", a word in the Southern Indian language, Marathi. The "Online Etymology Dictionary" connects "karambal" to the Spanish meaning for "carombola", "the red ball in billiards".

Answer: Seed

The tiny fruit of the caraway plant are used in a wide range of products from cakes, candy, schnapps and sauerkraut to soap and perfumes. Just as the fruit of the plant was confused for a seed, so the plant itself has been confused with cumin. Caraway may have been used longer in Europe than any other spice. Seeds discovered in dwellings date back to 6000 BC. Medical uses of Caraway have been dated to as early as 1552 BC in Egypt.

Answer: All of them

Ancient near eastern peoples considered cardamom to be an aphrodisiac. They added cardamom to coffee to counteract what was felt to be coffee's opposite effect on sexual drive. Cardamom is probably native to India, where it is a commonly used spice. Unexpectedly, the other region of the world in which cardamom is particularly popular is Scandanavia.

Answer: Wales

It's a traditional dish from oyster-fishing regions in South Wales, that has been added to and updated in its travels around the world.

Answer: Queen Anne's Lace

Gathering wild carrots is not a job for amateurs. All of the plants listed as choices bear resemblance to Daucus carota (Queen Anne's Lace). Conium maculatum is the same poison hemlock with which Socrates dispatched himself. Cicuta maculata is poisonous water hemlock. Consumption of enough fool's parsley can kill the fool who consumes it. There is a supposedly simple way to tell the difference between the leaves of Queen Anne's Lace and those of these other plants, but legal counsel advises me to allow you to learn of it elsewhere.

The exact origin of the name "Queen Anne's Lace" is unclear. Other names for Daucus carota include "cow parsley" and "mother die" - the latter reportedly linked to the notion that if you brought the flowers into the house, your mother would die.

Sadly, despite its pretty white flowers, Dacus carota is not an altogether popular plant. It might even be considered the black sheep of the whole carrot family. While some of its relatives (such as the Australian flannel flower) are accorded the status of wildflower, Queen Anne's Lace is considered in many places to be nothing more than an herbicide resistant weed.