Cooking Trivia Quiz Questions and Answers
What is cooking?
A: Cooking or cookery is the art, technology, science and craft of preparing
food for consumption.
Homo-erectus may have begun cooking food as early as
when?
A: 500,000 years ago.
Phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may
have invented cooking how far back?
A: As far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago.
Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes
from the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa has provided evidence supporting
control of fire by early humans by how long ago?
A: 1 million years ago.
There is evidence that Homo erectus was cooking their
food as early as when?
A: 500,000 years ago.
Evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus
beginning some 400,000 years ago has what?
A: Wide scholarly support.
Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years ago, in the
form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt
animal bones, and flint, are
found where?
A: Across Europe and the Middle East.
Anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires
began when?
A: About 250,000 years ago when hearths first appeared.
Recently, the earliest hearths have been reported to be
at least how old?
A: 790,000 years old.
Communication between the Old World and the New World
in the Columbian Exchange influenced the what?
A: The history of cooking.
The movement of foods across the Atlantic from the New
World, such as potatoes, tomatoes, maize, beans, bell pepper, chili pepper,
vanilla, pumpkin, cassava, avocado, peanut, pecan, cashew,
pineapple,
blueberry, sunflower, chocolate, gourds, and squash, had a profound effect
on what?
A: Old World cooking.
The movement of foods across the Atlantic from the Old
World, such as cattle, sheep, pigs, wheat, oats, barley, rice, apples,
pears, peas, chickpeas, green beans, mustard, and carrots, similarly changed
what?
A: New World cooking.
Starting early in the 20th century, governments issued
what?
A: Nutrition guidelines that led to the food pyramid introduced in Sweden in
1974.
The 1916 "Food for Young Children" became the first
USDA guide to give what?
A: Specific dietary guidelines.
In 1943, the USDA created the "Basic Seven" chart to do
what?
A: To promote nutrition.
It included the first-ever Recommended Daily Allowances
from what?
A: The National Academy of Sciences.
In 1956, the "Essentials of an Adequate Diet" brought
recommendations which cut the number of groups that American school children
would learn about down to how many?
A: Four.
In 1979, a guide called "Food" addressed the link
between excessive amounts of unhealthy foods and what?
A: Chronic diseases.
Fats, oils, and sweets were added to what?
A: The four basic food groups.
Most ingredients in cooking are derived from what?
A: Living organisms.
Vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts as well as
herbs
and spices come from what?
A: Plants.
Meat, eggs, and dairy products come from what?
A: Animals.
Mushrooms and the yeast used in baking are kinds of
what?
A: Fungi.
Cooks also use water and minerals such as what?
A: Salt.
Naturally occurring ingredients contain various amounts
of molecules called what?
A: Proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
Long-chain sugars such as starch tend to break down
into simpler sugars when what?
A: When cooked.
Simple sugars can form what?
A: Syrups.
What starts if sugars are heated so that all water of
crystallization is driven off?
A: Caramelization.
An emulsion of starch with fat or water can, when
gently heated, provides what to the dish being cooked?
A: Thickening.
In European cooking, a mixture of butter and flour
called a roux is used to do what?
A: To thicken liquids to make stews or sauces.
In Asian cooking, a similar effect is obtained from a
mixture of what?
A: Rice or corn starch and water.
To prepare stir fries, grilled cheese or pancakes, the
pan or griddle is often coated with what?
A: Fat or oil.
Fats are also used as an ingredient in baked goods such
as what?
A: Cookies, cakes and pies.
Fats can reach temperatures higher than the boiling
point of water and are often used to conduct high heat to other ingredients,
such as in what?
A: Frying, deep frying or sautéing.
Edible animal material, including muscle, offal,
milk,
eggs and egg whites, contains substantial amounts of what?
A: Protein.
Almost all vegetable matter (in particular legumes and
seeds) also include proteins, although generally in what?
A: Smaller amounts.
When proteins are heated, they become denatured
(unfolded) and do what?
A: Change texture.
In many cases, this causes the structure of the
material to become what?
A: Softer or more friable.
Meat when cooked, becomes what?
A: More friable and less flexible.
In some cases, proteins can form more rigid structures,
such as the coagulation of albumen in what?
A: Egg whites.
The formation of a relatively rigid but flexible matrix
from egg white provides an important component in what?
A: Baking cakes, and also underpins many desserts based on meringue.
Water is often used to cook foods such as what?
A: Noodles.
Cooking can prevent many foodborne what?
A: Illnesses that would otherwise occur if the food is eaten raw.
When heat is used in the preparation of food, it can do
what?
A: Kill or inactivate harmful organisms, such as
bacteria and viruses, as
well as various parasites such as tapeworms and Toxoplasma gondii.
Food poisoning and other illness from uncooked or
poorly prepared food may be caused by what?
A: Bacteria such as pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli, Salmonella
typhimurium and other organisms.
The sterilizing effect of cooking depends on what?
A: Temperature, cooking time, and technique used.
Some food spoilage bacteria such as Clostridium
botulinum or Bacillus cereus can form spores that survive boiling, which
then do what?
A: Germinate and regrow after the food has cooled.
This makes it unsafe to do what?
A: Reheat cooked food more than once.