Australia’s Millionaire Hot Seat Poses Impossible Aquafaba Question

Australian quiz show Millionaire Hot Seat—a spinoff of United States-based show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?—featured a vegan-themed question on an episode that aired last week. On the show, a contestant was tasked with answering, “Used in vegan cooking as an egg-white substitute, ‘aquafaba’ is made by soaking what in water?” The contestant was presented with four possible answers to the poorly constructed question: a) Legumes, b) Kale, c) Tofu, and d) Barley. After passing the question to another contestant, who passed it back to her, she guessed “a,” which the host deemed to be the correct response. In 2015, after French opera singer Joël Roessell discovered the egg white-like properties of the soaking liquid surrounding legumes and tofu, American software engineer Goose Wohlt coined the term “aquafaba” (a combination of the Latin terms for “bean” and “water”). The ingredient has since been used to create new vegan products such as Sir Kensington’s vegan mayonnaise Fabanaise and Fora Foods’ vegan butter Faba Butter, along with homemade items such as vegan meringues and frostings first tested by Facebook group “Aquafaba Vegan Meringue—Hits and Misses!”