Food A-Z Quiz Series - A

Answer: Asparagus

Asparagus is best eaten steamed. It is a common side paired with Steak Oscar, where your steak, asparagus, and crab are covered with Bearnaise sauce. If your asparagus is not covered with sauce, the most polite and appropriate way to eat asparagus is to cut the head off, eat it with your fork, and pick the stalk up to eat it.

Answer: Artichokes

An artichoke is a green vegetable with meat on the inside. The leaves are not usually eaten, but you can scrape at the leaves to eat the meat. When you get to the inside of the artichoke, you will find a heart. This is usually eaten by peeling or scraping out the fuzzy hairs and eaten dipped in butter, or cooked in different types of sauces. My mom's favorite way to eat artichokes is in artichoke dip, sometimes with spinach.

This is a dish that is made with artichoke hearts, spinach, and a cream cheese mixture.

Answer: Alfredo

Alfredo sauce is a creamy Parmesan sauce. It is usually white, but can sometimes be shaded slightly yellow, depending on the amount of Parmesan is found in the sauce. Fettuccine Alfredo is best with chicken and artichoke hearts on it. Try it!

Answer: Alaska

Baked Alaska may start with a B, but it still appears in the A quiz. It is a scoop of ice cream covered in meringue, but sometimes other ingredients like nuts, coconut, graham crackers, corn flakes, or any other topping, and fried quickly. It is refrozen to keep it solid, and placed on sponge cake. It can be served with brown sugar, sugar, or cinnamon. Yum!

Answer: Avocado

Although apples can make applesauce, that is not a Mexican dip! Avocados can be used to make guacamole. Avocados are green on the inside, with green "shells." The best way to get the most avocado out for your guacamole is to cut around the shell with a paring knife, and twist the two halves apart.

The avocado has a brown pit inside, that can be easily removed by whacking it with the paring knife, which will get the pit to stay attached to the knife. Next, take your paring knife and makes slices, still in the shell of the avocado, and then cross them to make squares. You can use a spoon to get the chunks out, and scrape as much of that good stuff out of the shell as possible.

Answer: Apple

Jolly Rancher is a company that makes all sorts of candies including hard candies and gummies. They even make soda! It was originally founded in 1949, in Denver, Colorado. The store, called "Ranch Maid Ice Cream," sold many things, including ice cream and hard candies.

The name "Jolly Rancher" is to show the wonderful western hospitality. It wasn't until 1951 that Jolly Rancher nixed the ice cream and started selling more hard candies. In 2002, however, Jolly Rancher was sold to Hershey's, and stopped being produced in Colorado. Now the candies are made in Canada.

Answer: Allspice

Allspice is a dried berry used as a seasoning. It can be bought whole or ground. Ground allspice is great to "spice things up" a bit. Whole allspice is very bitter, and should be used sparingly. If you add a few berries to boiling water, it will add a wonderful flavor to poached fish.

Answer: Acid reducer

Milk is an incorrect answer for two reasons. One, milk may stop the heartburn at first, but only because it is a thick and cold liquid going down your throat. Heartburn is actually caused by extra acid going up into your throat and burning the esophagus. Milk will actually cause the acid to increase and cause even more pain after the short burst of feeling well.

The second reason is because it doesn't start with A! Eating an apple core does not help. It is simply an urban legend that eating the apple core will cure all illnesses. Apple cider vinegar may work, but not well. You would have to drink an awful lot of vinegar for it to work! Eating a piece of gum will help, because chewing gum encourages swallowing, and this will cause you to swallow the acid building up into your throat, and reducing the pain. Of course, acid reducers are designed to reduce acid, so this is the best to take if you have heartburn!

Answer: Amaretto

Amaretto is an almond flavoring. It can be used for many different reasons. My favorite is to make almond cookies. Start by making sugar cookies and icing. In the icing, add a few drops of Amaretto, and spread it on the sugar cookies. In no time you have delicious almond cookies! It is also great on chocolate chip cookies.

Answer: Andouille

Andouille sausage is pronounced an-due-we, although many pronounce it an-duel-lee. It is usually a spicy sausage, found commonly on many pizzas. However, the sausage that looks like hamburger on pizza, is NOT andouille!