Fact or Fiction: The Ultimate Herbs and Spices Quiz

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About This Quiz

Herbs and spices complement your favorite dishes and rouse your senses. These added touches aren't just for the kitchen though: Many are used for medicinal or spiritual purposes. But how much do you really know about your favorite natural flavors?

Herbs are plants valued for their scent, taste, medicinal value and practical utility.

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fiction

almost fact: Herbs are also used in spiritual contexts too.

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Wrong Answer

Herbs, which usually include fleshy seed-bearing plants, are used for a variety of purposes in addition to flavoring food.

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Though spices have been used to preserve foods for centuries, educating households about which spice and amount to use wasn't common until the early 20th century.

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fiction

almost fact: Using spices for food preservation wasn't promoted by researchers until the 21st century.

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In the early 20th century, researchers tested how various amounts of some spices slow down spoiling rates in food and began suggesting spice use for households.

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Cinnamon, nutmeg and saffron are spices often used to bake a traditional pumpkin pie.

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fiction

almost fact: Saffron's bitter aftertaste and expensive price tag make it an unlikely candidate for pumpkin pie.

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Wrong Answer

Though everyone cooks differently, saffron usually isn't in grandma's delicious pumpkin pie.

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On top of being a popular herb used to liven up dishes, oregano is also thought to protect people against mythical creatures like vampires.

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fiction

almost fact: It's marjoram instead.

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If you were to meet a vampire, you'd be tough out of luck with oregano. Historically, people thought garlic repelled vampires because it intensified symptoms of porphyria, a neurological and skin condition that was exacerbated by sunlight.

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In general, herbs are the fresh or dried fleshy parts of a plant, and spices are dried seeds, saps, bark or roots.

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almost fact: Herbs are usually dried fruit, bark or roots, and spices are usually fresh or dried leaves.

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Though definitions of herbs and spices are flexible, herbs are generally fleshy or leafy while spices consist of other parts of a plant.

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Licorice isn't just the name of a popular candy -- it got its name from the herb licorice.

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almost fact: It's true, but the candy licorice we eat today tastes different from candy made from the real herb.

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Sometimes referred to as an herb and a spice, licorice inspired the candy we all know and love, but it tastes quite different without the additives and sugar.

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Using Scoville units is one way to measure the spectrum of heat in spicy foods.

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fiction

almost fact: The units actually measure bitterness instead.

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Wilbur Scoville first developed the system to measure the hotness, or pungency, of a food item. Since then, the competition to be the spiciest has heated up among companies.

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Cloves, cinnamon, ginger and black tea are ingredients for chai tea.

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fiction

almost fact: Don't forget the cardamom!

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These spices, including cardamom, are common ingredients for homemade chai tea.

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Dill is only safe to consume when cooked.

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almost fact: Dill is safe to eat only if it's not cooked.

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This aromatic herb can be used cooked or fresh.

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Allspice is a common name for pimento.

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almost fact: Allspice is a blend of lots of spices, pimento being one of them.

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Wrong Answer

Despite the plural sound of its name, allspice consists of one spice: pimento.

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Lemon herbs are key ingredients for the traditional alcoholic drink, the mojito.

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fiction

almost fact: Sage is the herb of choice here.

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Mint leaves are the traditional herb of choice for mojitos, despite an increasing number of recipes with other refreshing combinations.

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Vanilla extract, often used as a substitute for fresh vanilla, contains no real vanilla.

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fiction

almost fact: It depends. Products labeled as "pure" vanilla extract have real vanilla, but other products may not.

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The FDA requires pure vanilla extract to contain vanilla, but there are other imitation flavors that use coumarin, a chemical that may cause blood-thinning in some individuals.

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You impress your dinner guests by serving hand-rolled sushi. Between servings, you should serve your guests wasabi, which will helps cleanse their palates.

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fiction

almost fact: Serve "gari," strips of pickled ginger, to your guests instead.

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The fiery reputation of wasabi will most likely cleanse your guests' sinuses rather than palates. Gari is a popular side item served between rounds of sushi.

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Nutmeg is a preferred ingredient over sumac in soda.

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almost fact: It's the other way around -- sumac is preferred over nutmeg in soda.

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Wrong Answer

Sumac is often used to flavor meat and vegetable dishes, not sweeter beverages like soda.

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If a recipe calls for dried herbs but you only have fresh herbs, use 5 times more fresh herbs than the recipe calls for in dried herbs.

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almost fact: Using three times the amount is a better substitution.

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As a rule of thumb, you should triple what the recipe calls for if you're substituting fresh herbs for dried herbs.

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Frankincense and myrrh, two spices synonymous with biblical times, are resins, or dried plant saps.

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almost fact: These two spices are roots, not resin.

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Wrong Answer

Burned as incense rather than ingested, these two spices are derived forms of plant resin.

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Turmeric is a spice that grows naturally in the Mediterranean and is used in Mediterranean recipes.

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almost fact: Ginger is a known spice in that area, but not turmeric.

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Neither turmeric nor ginger originated in the Mediterranean. Basil, fennel and mustard are a few of the several spices characteristic of Mediterranean-style dishes.

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The use of horseradish originated in the United States.

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fiction

almost fact: Using this spicy condiment originated in England.

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Wrong Answer

Though it originated in southern Russia and the Balkans, horseradish spread like wildfire on the tips of American tongues.

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