Long a feature of My Table magazine, the loquacious knowledge-grilling-test-for-foodies Quizine now joins SideDish in a more modest condensed form. Reduced to the sticky consistency of birch syrup, the game retains its tang, but question-solving time is now limited to how long it takes to eat a tuna fish sandwich under a tree.
(1) In 1886 Dr. John S. Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, invented a concoction that he christened “The Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.” First sold to a limited audience, it was Dr. Pemberton’s recommendation that the drink would be especially beneficial to “scientists, scholars, poets, divines, lawyers, physicians and others devoted to mental exertion.” To reach a wider market the lofty Brain Tonic was given a new name, which allowed it to gain immediate popularity among those with a marked disinterest in mental exertion. Today the drink remains a commercial success, although now stripped of an ingredient that once excited the minds of 19th century intellectuals. What is it?
(2) On May 1, 1967, a marriage took place at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Following the eight-minute ceremony guests enjoyed a wedding feast that included ham and eggs, Southern fried chicken, oysters Rockefeller, roast suckling pig, poached and candied salmon, lobster, eggs Minette, and a six-tier angel food cake covered in pink hearts. Five years later the marriage was kaput. In a fit of confessional cleansing, the ex-bride finally admitted she thought the wedding – and the wedding feast – a hideous disaster. Likening the mess to the raccoon eye-make-up she wore at the time, the happy divorcée said she not only took soap-soaked cotton balls to her eyes but also washed her hands of the groom. Who were these people?
(3) Because of her outspoken views on humanitarianism, social reform, racial issues, the arts and women’s rights among other civilities, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was kept under surveillance by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who considered her at best a communist, at worst a liberal. Also at odds with Eleanor was the White House chef. Because of her indifference to food she won the enmity of the executive kitchen. However, there was one dish that got the great lady’s taste buds hopping. A recipe of East Indian origin and introduced to the United Kingdom by British colonials during the Victorian era, what is kedgeree?
(4) In May of 1927 Charles Lindberg made his first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Then in May of 1932 Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Both of these brave aerial pioneers took along something to eat and drink during the 14-hours-plus crossing. One aviator’s in-flight meal consisted of five sandwiches and a quart of water, and the other aviator opted for a Thermos of soup and a can of tomato juice. Who downed what?
ANSWERS
(1) Coca leaves were removed from the recipe for making Brain Tonic in 1929. Cocaine became a dearly departed stimulant, a grieved loss for the mentally exerted. The drink was renamed Coca-Cola.
(2) Elvis Aaron Presley and Priscilla Wagner Presley
(3) Traditional English kedgeree is a combination of cooked and flaked smoked haddock, boiled rice, hard-boiled eggs, parsley, curry powder, cream and butter.
(4) Lindberg took the five sandwiches and water, but only ate one sandwich for fear of getting sleepy and dozing off. Alert from start to finish, aviatrix Earhart ate all of her soup and, just before landing in a pasture in Northern Ireland, she drank her tomato juice.