Planet of the Grapes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Any of these terms could be used to describe a grape

Grapes are not spheres, because their radius is not a fixed value, but they are similar in shape to a sphere, and can be called spheroids. A spheroid is also called an ellipsoid, because the shape can be formed by spinning an ellipse along one of its main axes, just as a sphere can be formed by spinning a circle along a diameter. If the ellipse is spun along its longer axis, the result is a prolate spheroid, something like the shape of a (non-soccer) football. That is roughly the shape of most grapes, although they do tend to have one end larger than the other. If an ellipse is spun on its minor axis, the result looks like a sphere that has been flattened - this is roughly the shape of the earth.

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Question: Why aren't grapes lonely?
Answer: Because they come in bunches.

Answer: Purple

All of these are colours of different cultivars of grapes, which can be black, blue, red, orange, pink, yellow or green (the latter two often being referred to as white grapes). The oldest cultivated grapes of which evidence has been found were used to make red wine in Armenia around 4,000 BCE. The ancient Egyptian civilizations also had purple grapes. The lighter colours of grape are produced when mutations cause the cultivar to have a reduced (or eliminated) production of the chemicals that produce the purple skin.

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Question: What did the green grape say to the purple grape?
Answer: Breathe! Breathe!

Answer: Antarctica

As mentioned in the last question's information, the earliest evidence of grape cultivation comes from Armenia (located in the region where Europe and Asia meet) and in Egypt (in Africa). These grapes belonged to the cultivar Vitis vinifera, which is the most widespread of all grape cultivars, having spread out from its origins in the Mediterranean area. In North America, Vitis labrusca (which includes the well-known, at least in Massachusetts where I grew up, Concord grape), Vitis riparia (also called muscadines) and Vitis rotundifolia are all native and grow in the wild. While they can be used for wine, most American wines are produced from imported Vitis vinifera grapes. The most notable eastern Asian species of grape is Vitis amurensis, named for the Chinese river valley where it originated.

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Question: What's large and purple and swims in the sea?
Answer: Moby Grape

Answer: Fresh grapes

In France, the word 'raisin' refers to the fresh fruit, while in most parts of the world it refers to a dried grape. Some places use more specific terms to identify the kind of grape that has been dried - a currant is a dried Black Corinth grape (or an unrelated berry from the redcurrant or blackcurrant bush), and a sultana was originally made by drying Sultana grapes, which are also known as Thomson Seedless grapes. The term is now used to refer to the dried fruit of any light-colored grape.

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Question: What's wrinkled, wears a black mask, and rides a horse named Silver?
Answer: The Lone Raisin

Answer: True

Because the fruit sugar is what gets turned into alcohol by yeast during the process of fermentation that turns grape juice into wine, it is desirable to have a high sugar content - most wine grapes have about twice as much sugar content on harvesting as most table grapes. Wine grapes also tend to have thicker skins, because the skin makes a significant contribution to the aroma and flavor of the wine. In addition, they are usually smaller than table grapes, and usually have seeds, while many table grapes are seedless.

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Question: What did the grape say when the elephant stood on it?
Answer: Nothing, it just let out a wine.

Answer: Seeds

Grape seed oil is often produced from the seeds created as a by-product of winemaking (remember that wine grapes usually have seeds?). Because it has a fairly high smoke point, it is useful for cooking techniques requiring a high temperature, such as stir-frying and deep frying. Its light taste makes it useful for salad dressings, as it readily picks up the flavors of herbs that steep in it - garlic and rosemary are popularly used. Grape seed oil is also used in cosmetics due to its high content of antioxidants including vitamin E.

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Question: Why are elephants large, lumpy, and grey?
Answer: Because if they were small, round, and green, they'd be grapes.

Answer: Pectin

Most fruits contain pectin, a chemical that is released when the fruit is heated, which is why the first step of making jelly/jam is cooking the fruit until soft, usually with added sugar. If a clear spread is desired, the next stage is to strain the mixture so that only the juice is used. Then all you have to do is put it in a sterilized container and let it set. Some fruits, including most grapes, do not have enough pectin to produce the desired firmness, in which case it is necessary to add extra pectin.

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Question: How can you tell the difference between an elephant and a grape?
Answer: Elephants are grey, grapes are purple.

Answer: Molasses

Molasses is a by-product of sugar making. Most commonly the sugar is being extracted from the sugar cane or sugar beet plants. The plant's juice is boiled to thicken it, which also leads to sugar crystallization. The liquid left behind after the sugar has crystallized out is called molasses. In some parts of the world, sugar is produced from other fruits such as dates, pomegranates, mulberries and, of course, grapes.

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Question: How can you tell the difference between a grape and an elephant if you're color blind?
Answer: Dance on it for a while. If you don't get any wine, it's an elephant.

Answer: False

While white grapes cannot be used to make red wines, red grapes can be used to make either red or white wine. The color of a red wine comes from contact with the skins during fermentation. If the skins are removed before fermentation, and pressing has been carried out so as to minimize contact between pulp and skin, the result can indeed be a white wine even when the grape was red. This is done in the production of 'Blanc de noirs', a sparkling white wine produced from the red Pinot noir grape.

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Question: Why do elephants wear bright green nail polish?
Answer: So they can hide in the grape vines.

This is traditionally followed by an exchange along the lines of:
Have you ever seen an elephant in a grape vine?
No.
See, it works.

Answer: To be used for communion in his church

The skin of a Concord grape is usually dark blue or purple, verging on black, but it looks lighter due to the white bloom that typically covers the fruit. The skins are bitter, and when the grapes are eaten fresh they are usually popped out of their skin, and only the flesh is consumed.

Concord grapes produce a dark purple juice, which can be fermented into wine. Dr. Welch, however, determined that the juice could be pasteurized to prevent fermentation, producing a juice with a long shelf life that could be used for communion in his church services - the Wesleyan Methodist church expressly banned the use of fermented wine for communion.

Concord grapes are also often used to make grape jelly, the classic partner to peanut butter in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Because their juice is purple, many people have come to associate the colour purple with grapes, and grape-flavoured candies are often purple.

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Question: What's purple and commutes?
Answer: An Abelian grape.

This joke I had better explain, for those of you who are not mathematicians. A mathematical group is a set of numbers or other elements and an operation that can be used to combine two elements to produce a third. For an example, consider a group whose elements are the integers and which uses the operation of addition. When adding numbers, 3+2 gives the same answer as 2+3: they are both equal to 5. We say that addition is commutative. This is therefore a group which commutes. Another term for such commutative groups is Abelian groups, named after Niels Henrik Abel, one of the mathematicians responsible for developing group theory.

Back to the joke - an Abelian grape refers to an Abelian group, which would commute by definition; being a grape, it is purple. Probably not as funny if you had to read the explanation!