R U A YANKEE? (1937)

Thu May 1 22:53:25 UTC 2003

   I'll list just the food items, plus the full item for you Connecticut trivia buffs.
   If you don't pass this test, cheer up.  You may be a redneck.

   August 1937, YANKEE magazine, pg. 20:
_R U A YANKEE?_
In this era of alphabets--PWA, IQ, CIO, NBC--YANKEE herewith offers another contribution: the RUA's.
(...)  By JASON ALMUS RUSSELL

R U A GREEN MOUNTAIN YANKEE?
4.  What food product has made Vermont famous?
5.  What are baked crullers, cherry cider, fried pies, sage cheese, election cake?
9.  What is a...sausage gun?
Pg. 42:
4.  Maple Sugar.
5.  _Baked Crullers:_  baked raised doughnut dough.
    _Cherry Cider:_  Juice pressed out from cherries and bottled.
    _Fried Pies:_  Balls of doughnut dough filled with a spoonful of dried applesauce, and fried in deep fat.
    _Sage Cheese:_  Common cheese with sage mixed through it.  (Greenish yellow in color.)
9.  _Sausage-gun:_  a tin or zinc implement for filling sausage-skins.

Pg. 20:
R U A RHODE ISLANDER?
3.  How is Kedgeree prepared?
5.  What is a menhaden? porgy? squinteague? quahaug? turbot?
15.  And a question which Little Rhody has long argued with the Old Bay State--
   "Should tomatoes be tabooed from clam chowder?"
Pg. 42:
3.  See recipe to come in YANKEE.
5.  A fish used for bait; also for making oil and fertilizer.
   A sparoid edible fish.
   An esculent fish.
   The common American round clam.
   A type of American flounder.
15.  In an up-state New York restaurant, I ate a bowl of clam chowder which contained tomatoes and celery.  WHen I asked the waitress the reason for the introduction of these exotic vegetables, she replied apologetically--
   "Please, sir, they conceal the taste of the clams!"

Pg. 21:
R U A BAY STATE YANKEE?
5.  What is Massachusetts' most famous fish?
7.  What are baked crullers? fish cakes? bean swagger? scraps? bloaters? Finnan Haddie?
15.  And a much mooted question which born-and-bred Bostonians heatedly argue with residents ofthe other New England States--
   "What is the proper method of preparing and baking beans?"
Pg. 42:
5.  Cod fish.
7.  (a) Doughnut dough _baked_ (instead of fried in deep fat).
   (b) Cooked flaked dried codfish mixed with cooked potato, moulded into cakes, and fried in deep fat.
   (c) Stewed dried beans cooked with small pieces of salt pork.
   (d) Small squares of pork from which the lard has been "tried" (pressed out).
   (e) Large herring when cured by being salted, smoked, and half-dried.
15.  Brown Sugar versus the Molasses School.  See recipe for Baked Yellow-eye Beans to come in YANKEE.

Pg. 21:
R U A CONNECTICUT YANKEE?
1.  Who wrote "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"?
2.  Why is Connecticut called "The Nutmeg State"?
3.  What is the meaning of "Connecticut"?
4.  WHere are the Connecticut Lakes?
5.  What State was once called _New Connecticut_?
6.  What is Connecticut's most famous fish?
7.  Who was the most famous martyr-spy of the American Revolution?
8.  What Connecticut city is called "The Rose of New England"?
9.  What Connecticut man invented the _first_ steamboat?
10.  Where is "The Devil's Hop-yard"?
11.  What "nutmegger" wrote a famous dictionary?
12.  What is a dowser? a teaseler? a fuller? a housewright?
14.  What are Baptist cakes? Rum Cherries? Indian Pudding? Head cheese? Bean Porridge?
15.  And a question which dyed-in-the-wool Connecticut Yankees are still arguing over--
   "What is the difference between a blueberry and a huckleberry?"
Pg. 42:1.  Mark Twain.
2.  A Connecticut Peddler sold wooden nutmegs to unsuspecting housewives.
3.  Long RIver _or_ River of the Pines.
4.  New Hampshire.
5.  Vermont.6.  Shad.
7.  Nathan Hale.
8.  Norwich.
9.  John Fitch in 1787.
10.  East Haddam.
11. Noah Webster.
12.  _Dowser:_ one who uses a forked stick, usually of witch-hazel, in search of water.
   _Teaseler:_ one who used the dried flower-head of the teasel (covered with stiff-hooked bracts), to raise a nap on cloth.
   _Fuller:_ one who scours, cleans, and thickens cloth.
   _Housewright:_ a builder of wooden houses.
13.  Lebanon (now Columbia), COnnecticut.
14.  _Baptist Cake:_ small irregular pieces of raised bread dough, fried in deep fat, _served in a milk sauce_.
   _Rum Cherries:_ small wild black cherries.  Our forefathers were wont to cover these cherries with rum for a day or two.  Then they drank the rum thus flavored.
   _Indian Pudding:_ Colonial dessert with cornmeal base.  (See recipe to come in YANKEE.)
   _Bean Porridge_ (See recipe to come in YANKEE).
15.  A New Englander knows the difference from the bush, the color of the berry, the taste.  The blueberry contains many minute seeds; the huckleberry contains 10 nutlets only.

Pg. 21:
R U A DOWN EAST YANKEE?
1.  What are "bean-hole beans"?
6.  Can you make a clam pie? Brown Betty? Poor Man's Cake? Parsnip Stew? Barberry Jam?
8.  For what vegetable is Maine famous?
12.  How do you open clams?
15.  What is in Maine Toffee?
16.  And a question which Down East Yankee housewives still argue--
   "Should the cook use cinnamon or _nutmeg_ in flavoring apple pie?"
Pg. 43:
1.  Beans baked in a hole, lined with coals, covered with earth, baked for twenty-four hours.
6.  (See recipes to come in YANKEE.)
8.  The potato.
12.  Place them on hot coals; _or_ use a sharp knife.
15.  See recipes to come in YANKEE.
16.  Depends upon one's taste!

Pg. 22:
R U A NEW HAMPSHIRE YANKEE?
No food items--ed.)

   November 1937, YANKEE magazine, pg. 33:
RUA BOSTONIAN?
2.  Where did Parker House rolls originate?
5.  Where was the Boston Tea Party held?
17.  Complete the stanza--
   "Oh, here's to old Boston,
    The home of the bean and the cod,...
Pg. 42:
2.  The Parker House.  (I missed this one.  I said "Grant's Tomb"--ed.)
5.  A bronze marker in the sidewalk on Washington Street marks the location of the ship which carried the tea.  Much of that section of Boston is now filled land.
*17. Completed Stanza:
   "Where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots,
    And the Cabots speak only to God."
*For racier versions, write to J. Almus Russell, Mason, N. H.