Answers to Another Christmas Quiz

Answers to Another Christmas Quiz:

1) In the Regency era, the Christmas turkey:—
a) walked to London wearing special shoes

They travelled in large herds along the road. To protect the turkeys on the long walk, their feet were dipped in tar and wrapped in hessian, thus the “special shoes.

2) In a traditional mummers’ Christmas play, a commonly appearing character was:—
b) Saint George (of dragon fame)

Mummers are men (generally rustic) who at Christmas dress up, sing and act out plays, often traditional, but sometimes updated and incorporating local personages.

3) In the Tudor period, the centrepiece of a Christmas feast was usually:—
d) a boar’s head

4) Marchpane is:—
a) another name for marzipan

5) Souse is: —
d) is a dish made from pickled pigs’ feet and ears

6) The dish we now know as turducken was eaten:—
d) in the Tudor era

Turkey was first introduced into Britain in about 1523 with Henry VIII being one of the first people to eat it as part of the Christmas feast. A Tudor Christmas Pie consisted of a turkey stuffed with a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a pigeon. All of this was put in a pastry case, called a coffin.

7) A Twelfth Night cake traditionally contained:—
b) dried fruit and a dried pea or bean

8) Frumenty is:—
a) porridge made with grains, almonds, currants and sugar

9) Bullet pudding was:
b) a game often played at Christmas

This is a repeat question from the first Christmas Quiz, back in 2012

10) At Christmas, Queen Victoria was particularly fond of:—
b) roast swan

For all I know she also enjoyed the other food — she was a good trencherwoman, I gather — but according to my research she was especially fond of roast swan.

11) The first member of the English royal family to display a Christmas tree was :—
a) Queen Charlotte in 1800

A repeat question from the 2012 Christmas Quiz. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularized the Christmas tree after an engraving of theirs appeared in a newspaper, but some people, especially those with German connections, had Christmas trees long before that.

12) The festival of Twelfth Night was banned by:
a) Queen Victoria

Twelfth Night was the climax of Christmastide, and revels, masks and balls —often very rowdy and wild— were the order of the day and night. In the 1870′s, Queen Victoria outlawed the celebration of Twelfth Night in fear the celebrations had become out of control.

13) Nesselrode pudding was popular in the Victorian era. It was:—
d) a moulded ice pudding made from pureed chestnut

14) Which of these was thought to bring bad luck?
c) decorating with greenery before Christmas Eve

Another repeat question from the 2012 Christmas Quiz.

15) The Christmas pudding is topped with a sprig of holly:—

b) to symbolize the continuation of life through the winter

Note: I have seen a reference to the holly being symbolic of Christ’s crown of thorns, so I’m sorry if you picked that, but I don’t believe people would put that on a pudding that they then set fire to and ate!

16) Candy canes first became bent over at the end to look like a shepherd’s crooks:—
a) when a choirmaster made them to keep his choristers quiet in church.

My guess is that they’re bent like that because the candy was made in strips and draped over a string to harden, then broken, leaving a curved end. Or maybe it’s just convenient to hold. But I can’t find any reference to deliberate resemblance to shepherd’s crooks, and besides, he was German, and the hymn is English.

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Thanks for playing.

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Answers to Another Christmas Quiz

Answers to Another Christmas Quiz:

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