Before Baba Ghanoush, There Was the Artichoke Quiz

Answer: thistle

Though the English "artichoke", like the French "artichaut" and the German "Artischocke", was borrowed directly from the northern Italian word "articiocco" ("ciocco" meaning "stump", a reference to the plant's appearance), the word denoting this delicious vegetable originally comes from the Arabic "al-kharshuf", meaning "the thistle". Indeed, artichokes are a species of thistle, as their spiny outer leaves can attest. Other European languages have words that are closer to the original Arabic word: "alcachofa" in Spanish, "alcachofra" in Portuguese, and "carciofo" in Italian.

The thistle is the floral emblem of Scotland; the three incorrect answers are emblems of England (rose), Wales (leek), and Northern Ireland (flax).

Answer: carob

The Arabic word "kharrub", referring to the pods produced by this evergreen tree, is believed to have come from an older Semitic language - probably Aramaic. On the other hand, the word "carat" comes from the Greek name of the plant, "kerátion" ("horn-like"), which is the source of its generic name of "Ceratonia". Carob seeds were used in the Middle Ages to measure the weight of gold and gemstones, because they were believed to have very little variation in their mass - which made them more reliable as a unit of weight.

The carob tree grows all over the Mediterranean region: in Spanish it is called "algarrobo", "carrubo" in Italian, and "caroubier" in French.

"Cedar" comes from Greek, "chestnut" from Latin, and "cashew" from Tupi (an indigenous language of South America) via Portuguese.

Answer: tamarind

"Tamr" means "date palm" in Arabic; the Hebrew form "tamar" is also a woman's name that appears in the Bible. The tamarind tree - indigenous to Africa, but widely cultivated in South Asia for thousands of years - was named "tamr hindi" ("date of India") by the Arabs, because the sweet, tangy pulp contained within its pods reminded them of the fruits of the date palm. The plant's binomial name, Tamarindus indica, further emphasizes its connection with India. The tree is called "tamarindo" in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

Though belonging to the same family as the other options, peanuts do not grow on trees, but underground.

Answer: pomelo

The name of the pomelo - a citrus fruit from Southeast Asia (shown in the photo) - comes from the Dutch "pompelmoes", the source of "pamplemousse", the French word for "grapefruit". The other three citrus fruits were brought to Europe much earlier, probably before the end of the 1st millennium AD.

The word "orange" comes originally from the Sanskrit "naranga", which in turn is believed to have been borrowed from a Dravidian language of southern India, where the fruit originated. However, it reached European languages through Persian "narang" and Arabic "naranj" - from which also the Spanish "naranja" and the Italian "arancia" are derived. "Lemon" comes from the Arabic "laymun", and "lime" from "lima" - both also borrowed from Persian.

Answer: syrup

The English word "syrup" denotes a thick, sugary liquid. The Arabic word "sharab" (from the verb "shariba", meaning "to drink") is also the source of two more food-related words - "sorbet" and "sherbet" - which entered European languages through the Persian "sharbat" and the Turkish "şerbet". While "sharab" meant "drink" in general , "sharbat" came to refer to a sweet, non-alcoholic drink made with a syrup base and water. Indeed, in many Asian countries sherbet is a refreshing drink made from fruits, flowers or herbs (the tamarind mentioned in Q.3 is a popular sherbet ingredient in Muslim countries). In Western countries, "sherbet" is often used as a synonym for "sorbet", which is a frozen dessert similar to a water ice; in British English, "sherbet" (often misspelled as "sherbert") refers to a sweet powder to which water is added to make a fizzy drink.

The illustration is a reference to sugar maple, from which the syrup traditionally served with pancakes is made.

Answer: candy

As "sugar" comes from Arabic, it should not be too surprising that related words such as "syrup" (Q.5) and "candy" do as well. The Arabic "qandi" is in fact derived from the Sanskrit "khanda" (via the inevitable Persian "kand"), a word meaning "piece", "fragment". "Sukkar qandi" became the French "sucre candi" and the Middle English "sugre candy" - hence the modern English word. The item, like its name, originated in ancient India, where hard candy was made by boiling sugarcane juice; the Sanskrit noun "khanda" came from a verb meaning "to break apart".

"Chocolate" comes from Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs, while "cookie" and "cake" are both of Germanic origin.

Answer: saffron

The world's most expensive spice by weight, saffron is derived from the dried stigmas of an autumn-blooming species of crocus, a plant of likely Mediterranean origin. The Greek word "krokos", which appears in the writings of several Greek authors, is believed to have derived from "kurkum", the plant's Arabic name. The English word "saffron" was borrowed around the 12th century from the Old French "safran", in turn derived from medieval Latin "safranum". However, the source of the Latin word is the Arabic "za'faran", from which the Italian "zafferano" and the Spanish "azafrán" are also derived. The Arabic word is thought to be related to the Persian "zarparan", meaning "golden leaves".

"Nutmeg" comes from Latin, while "cardamom" and "cinnamon" are both of Greek origin.

Answer: Turkish

The modern English word "coffee" comes from the Dutch "koffie", in turn borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish "kahve", which is also the source of French, Spanish and Portuguese "café" and Italian "caffè". The Turkish, however, was a loanword from the Arabic "qahwah", originally meaning "drink made from berries" or "wine" (and coffee was initially known in the West as "wine of the infidels"), or simply "dark-coloured".

The Arabic word is thought to be related to the name of the province of Kaffa in southwestern Ethiopia, from where in the late 15th century the coffee plant was imported to Yemen, and then to the rest of the Islamic world.

The most important coffee market was located in the port city of al-Makha, also known as Mocha - from which comes the English word "mocha".

Answer: spinach

Popeye's favourite food (hence the "strengthening" reference in the question), spinach probably originated in ancient Persia over 2,000 years ago; from there it was introduced to other parts of Asia, and brought to the Mediterranean region (Sicily) in the 9th century AD by the Arabs, who held the vegetable in great esteem. The Persian word for this leafy vegetable was "aspanakh" (possibly meaning "green hand"), which became "isbanakh" in Arabic and "ispanakh" in Andalusian Arabic (from which comes modern Spanish "espinaca"). "Spinach", from Old French "espinache", entered the English language in the early 14th century.

The three incorrect answers are all words of Latin origin.

Answer: apricot

The etymology of the English "apricot", and its cognates in other European languages - such as "abricot" in French and "albicocca" in Italian - is rather intriguing: in fact, rather than following a straight East-to-West path, it moves into an unusual zigzag direction. The origin of the Arabic "al-barquq" - which became "al-borcoque" in Spanish Arabic, "albaricoque" in Spanish, and "abrecock" in English, before taking the modern form of "apricot" - lies in the Byzantine Greek word "berikokkion", in turn derived from the Latin "praecoquum" (meaning "precocious", or "early-ripening"). In fact, apricots were considered a variety of peach that ripened earlier than the others {"persica praecoqua").

"Aubergine" (eggplant in US English) also comes from Arabic ("al-badinjan"), while "avocado" comes from Nahuatl, and "apple" is of Germanic origin.