Quiz answers

1. These are dried mushrooms, commonly used in Far Eastern cookery. The smallest examples are the best, with a delicate flavour. When rehydrated, they have a crunchy texture.

2. This is from The Long Goodbye, written by Raymond Chandler, who set his timer for three minutes to ensure that Marlowe's coffee-break lasted for the correct amount of time.

3. The name means "little hats" and it is traditionally served on Christmas Day, in a consommé. Cappellacci is stuffed with pumpkin.

4. (c) This is a cake, made using flour, oatmeal, ginger, treacle, eggs, bicarbonate of soda, butter, sugar and buttermilk.

5. It is traditional to sit on the floor, although this is a style that is no longer always undertaken. If, in the event, dining is on the floor, it is considered bad manners to show the soles of the feet.

6. (a) Definitely a speciality product. It is the dried spinal cord of the sturgeon and other similar types of fish.

7. Associated with Wales and St David's Day, these are leeks. Particularly when prepared cold with vinaigrette, they are known as poor man's asparagus.

8. Now made in many parts of Italy, this cheese has the consistency of clotted cream. It is mascarpone, normally served as a dessert with fruit and sugar.

9. (a) Each one of these berries, which resemble Chinese lanterns, weighs very little. They have a sweet but tart taste and a hint of orangey coconut.

10. These are all varieties of radish: Oriental, summer and winter. French Breakfast is of the summer variety, and is long, pink and white. The seeds, pods, roots and tops of this produce are all edible.

11. It is a mass of fine strands, similar to uncombed shredded wheat. It is a flour and water batter mix, which is poured through a fine sieve on to a hot metal tray.

12. In Spain rice is grown in the marshy areas around Valencia. It is a semi-robust grain which does not break down like the short-grain pudding rice, but is not as robust as Italian risotto rice.

13. The knife and fork should be resting on the plate at "20 past seven" with the fork tines pointing down. If finished, the tines should face up and the cutlery should read "five 20".

14. For this classic sauce the sweeter Malmsey or Bual should be used. Sercial or Verdelho, being drier, are normally specified for consommé.