An Acrostic Thanksgiving Day Trivia Quiz

Answer: bean curd

The word "tofu" is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese dòufu, which combines the words for "bean" and "curdled" or "fermented". To make tofu, soybeans are soaked and softened, then ground, boiled, and strained. A coagulant like nigari is added, causing the soybean mixture to form curds, which can be pressed into a block, then cut into pieces. Tofu has a mild flavor on its own, so it will easily pick up other flavors.

Many cooks have experimented with recipes that shape and stuff tofu shells to resemble turkey and dressing in taste and texture, and some commercial turkey substitutes are available. Mushrooms also make a good meat substitute.

Answer: green beans

Someone has helpfully pointed out that haricot vert sounds like "Harry Corvair" - which we can imagine to be a man's name (or a hirsute automobile). Haricots verts, or green beans, are good on their own, lightly seasoned, but one popular dish on American Thanksgiving tables is the infamous green bean casserole that includes canned green beans, canned mushroom soup, and canned fried onions.

The recipe came out of the 1950s, when quick, easy meals from materials in the cupboard were taking the place of labor-intensive dinners prepared from scratch, but fast food restaurants were just beginning to come on the scene. Just as quick, fresh green beans (or haricots verts) could be simmered in broth with garlic, almonds, olive oil, and a bit of coarse sea salt and pepper. Lemon juice also makes a nice seasoning for green beans. Southern cooks leave the green beans on the stove a bit longer, adding ham or bacon and new potatoes.

Answer: fall

In the Northern Hemisphere, the months between September and November are a time of harvesting crops and preparing food for the winter, and in some languages, including English before around 1600, the word for the season is related to the word for gathering crops.

In Old English, the word "hærfest" described the season first and later was used to describe the reaping of crops. Thanksgiving, while it is a particularly North American holiday, owes much to harvest festivals or "harvest suppers" of the British isles.

The word "autumn" comes from Old French, derived from Latin, and it is said to have first been used in English writing by Geoffrey Chaucer around 1374. The word "fall" to describe the season when leaves were falling from the trees (or alternatively when the year itself was falling toward winter) was coming into the language around the time the Americas were being explored, before 1545. Linguists speculate that the parallel with the opposite season "spring" seemed logical to some speakers. Perhaps, "fall" had that solid Anglo-Saxon sound American settlers liked.

However, neither "autumn" nor "fall" were established terms. For much of history, northern Europeans thought of the year as having two seasons rather than four, while ecologists describe six seasons for temperate climates: prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, autumnal, and hibernal.

Answer: November

Canada celebrates Thanksgiving Day on the 2nd Monday in October. George Washington was the first to proclaim a national day of thanksgiving in the United States in 1789. As would be the case later in history, Washington's Thanksgiving was on a Thursday late in November, the 26th, to be specific. Washington proclaimed a Thanksgiving date again in 1795, and some Presidents followed his lead in declaring a day to give thanks, while others did not.

Some governors set Thanksgiving dates, as well, but the holiday soon became a political issue, with some Southerners seeing it as a way to impose New England customs on other regions. Following a campaign by the editor of a women's magazine (Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote the children's song "Mary Had a Little Lamb"), Abraham Lincoln set "the last Thursday of November next" as a day of Thanksgiving.

This remained the tradition in the United States, although its observance varied from region to region. The issue of Thanksgiving's date became political again in 1939, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to shift the feast (and with it the beginning of Christmas shopping season) to the 4th Thursday, since there were five Thursdays in November that year. November 30 that year was the "Republican Thanksgiving" and November 23 was the "Democratic Thanksgiving" as the nation split along partisan lines. Congress took charge in 1941, and the Senate set the date as the 4th Thursday in November. FDR happily signed the bill that made Thanksgiving a law. Because November, 1944, again had five Thursdays, this history clears up a mystery for me. My parents, who were married on November 23, 1944, always said they were married on "Roosevelt's Thanksgiving" - and now I realize why they called it that! Some people were sticking to the old date and celebrating on November 30, the last Thursday of the month, but they were loyal Democrats. Of course, the date of Thanksgiving in the 21st century is a moot point, since merchants no longer wait until after Thanksgiving to begin the Christmas rush.

Answer: Potassium

Potassium is an element symbolized by the letter "K" and having the atomic number 19. The "K" comes from "Kallium" - a made-up Latin word that comes from an Arabic word that means essentially the same thing as "potash": what you get when you burn plant material like wood or leaves. Because potassium occurs naturally in so many foods, it is easily obtainable, but getting enough is important for preventing high blood pressure and stroke. Potassium works to keep the cell membranes of the body functioning properly, regulating chemical reactions that keep us alive.

It also helps the nerves communicate with the muscles. Not only are sweet potatoes good sources of potassium, but regular baked potatoes are, as well. So are chickpeas, so eat your hummus!

Answer: Sukkot

Some historians argue that Thanksgiving in North America owes its origins to the celebration of Sukkot (called the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles in English translations of the Bible). It is called in Exodus "The Feast of Ingathering" and is also called the "Feast of the Lord".

The devoutly religious Pilgrims, who were Puritan in their beliefs, diligently read the Hebrew scriptures and knew of the Biblical feasts of thanksgiving. Sukkot is a particularly joyful agricultural festival in Jewish culture, lasting for seven or eight days, falling in September or October each year.

While many of the customs of Sukkot have found their particular shape in the diaspora, their origins are clearly set out in Leviticus 23:33-44. Coming soon after Yom Kippur, a solemn time of soul-searching and repentance, Sukkot invites families to remember the wilderness wanderings of their ancestors by eating (and sometimes sleeping) in a temporary shelter called a "sukkah" covered with branches through which they can see the sky.

The sukkah is usually decorated by hanging fruits, vegetables, and other decorations. A type of citron fruit called an etrog and branches from the date palm, willow, and myrtle trees bound together (called a lulav) are blessed and carried in procession. Biblical figures are remembered, and a special seat is left open for the coming of the prophet Elijah. Christians who learn of the customs of Sukkot may be surprised to recognize them in the New Testament, as Jesus observes them. Jewish rabbis are divided about whether or not Jews should celebrate Thanksgiving, but most agree that while some Christians celebrate Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, it has become secular for most and therefore is okay for Jewish Americans to celebrate. Sometimes, when Thanksgiving occurs late in November and Hanukkah falls early, the secular holiday and the religious one overlap, as in 2013. Sukkot always falls earlier than Thanksgiving in the United States, although it may overlap with Thanksgiving in Canada, which happens in October.

Answer: pan drippings, flour, liquid, salt and pepper

In William Shakespeare's "Henry IV Part 2" Act 1, Scene 2, the clownish character Sir John Falstaff answers the Chief Justice's criticism that the white hairs in his beard should "have his effect of gravity" by saying, "His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy." Gravy is the part of your Thanksgiving meal most likely to wind up on your beard - or your shirt! A basic gravy recipe would include hot pan drippings or another sort of fat (butter or oil). Flour is stirred into the fat and browned slightly, then liquid is added (broth, milk, cream, or water will do) and stirred until thickened. (Some recipes call for cornstarch instead of flour.) You can add salt and pepper to taste. Turkey giblet gravy is a traditional Thanksgiving gravy in some parts of the United States, made with pan drippings from a roasted turkey, but also adding chopped up pieces of the heart, liver, and neck that have been precooked to make broth, which is also added to the gravy.

This is topped off with chopped up boiled egg. So, if you buy your turkey at the grocery store, giblet gravy is a good way to use the stuff in that little packet that comes inside the turkey cavity.

Answer: beans and squash

The indigenous peoples of the Americas planted corn (maize), beans, and squash (or pumpkin) together. Vines of what my mother called "pole beans" need something to twine around, and corn stalks make a perfect pole for them. Beans reciprocate by fixing nitrogen in the soil, needed as a natural fertilizer by future generations of corn plants. Squash vines trail along the rows and provide mulch when they die away, deterring the growth of weeds and keeping the soil cool and moist. Together, corn and beans combine to make a complete protein when eaten, and squash provides extra nutrition, both in its flesh and in the seeds. Winter squash is naturally sweet, but maple syrup or honey could be added. Hundreds of varieties of corn exist, including popcorn, which was enjoyed by people in the Americas long before the arrival of Europeans. French explorers recorded seeing Iroquois popping corn around 1612, and it was described in Peru around the same time.

The traditional date for the "First Thanksgiving" is 1621.

It is difficult to separate fact from myth. Certainly, one key to adapting to a different continent is learning new methods of farming, and the newcomers owed their lives to the people who were already used to living there. It is interesting that the three traditional plants are called "sisters", because women were most concerned with cultivating them.

Answer: deer

According to the journal of Edward Winslow, there was fowl on the menu for the first Thanksgiving, but there's no way to know if the bird served was turkey. It is clear, however, that venison was eaten, because Winslow relates that the Indians "went out and killed five deer which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others." The word "venison" is applied to wild game, prepared for eating, especially the flesh of a deer.

It originally was applied to any animal that was hunted for eating, including hares, wild pigs, and even goats. Deer meat tastes somewhat like beef, but is leaner.

It is often dried and made into jerky, and Native Americans mixed venison with cranberries and fat to make "pemmican" - another high-energy, portable food.

Answer: pumpkin pie

The early settlers from England scooped out the seeds and stringy parts of the pumpkin, keeping the edible flesh around the rind, and then filled the cavity with milk or cream, honey, and spices, thus inventing pumpkin pie in its own special shell rather than a pastry crust. Several web sites about food state that the pumpkin was called "isquotm squash" by the "Native Americans" - a rather diverse group with many different languages - and perhaps this was only one of several transliterations of words for squash and pumpkins.

The word "pumpkin" came into English as "pompion" by way of French explorers and settlers. Pumpkins are a variety of what English colonists in North America called squash, shortening the Narragansett word "askutasquash" which is supposed to mean "that green thing you can eat raw".

The peoples of the Americas had already been cultivating squash and pumpkins for centuries when John Josselyn tried to describe them in the book "New England Rarities Discovered" in 1672: "A kind of melon or rather gourd....

Some of them are green, some yellow, some longish, like a gourd, others round like an apple.... All of them are pleasant food, boyled and buttered and seasoned with spice." In "O Brave New Words!: Native American Loanwords in Current English" Charles Cutler includes the word "squanter-squash" and says it comes from Narragansett "askutasquash". On the same page, Cutler lists "squantum", which he says appears in Massachusetts in 1812 and comes from the Algonquian language (which would include Narragansett); "squantum" refers to a place where food is prepared and eaten. This is interesting for Americans taught in school about a member of the Pautuxet tribe called "Squanto" (or "Tisquantum") in our history textbooks. Captured in 1605 by Captain George Weymouth and taken to England, returned to America and recaptured and sold into slavery, Tisquantum had contact with both the Jamestown and the Plymouth colonies. He is supposed to have helped the Massachusetts colony survive the winter by teaching them how to cultivate and fertilize local crops. Tisquantum was a real person, but his story has taken on much folklore that is hard to separate from history. It is interesting in this context that his name is related to words for food.

Answer: Algonquian

Well, the question's a near rhyme, since "stone" (with its long "o") doesn't quite line up with "pecan" the way we pronounced it in deep south Mississippi (with a long, drawn-out "ahhhh"). We laughed at people from a bit north, in the Carolinas, who said "PEE-can", pointing them to the toilet out back. Now that I live in North Carolina, I'm the one who sounds funny, I guess, but "pecan" is one of those fighting words, like "to-may-to" vs. "to-mah-to". Linguists have mapped the various pronunciations of the word "pecan" listing seven dialectical differences in the United States.

The word originated in the Algonquian language family, sometimes classified in the Algic family, which was spoken by a large number of indigenous nations in North America before European contact.

The languages of the original people of present-day Virginia and North Carolina, first recorded by Englishmen John Smith, Thomas Harriot, and William Strachey, were Algonquian dialects. French explorers along the Canadian border in what is now Illinois brought the word for the pecan nut into colonial cultures.

Its derivation - "nuts you have to crack with a stone" - makes sense to anyone who has ever tried to get through the shell of a fresh pecan to the delicious flesh within. One recipe for cracking pecans suggests that you soak them in warm water for ten minutes before shelling them, to get the nut to come out in halves without having to pick out fragments of the bitter inner shell.

Answer: Scotland

More often said at a "Burns supper" in January, celebrating the birthday of Scots poet Robert Burns, this little poem would not be out of place as a Thanksgiving prayer, especially if part of one's Thanksgiving includes a reminder to visit the sick and share with those in need or at least to count one's blessings. Usually credited to Robert Burns, the blessing existed before his day, and was called the "Galloway Grace" or "Covenanter's Grace" in the 1600s.

It is sometimes given the name "Selkirk Grace" today, because the poet is supposed to have recited it at a dinner with the Earl of Selkirk.

It is in the Lowland Scots dialect, also known as "Lallans". Several times in the Gospels, Jesus is shown to bless food before eating, expressing gratitude for the simple act of eating and enjoying a meal.

The word in Greek is "eulogeo", which means to speak well of something. The word "grace" - one of our "G" words in this Thanksgiving acrostic - is related to the word for "gift". For Jesus and for the New Testament writers the Jewish tradition of blessing food before eating, especially on the Sabbath, makes such thanks giving the norm. Food and worship went together for their Greek and Roman neighbors as well. According to Cicero, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all others." In Islam, gratitude is an essential part of life, one of the reasons for praying five times every day. For Buddhists, gratitude and compassion are linked, and both are to be sought. Psychologists who study gratitude associate it with a sense of well-being and a tendency to be altruistic, and some have found therapeutic value in keeping gratitude journals, writing down three things they are grateful for each day. That makes every day Thanksgiving, right?

Answer: dessert

The word "dessert" comes from the French "desservir" - the opposite of the word "servir" meaning "to serve" - and refers to clearing up at the end of the meal. Around 1600, the word was being used to refer to the last course of a meal, what would be eaten as the remains of the main course were being removed from the table.

At Thanksgiving, sweet dishes are eaten throughout the meal, what with candied sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce. But several desserts have become traditional for the last course, especially pies. Pumpkin or sweet potato pie, pecan pie, mincemeat pie, and apple pie or cobbler are all served as traditional desserts at Canadian and American Thanksgiving meals. Cranberries and blueberries, both native to Canada and some parts of the United States, are often used in pies, muffins, or cakes. For Jewish families, Thanksgiving sometimes overlaps with Hanukkah, and latkes and other traditional foods might be served.

Other ethnic and regional groups add their own twists to the tradition, since (according to census figures) Americans come from more than 125 countries.

Answer: pudding

In her blog "Separated by a Common Language: Observations on British and American English by an American Linguist in the UK" Dr. Lynne Murphy explains that what Americans call "dessert" is also called "dessert" in the UK, but another generic word for that sweet last course of a meal is "pudding" - bewildering to Americans, who only label a particular soft, custardy dessert as pudding. Most Americans are familiar with the sort of pudding that is steamed or boiled only from reading Charles Dickens.

The British pudding has its origins in sausage-making, with the dessert type coming later. It is still the case that puddings are sometimes not sweet (as in Yorkshire pudding), but "pudding" is still used interchangeably with "dessert". Some people make the distinction that you would call it "pudding" at home but "dessert" in a restaurant. So, ice cream, pie, cake, or any sweet dish served as the final course would be called "pudding" regardless of its consistency. Calling dessert "afters" seems to be a more descriptive but less prestigious way of referring to it, at least in most parts of the UK. Class differences are often reflected in food terms, and dessert is no exception.

Answer: Yule

Like many other customs in pre-Christian Europe, the Germanic midwinter festival known as "yule" or "yuletide" was integrated into the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, who was from a very different culture of the world. The twelve days of Christmas owe their origins to yule traditions, as does the custom of decorating homes with evergreens and lights. Singing and burning a yule log in the fireplace also have their origins in the old European midwinter customs. Until recently, families in the United States waited until after Thanksgiving in late November to decorate their homes for the winter holidays, but this trend has been changing, with commercial outlets pushing holiday shopping and decorating closer to the October dates of Canadian Thanksgiving celebrations. Throughout the history of North America since its exploration and settlement by people from other continents, holiday customs have been drawn from many countries of the world.

This eclectic tendency continues, and perhaps broadens, as we move into the 21st century.