Tag: Utter nonsense crossword clue

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Constructed by: Mary Crane
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Mayo Clinic

Themed answers are food items that use MAYO:

• 59A Minnesota medical center, or where one might learn how to prepare 17-, 28-, 36-, and 43-Across? : MAYO CLINIC

• 17A Hors d’oeuvre often seasoned with paprika : DEVILED EGG
• 28A Picnic side dish : POTATO SALAD
• 36A Creamy dip for buffalo wings : RANCH DRESSING
• 43A New England seafood sandwich : LOBSTER ROLL

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 5m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Personal bearing : MIEN

One’s mien is one’s bearing or manner. “Mien” shares the same etymological root as our word “demeanor”.

15 Like a quaint shoppe : OLDE

The word “olde” wasn’t actually used much earlier than the 1920s. “Olde” was introduced to give a quaint antique feel to brand names, shop names etc. as in “Ye Olde Shoppe”.

17 Hors d’oeuvre often seasoned with paprika : DEVILED EGG

Deviled eggs are hard-boiled eggs that have been shelled and sliced in two. The egg’s yolk is mixed with primarily mayonnaise and mustard, and then spooned into the hard-boiled egg white. The eggs are then sprinkled with paprika and served cold. Some people make deviled eggs on Halloween, dropping an olive slice in the middle so that the whole thing resembles an eyeball! The term “deviled” has been used for zesty or spicy foods since the 1700s.

An hors d’oeuvre is a first course in a meal. “Hors d’oeuvre” translates from French as “apart from the work”, which really means “not the main course”.

The wonderful spice paprika is made from dried and ground red peppers. The peppers used are usually quite mild in terms of heat, although hotter varieties of paprika are produced. Even though paprika originated in Mexico, today it is very much associated with Hungarian cuisine.

23 Skin pictures : TATTOOS

The word “tattoo” (often shortened to “tat”) was first used in English in the writings of the famous English explorer Captain Cook. In his descriptions of the indelible marks adorning the skin of Polynesian natives, Cook anglicized the Tahitian word “tatau” into our “tattoo”. Tattoos are sometimes referred to as “ink”.

35 Helena’s st. : MONT

Helena is the capital of the state of Montana, and is known as the Queen City of the Rockies. Helena’s main street has a very colorful name, i.e. Last Chance Gulch.

36 Creamy dip for buffalo wings : RANCH DRESSING

Ranch dressing has been the best-selling salad dressing in the country since 1992. The recipe was developed by Steve Henson who introduced it in the fifties to guests on his dude ranch, the Hidden Valley Ranch in Northern California. His Hidden Valley ranch dressing became so popular that he opened a factory to produce packets of ranch seasoning that could be mixed with mayonnaise and buttermilk. Henson sold the brand for $8 million in 1972.

There are a few stories about how Buffalo wings were first developed, most of them related to the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. If you’re looking for Buffalo wings on a menu in Buffalo, you’ll note that in and around the city they’re just referred to as “wings”.

40 __ mater : ALMA

The literal translation for the Latin term “alma mater” is “nourishing mother”. The phrase was used in ancient Rome to refer to mother goddesses, and in Medieval Christianity the term was used to refer to the Virgin Mary. Nowadays, one’s alma mater is the school one attended, either high school or college, usually one’s last place of education.

42 Parrot in Disney’s “Aladdin” : IAGO

In the 1992 Disney feature “Aladdin”, there is a parrot called Iago. Iago is voiced by the comic Gilbert Gottfried.

47 Securities backed by the govt. : T-NOTES

A Treasury note (T-note) is a government debt that matures in 1-10 years. A T-note has a coupon (interest) payment made every six months. The T-note is purchased at a discount to face value, and at the date of maturity can be redeemed at that face value. A Treasury bill (T-bill) is a similar financial vehicle, but it matures in one year or less, and a T-bond matures in 20-30 years.

54 Supermarket area with fresh cheeses : DELI

The word “delicatessen” (or “deli” for short) came into English from the German “Delikatessen”. The Germans borrowed the word from French, in which language “délicatesse” means “delicious things (to eat)”. The term’s ultimate root is “delicatus”, the Latin for “giving pleasure, delightful”.

56 Hitchhiker’s hope : RIDE

The term “hitchhike” comes from the notion of attaching (“hitching”) a sled to a moving a vehicle to get a “ride”, and dates back to the late 1800s.

59 Minnesota medical center, or where one might learn how to prepare 17-, 28-, 36-, and 43-Across? : MAYO CLINIC

The Mayo Clinic started out as a private practice run by Dr. William Mayo, an immigrant from the North of England who arrived in the US in 1846. Mayo’s first practice was with his two sons, which evolved into a clinic set up with six other doctors.

65 Floating ice chunk : BERG

An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that is floating freely after having broken away from a glacier or ice shelf. Our use of “iceberg” comes from the Dutch word for the same phenomenon “ijsberg”, which translates literally as “ice mountain”.

Down

2 Name said to activate an Amazon Echo Dot : ALEXA

Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled hardware device that can be used to provide several services including playing radio programs and music, recording of shopping lists, and managing a calendar. The device just sits in the home listening, until it hears a “wake up” command.

5 Oscar winner Benicio __ Toro : DEL

Benicio Del Toro is an actor from Puerto Rico. He is an Academy Award winner, for the role he played in “Traffic”, released in 2000. He also played the title role in the 2008 movie “Che”.

7 Actor Robert who hosts the podcast “Not Today, Pal” with former co-star Jamie-Lynn Sigler : ILER

Actor Robert Iler’s most famous role was A.J., son of mob leader Tony Soprano in HBO’s “The Sopranos”. Apparently Iler’s screen persona has spilled over into his personal life, as he was arrested for armed robbery of two tourists in 2001 (and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge).

10 Expensive nut from Hawaii : MACADAMIA

The macadamia tree is native to Australia and is largely grown for its fruit, the macadamia nut. The tree was named in 1857 in honor of Scottish-Australian chemist and politician John Macadam. The macadamia was introduced into Hawaii as a commercial crop in the 1920s.

18 Sauteing acronym : EVOO

Virgin olive oil is oil produced from olives with no chemical treatment involved in the production process at all. To be labeled “virgin”, the oil must have an acidity level of less than 2% and must be judged to have “a good taste”. Extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) comes from virgin oil production, and is the portion with acidity levels of less than 0.8% acidity that is judged to have “superior taste”.

22 Director Craven : WES

“Sauté” is a French word. The literal translation from the French is “jumped” or “bounced”, a reference to the tossing of food while cooking it in a frying pan.

24 Oil cartel acronym : OPEC

A cartel is a group of independent businesses that cooperate to regulate production, pricing and marketing of their common product(s).

25 “The Brady Bunch” trio : SONS

The famous sitcom “The Brady Bunch” originally aired from 1969 to 1974 on ABC. If you ever see a movie called “Yours, Mine and Ours” starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda (and remade with Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo), you might notice a similarity in storyline. It was because of the success of the 1968 movie that ABC decided to go ahead with the development of “The Brady Bunch”.

26 Dance that takes two : TANGO

The dramatic tango dance originated in the late 1800s in the area along the border between Argentina and Uruguay. Dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires in particular traveled to Europe and beyond in the early twentieth century and brought the tango with them. The tango craze first struck Europe in Paris in the 1910s, and from there spread to London and Berlin, crossing the Atlantic to New York in 1913.

31 Wrinkle-resistant synthetic fabric : ORLON

Orlon is the brand name used by the DuPont Corporation for the acrylic fibers the company developed in 1941.

32 Hoodwink : BAMBOOZLE

It’s thought that the lovely word “bamboozle” came into English from the Scottish “bombaze” meaning “perplex”. We’ve been using “bamboozle” since the very early 1700s.

“To hoodwink” has had the meaning “to deceive” since about 1600. Prior to that it meant simply “to blindfold”, and is simply a combination of the words “hood” and “wink”.

39 River sediment : SILT

Today, we mostly think of silt as a deposit of sediment in a river. Back in the mid-1400s, silt was sediment deposited by seawater. It is thought that the word “silt” is related to “salt”, as found in seawater.

45 Like a kiwi : OBLONG

What we call kiwifruit today (and sometimes just “kiwi”) used to be called a Chinese gooseberry. Marketing folks in the fifties decided to call it a “melonette”, and then New Zealand producers adopted the name “kiwifruit”.

49 Utter nonsense : TRIPE

“Tripe” is an informal term meaning “rubbish, of little value”. Tripe is actually the rubbery stomach lining of an animal such as a cow. Tripe is a traditional dish in British cuisine that is prepared by poaching it with onions in milk.

50 Lightweight fabric : LINEN

The textile known as linen is made from flax fibers. The name “linen” probably comes from “linum”, which is Latin for both “flax” and “textile made from flax”.

54 Singer Grohl who founded the Foo Fighters : DAVE

Drummer Dave Grohl is perhaps best known as the founder of the rock band Foo Fighters. Prior to his time with the band, he was the drummer with Scream, and then with Nirvana. Grohl has made some money over the years, and at one point was listed as the world’s third richest drummer, after Ringo Starr and Phil Collins.

58 Hoppy beer : ALE

The foodstuff that we call “hops” are actually the female flowers of the hop plant. The main use of hops is to add flavor to beer. The town in which I used to live here in California was once home to the largest hop farm in the world. Most of the harvested hops were exported all the way to the breweries of London, where they could fetch the best price.

60 1960s hallucinogen, for short : LSD

LSD (known colloquially as “acid”) is lysergic acid diethylamide. A Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann first synthesized LSD in 1938 in a research project looking for medically efficacious ergot alkaloids. It wasn’t until some five years later when Hofmann ingested some of the drug accidentally that its psychedelic properties were discovered. Trippy, man …