1. What is the name of the beadle who is horrified when Oliver Twist, having “suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months”, asks for more?

   1. Mr Sowerberry

   2. Harold Skimpole

   3. Mr Bumble

   4. Mr Pecksniff

2. "Hunger is the loudest voice in my head. I'm hungry most of the time." Says which dieter?

   1. William Leith, in The Hungry Years

   2. Dave Eggers, in How We Are Hungry

   3. Jo Brand, in Look Back in Hunger

   4. Peter Kay, in Saturday Night Peter

3. In one of Aesop’s fables, a wise insect survives the winter thanks to the grain it has stored during the summer, but refuses to share with a feckless cricket. What is the insect?

   1. A beetle

   2. An ant

   3. A ladybird

   4. A cockroach

4. Whose frugal hermit is this? “The room was small; its floor was the natural earth, beaten hard by use; in a corner was a bed of rushes and a ragged blanket or two; near it was a pail, a cup, a basin, and two or three pots and pans ... Before a shrine, which was lighted by a single candle, knelt an aged man"

   1. Thomas Malory’s, from Le Morte d’Arthur

   2. Mary Stewart’s, from her Merlin trilogy

   3. Mark Twain’s, from The Prince and the Pauper

   4. JK Rowling’s, from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

5. What is the name of the elven bread, in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which Frodo and Sam are forced to parcel out so carefully?

   1. Lembas

   2. Miruvor

   3. Erebor

   4. Elvencakes

6. “If a man be not frugal, he has no business in the arts ... If he be not frugal, he will find it hard to continue to be honest.” Says who?

   1. Oscar Wilde

   2. Walter Scott

   3. Robert Louis Stevenson

   4. Samuel Richardson

7. What do Sara Crewe, Ermengarde and Becky feast on in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, after Sara has endured months on starvation rations thanks to evil headmistress Miss Minchin?

   1. Cold chicken, cold tongue, cold ham, cold beef, pickled gherkins, salad, French rolls, cress sandwiches, potted meat, ginger beer, lemonade and soda water

   2. Cake, little meat-pies, jam-tarts, buns, oranges, red-currant wine, figs and chocolate

   3. Sardines and ginger cake

   4. Fish and chips

8. What meagre ration is husky Buck kept on in Jack London’s A Call of the Wild, leaving him with “perpetual hunger pangs”?

   1. A pound-and-a-half of sundried salmon

   2. A quart of barley mash

   3. Two rabbits

   4. A ladle-full of porridge

9. “In January food fell short... Then it was discovered that the greater part of the potato crop had been frosted in the clamps, which had not been covered thickly enough ... Starvation seemed to stare them in the face.” Whose characters are forced to be frugal thanks to a failure of the harvest?

   1. Margaret Mitchell’s, in Gone with the Wind

   2. Thomas Hardy’s, in Jude the Obscure

   3. Michelle Magorian’s, in Goodnight Mister Tom

   4. George Orwell’s, in Animal Farm

10. What is the name of the character in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman who becomes unable to eat after starting to see human qualities in her food?

    1. Marian

    2. Clara

    3. Offred

    4. Laura

Solutions

1:C, 2:A, 3:B, 4:C, 5:A, 6:C, 7:B, 8:A, 9:D, 10:A

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   A pitiful score – go to the back of the porridge queue!

2. 4 and above.

   Could do better – a single ladle of porridge for you!

3. 8 and above.

   Excellent – double helpings of porridge for you!