Gryphon's Aeire Food Fact - Food Quiz 13

FOOD TRIVIA QUIZ

QUESTIONS: NAME THESE PLANTS

1) Originating in Southeast Asia and India, cultivated for 5000
years, this member of the cashew family can range in size from
a plum to 5 pounds. It is one of the most popular fruits in
the world, but was originally a small, fibrous, acrid,
sometimes toxic fruit that tasted of turpentine.

2) I am native to all continents except Australia. Of my 450
varieties, many are used for food. According to Greek legend,
I was the staple food of the Golden Age, although now I am
mostly fed to animals. I was used as a rather inferior coffee
substitute during the American Civil War, and I can be used
to make a good flour.

3) This plant is an herb that most likely originated in and
around Malaysia some 4,000 years ago. It spread and developed
many varieties over a wide area from India to the Philippines
and New Guinea. About 2000 years ago travelers carried it
eastward through the Pacific and westward across the Indian
Ocean to tropical Africa.

Various sacred texts of Oriental cultures mention it. There are
references to it in the Hindu Mahabharata and the Ramayana of
the poet Valmiki. Buddhist writings mention a beverage made
from it that Buddhist monks were allowed to drink, and Yang Fu,
a Chinese official of the 2nd century A.D., describes it in his
Encyclopedia of Rare Things.

Theophrastus, who wrote one of the first scientific botanical
works describes this plant in the 4th century B.C. Alexander
the Great saw it growing in the Indus Valley in 327 B.C. and
Pliny the Elder describes it in 77 A.D. The Arabs introduced
it to Egypt, and it made its way westward across the African
continent.

The Portuguese found it on Africa's Atlantic coast in the 15th
century, and Prince Henry the Navigator had some transplanted
to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where they still flourish.

In 1516 Friar Tomas de Berlanga planted it in the islands of
the Caribbean. It made the trip to Britain from Bermuda in
1633, and the Portuguese also introduced it to France, and it
became common in the 18th century.

Its' present name probably comes from one of the languages of
the Congo area. Today it is even grown in Iceland as a
commercial crop, and world production is spread out in both the
Eastern and Western hemispheres. There seems to be some
disagreement as to which is the world's largest producer,
either Brazil or Uganda. India follows, growing somewhat
less than half of Brazil's crop. The Philippines, Ecuador,
Colombia, Honduras, Tanzania, Rwanda, Indonesia, Thailand,
Cote d'voire and Vietnam are also important producers.

It grows best in temperatures from 50 to 105 degrees F, and
requires 100-200 inches of annual rainfall. In some areas its
sprouts are covered and allowed to grow without sunlight so
they mature into thick, long spikes that resemble large white
asparagus. It's sap causes extremely serious stains that are
very hard to remove from both hands and clothes!




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1) Mango.

2) Acorn.

3) Banana. In Iceland, bananas are grown in soil heated by
geysers! The banana "tree" is entirely herbaceous, it has no
real trunk - what appears to be the trunk is actually the
leafstalks rolled tightly around one another. Since it is
herbaceous and has no real trunk, it is not considered a tree
by botanists.


Displayed on: Thursday - 24 May 12 - 05:11:00