Comfort Food Quiz:
Pool of historical figures (You will use only 15 out of these 35)
George Foreman
Julia Child
Paul Prudhomme
Emeril LeGasse
Mr. Fred Rogers
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Ken Burns
Garrison Keillor
Amadeus Mozart
Aretha Franklin
Louis Armstrong
Elvis Presley
Henry David Thoreau
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Mark Twain
Charles Darwin
Marie Curie
Helen Keller
Coco Chanel
Grant Wood
Andy Warhol
Julius Ceasar
Catherine di Medici
Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Victoria
Marie Antoinette
President Questions:
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
Herbert Hoover
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Franklin Roosevelt
Abraham Lincoln
Jimmy Carter
Lyndon B. Johnson
Questions:
- Who famously called a grilled peanut butter and smashed banana sandwich his favorite comfort food?
- This person was a member of what he/she called the “Glutton Club” and was very interested in eating “strange flesh,” especially roasted armadillo, which “tasted like duck but better.” Who is this?
- Cooks and assistants had to make sure there were no hot dogs in this person’s house because if there were, he/she would eat nothing else.Who is this?
- This literary figure loved oysters so much that he/she ordered them by the bushel at a favorite restaurant and included oysters on a list of 60 American foods she/he craved while living abroad? Who was it?
- Eaten well into this person’s 90s, his/her comfort food was a childhood favorite called “Jam Pennies,” which were sandwiches with fluffy white bread, butter and strawberry jam that were cut into a circle.
- This famous foodie used to serve Goldfish crackers alongside martinis.
- This music icon paid homage to his/her favorite comfort food by including a recipe for Red Beans and Rice in the liner notes of one of his/her albums.
- According to legend, this person, who was born in Florence, Italy, is the reason that spinach and cream dishes are often called “Florentine,” as in Eggs Benedict Florentine or Chicken Florentine.
- Here’s a series of presidential comfort foods.Match these foods with the president who favored it, especially during their time in the White House:
9.Fresca and tapioca
10.Cottage cheese with ketchup
11.Gingerbread
12. Hard Apple cider
13.Sweet potatoes with marshmallows
14.Hot biscuits
15. Here’s your final clue: (This person is not on the presidential list). What better person to teach us about comfort and kindness than this iconic public media personality who loved his/her grandmother’s corn pudding. Who is it?
Answer Key:
- Elvis Presley
- Charles Darwin
- Helen Keller
- Mark Twain, and he was known to eat oysters fried, stewed, on the half shell, stuffed, and in a “Hangtown Fry”, which was a San Francisco special platter of oysters, bacon and eggs.It is not true, however, as urban legends claim, that Twain mentioned oyster ice cream in his book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; however, a savory oyster ice cream really is a thing. Look it up.
- Jam Pennies were a cherished treat at Queen Elizabeth’s tea times and something she called “nursery food” that she and her sister Margaret ate as children. This is not to be confused with the now-famous orange marmalade sandwiches that were featured in her 2022 short video with Paddington Bear that was released for her platinum jubilee.
- Julia Child, who apparently loved Goldfish crackers. As a point of local interest, the Pepperidge Farm plant in Richmond, Utah is one of the two top producers of goldfish crackers putting out 120 million pounds of them a year, second only to the plant in Ohio.
- That would be New Orleans-native Louis Armstrong who named his 1972 album “Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours.”
- Catherine di Medici, the 14-year-old bride who married king Henry II of France in 1533, and was said to have loved spinach so much that she insisted on bringing her own cooks to France to prepare the Tuscan dishes she preferred.
9. Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House chefs kept a constant supply of tapioca pudding in the fridge and according to the LBJ library, he had Oval Office buttons for coffee, tea, Coke and his favorite drink: Fresca. So our current president wasn’t the first one to do it.
10. Cottage cheese with ketchup was Richard Nixon’s go-to breakfast. He credited his grandmother for serving him this combination.He also like cottage cheese with pineapple, which was reportedly the very last thing the White House kitchen served him after his resignation and before his departure from the White House on August 9. 1974.
11. Abraham Lincoln enjoyed gingerbread year round, and was especially fond of gingerbread men.He often told the story of how during his childhood he shared gingerbread men that his mother had baked for him with a less fortune boyhood friend.
12. Our second president John Adams regularly enjoyed a glass of hard apple cider at breakfast, with a plate of boiled vegetables. The cider, he claimed, had a “good effect” on his digestion and mood.
13. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows: While citizens were lining up at soup kitchens, President Herbert Hoover enjoyed sweet potatoes with marshmallows so often that the recipe appears in The Presidents’ Own White House Cookbook from 1968. Apparently, he was also a fast eater, and the kitchen staff would take bets on how long it would take him to complete his meals.
14. Hot biscuits: Jimmy Carter loved plain Southern foods, including collard greens, turnips and, of course, peanuts. Rosalynn’s Peanut Butter Pie was a favorite. But during the stressful Iran hostage crisis, the Carters chose fried chicken and hot biscuits as a familiar and comforting meal.
15. This, of course, is the star of PBS’s Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, Fred Rogers, who ended a 1984 episode with this bit of wisdom: “One wonderful way of showing you that you love people is being able to accept the food that they give you. If you really like it, then you can tell them so, and that can give them a very, very good feeling.”
Recipes:
Corn Pudding:
Fred Rogers’ Grandmother’s 6-ingredient Corn Pudding: https://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/corn-pudding
For a Corn Pudding recipe with several variations, listen to Eating the Past’s Tammy Proctor’s episode on corn pudding, which can be found at https://www.upr.org/show/eating-the-past/2025-08-18/eating-the-past-corn-pudding
Louis & Lucille Armstrong’s Red Beans and Rice: https://collections.louisarmstronghouse.org/asset-detail/998852
Rosalynn Carter’s Peanut Butter Pie: https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/lifestyle/food/2025/01/09/recipe-for-jimmy-carters-favorite-dessert-rosalynns-peanut-butter-pie/77545547007/
For Laura Gelfand’s discussing of Julia Child, you can see the youtube video from when Eating the Past was a video series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgh8aVUu04Q (Laura’s story about Julia Child begins at 28:00 in the video)
