Sending Their Best Trivia Quiz

Answer: England

The earliest recorded reference to an apple pie comes from England in the fourteenth century. Apple pies were very popular in Europe and were introduced in American primarily by English immigrants but also Swedish ones. It took some time before apple pies were made in America, however, because the only native apples were crabapples.

It took a while before apple seeds from Europe grew into fruit producing apple trees.

Answer: Trenton tomato pie

The tomato pie was created by Italian immigrants in Trenton, New Jersey. It is essentially a pizza with the sauce on top of the cheese and the toppings. It was invented in 1910 at Joe's Tomato Pie. It is sometimes called a Trenton tomato pie or a New Jersey tomato pie.

Hawaiian pizza is a Canadian invention. Tomatoes were first added to pizzas in the late 18th century in Italy. Many Europeans considered tomatoes to be poisonous, thus tomatoes were inexpensive and readily available to the poor who added it to their flatbreads. Tomatoes were largely sweet in those days and thus pizzas were more sweet than savory.

Cheese was first added to pizza (or a precursor to pizza) in Ancient Rome. The dish was popular with Jews in Rome because it was kosher for Passover. The meal spread and became popular with Roman soldiers who added the cheese.

Answer: The American hamburger was between two slices of bread.

The original hamburger was called a Hamburg steak and was a roasted steak of ground beef served over bread. The traditional American hamburger is believed to have originated in Connecticut by Dutch immigrants. They served it as a sandwich with the meat patty between two slices of bread. Today, the bread slices have evolved into buns.

They called it a steak sandwich and it was often served with different toppings, most popularly cheese.

Answer: Native people in Mexico

Tacos originated in the Valley of Mexico and were created by Native Americans who wrapped fish in soft bread. The dish was adapted by the Spanish when they arrived in Mexico and were often the star of large feasts.

When the taco arrived in the United States, Americans changed it up by using hard shell tacos instead of flat tortillas or soft bread wrapping.

Answer: Turkish delight

The first known recorded use of the word jelly bean comes from 1861 where a Boston candy maker encouraged his customers to send jelly beans to Union troops. However, the jelly bean did not originate in the U.S. as there have long been similar treats in Europe and Asia for centuries. Turkish delight is a candy consisting of chopped nuts and fruits stuck together with molten sugar and coated with sugar.

The same process was used to create the jelly bean. The soft center of the jelly bean was incredibly sticky and was unpopular until confectioners learned to create the coating.

Answer: Sushi

A California roll is a type of sushi made with crab, imitation crab, cucumber or avocado wrapped in rice. It is believed to have been created in the 1960s in Los Angeles, although the name came much later. The idea for the California roll came from Japanese restaurant owners who wanted to bring in a wide variety of customers but thought traditional Japanese cuisine may not have been appealing to them. Today, the California roll is one of the most popular types of sushi in the United States.

Answer: Mishmash of different ingredients

Chop suey originated as a meal made from a variety of leftovers typically consisting of a meat, vegetables, eggs and rice. It is widely believed to have been created in the United States by Chinese railroad workers who were often poor and living squalid conditions.

They would share their leftovers with another to create new dishes. Another chop suey creation myth is that it was created by a Chinese restaurant owner in Los Angeles who was forced to feed inebriated men and concocted chop suey from the scraps leftover from previous meals rather than waste fresh food.

Answer: Eggplant

Chicken parmigiana was created by Italian immigrants in the late 19th, early 20th century. They adapted the traditional dish melanzana parmigiana or eggplant parmigiana. Many of the immigrants were from poor farm towns in southern Italy where eggplant was readily available but meat was not. Meat, particularly chicken, was much more inexpensive in the U.S.

By the 1950s, chicken parmigiana was considered a staple in every fancy restaurant in the United States. By the 1980s, it became a much more casual meal.

Answer: Putting it on a bun

The frankfurter or wiener got its name from the cities of Frankfurt and Vienna. Sausages were very popular in the Germanic countries in Europe and German immigrants brought sausages to the United States. Sausages were colloquially called dogs in English because Germans sometimes used dog meat.

In the U.S., hot dogs were first served on buns and became popular meals for working class men in factories. The term hot dog can mean just the sausage itself and the sausage on the bun.

Answer: Italy

Chicken Francese is a dish consisting of chicken in a lemon sauce. Despite its name, the dish is an Italian-American one, not French. The "Francese" refers to the lemon-butter sauce. It was first created in the 1950s and possibly with veal. However, veal was very expensive and thus unaffordable to many working class Italian-Americans and chicken was used instead.