Eat-Q Test: Sustainable Cuisine Pioneers (answers)

1.  Fergus Henderson of St. John Restaurant in London is most famous for this philosophy toward cooking and eating:
A.  Premium product
B.  Nose-to-tail
C.  All organic, all the time
D.  Vegetarians for health
Answer: B. Henderson helped revolutionize British cooking with his environmentally-friendly policy of embracing the whole animal, “from nose-to-tail,” which means utilizing each and every part of the animal, including lesser-eaten parts like offal.

2.  Chris Cosentino of Incanto in San Francisco was the first chef in the city to ban this product from his restaurant:
A.  Saturated fats
B.  Okra
C.  Bottled water
D.  Paper plates
Answer: C. Cosentino, who worked at Chez Panisse before opening his own sustainably-minded restaurant, barred wasteful plastic bottles from his grounds, offering guests free filtered sparkling or still tap water instead.

3.  During a 2009 trip to New York City, Barack and Michelle Obama ate at this restaurant, which almost exclusively serves locally-grown cuisine, much of it from their own farm in upstate New York:
A.  Blue Hill
B.  Rao’s
C.  Momofuku
D.  Le Bernadin
Answer: A. The President and his wife ate dinner at Blue Hill, owned by Dan Barber, who sources almost all of his seasonal ingredients from his own farm outside of the city, Stone Barns, and the city’s Greenmarkets.

4.  The Frontera Famer Foundation, which gives grant money to Chicago-area local farms, was founded by this chef:
A.  Rick Bayless
B.  Charlie Trotter
C.  Grant Achatz
D.  Doug Sohn
Answer: A. Bayless, who owns Chicago’s Mexican restaurants Frontera Grill, Topolobampo, Xoco and others, founded the Frontera Farmer Foundation in 2003 to help support the local farmers he sources many of his ingredients from. It has given more than $400,000 to family farms.

5.  David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, California, recently went “beyond” farm-to-table by doing this:
A.  Building a farm on his rooftop
B.  Only using ingredients he foraged for himself
C.  Raising pigs in his personal backyard
D.  Working directly with a specific farm to custom-grow vegetables
Answer: D. Kinch works directly with a local farm, Love Apple Farms, to grow hyper-specific produce like biodynamic heirloom tomatoes to use in his kitchen.

6.  Which of the following is NOT true about Chez Panisse owner Alice Waters?
A.  She’s been called “the mother of American cuisine”
B.  She founded the Edible Schoolyard program
C.  She named her daughter after a rare breed of heirloom tomato
D.  She received the Global Environmental Citizen Award along with Kofi Annan
Answer: C. Waters, the chef, restaurateur, activist, author and humanitarian who rose to fame with her Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, has spearheaded a worldwide effort for “good, clean, fair” food.

7.  True or false: Alain Passard of L'Arpège in Paris grows his own vegetable on a farm 120 miles outside of the city and shuttles them to  his restaurant every day via high-speed train.
A.  True
B.  False
Answer: A. Passard, who serves almost exclusively vegetables at his three-star restaurant, grows completely organic produce without the aid of any machines on his own farm, located on the grounds of an old chateau in the small town of Fillé, France.

8.  Michel Nischan of the Dressing Room in Connecticut founded an organization to promote locally-grown food with a little help from this Hollywood star:
A.  Tom Cruise
B.  Paul Newman
C.  Steven Spielberg
D.  Clint Eastwood
Answer: B. Nischan founded Wholesame Wave in 2007 with funding from Newman’s Own Foundation and Food & Wine Magazine. The mission of Wholesome Wave is to overhaul the nation’s food system by increasing access to healthy, fresh and affordable locally grown food.

9.  Peter Hoffman of Savoy in New York has been known to shop the city’s farmers markets with this accessory in tow:
A.  A magnifying glass to inspect produce
B.  A bloodhound to sniff out the best vegetables
C.  A bicycle with an oversized basked for carrying produce
D.  None of the above
Answer: C. Hoffman, who served on the advisory board of New York’s Greenmarkets and changed the menu at Savoy almost daily according to what was in season, took a green method of transportation to the markets every morning to shop for ingredients.

10.  Britain’s “Naked Chef” Jamie Oliver has been working on an advocacy campaign to get this institution to provide meals from local, organic farmers:

A.  Hospitals
B.  Schools
C.  Prisons
D.  Movie theaters
Answer: B. Since 2006, Oliver has been working to change school lunch policies in England and America to include healthy, sustainable meal options for children. He has chronicled his efforts on film in the series “Jamie’s School Dinners” and “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.”

Your Eat-Q score:
10 correct: You're certified sustainable.
6–9: You've just been named coordinator of your CSA.
3–5: You participate in Meatless Mondays, but all of your produce flew in from Chile.
2 or fewer: You need to kick your bottled water habit.