Pub Quiz Round Two!

Todd and I went to the John Mullins pub quiz again last night, meeting up with the same foursome as last time: Eric, Jill, Brian and Roseanna. (Remember them from the Euro-American, cross-cultural barbecue?) Our team actually did pretty well, coming in fifth place, despite the slurring and mumbling of the (apparently, we couldn’t actually see him, but it seemed obvious) increasingly drunken question reader. And I actually contributed significantly to this one, in that I was responsible for the correct answering of at least four (count ‘em: 4!) questions! This is unheard of in games of trivia, at least for me. If you ever want to slaughter me at a board game, suggest we play Trivial Pursuit (do not, however, suggest we play Boggle. I will kick your ass. Ask my family).

One question had to do with hostages and money exchange between the U.S. and another country in 1962 (answer: Cuba), which we got right only because I was thinking out loud and said something like, “Wasn’t that the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis?” and Todd was like, “Yeah that’s the answer!” So I didn’t really know the answer to that one, but I was still a factor in the correct answering of the question.

The other three questions, which I actually knew the answer to, were about, you guessed it: food! And for the knowledge of these food terms, I have to directly thank all the food blogs I read every day when I should be doing more productive things. Specifically, I think Clotilde’s excellent blog about living and eating in Paris, Chocolate and Zucchini, has contributed a lot to my food knowledge, and especially of French (and Spanish, as she delves in Spanish and Basque food occasionally too) food terminology. So, to end the suspense, the three questions were as follows (paraphrased because I either don’t remember or couldn’t understand the exact wording):

1. What is the main ingredient in marrons glacees (sp?).
2. What is the French word for raspberry?
3. What is the English term for the Spanish dish bocadillo?

Did you get any of them? Here’s the answers:

1. Chestnuts (marrons glacees means “candied chestnuts” in French)
2. Framboise (also the name of a famous raspberry-flavored beer, as you may remember from a previous post of mine)
3. A sandwich (though somewhat different from the American conception of the sandwich, as they are always made on a small baguette or roll sliced lengthwise, rather than on sliced loaf bread. They usually contain some kind of cold cut or sausage; the Spanish are particularly partial to ham and other pork products)

So that was my triumph at pub quiz. The other players were all in awe of my wisdom and knowledge (not really, though I think they may have been a little impressed). Oh, and I tried raspberry beer! Twice, actually, though not Framboise. Raspberry beer, at least here in Maastricht, is called rose beer (as in rose wine, though I don’t think they have anything to do with each other besides the color). Monday night Todd and I went for drinks on the Vrijthoff and I ordered a Rose Max, which was very good, a pretty deep red, but so, so sweet! It was like drinking diluted, slightly carbonated raspberry syrup. I love sweet things, so this wasn’t too much of a problem, but may act as a warning for people who don’t like sweet drinks (those people may want to avoid fruit beers in general). Last night I tried another rose beer called a Korenwolf, from Gulpener brewery in the Netherlands. This tasted more “beer-ish” than the last one, and less sweet, though still quite so. Here’s a picture of the empty bottle we took home because I forgot to bring my camera to the pub:

See that little animal in the middle of the label (it's not very clear, I know)? That’s a “korenwolf,” aka a European hamster. Why would a brewery pick a hamster as their mascot? The name does sound pretty cool in Dutch, I’ll admit, but they give it away with the cute little guy on the bottle. Hooray, it’s Hamster Beer!