40 Fun Facts About European Food

The pH scale for acidity was introduced in 1909 by chemist Søren Sørensen at the laboratory of which Danish brewer?

Carlsberg ran the research laboratory where Sørensen devised pH; what the p stands for is disputed, though 'power' begins with p in the Danish, German and French of his papers.

Danes name their flaky pastry after which city, whose bakers brought the recipe during an 1850 Danish bakers' strike?

Vienna gives the pastry its Danish name, wienerbrød, because the owners hired Austrian bakers to break the strike and those bakers brought their laminated dough with them.

Under EU rules, a wine punch may be labelled 'Sangria' only if it was made in which two countries?

Spain and Portugal alone may sell the red-wine-and-fruit punch under that name inside the EU; bottlers elsewhere must call theirs something else.

Austrian law requires that anything sold as Wiener schnitzel, a national dish, be made from which meat?

Veal cutlets, pounded thin and breaded, are the only legal version, and the crumbs must never be pressed in so they stay dry and puff away from the meat.

Which dish did the Swiss Cheese Union push as a national dish in the 1930s, mainly to get people eating more cheese?

Fondue was a marketing triumph for a cartel: the Union even invented pseudo-regional recipes and took the pot to the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Haribo, maker of the first gummy bears in 1922, is a syllabic abbreviation of founder Hans Riegel's name and which city?

Bonn supplies the last syllable of HA-RI-BO, for Hans Riegel Bonn, and the firm began in the city's Kessenich district in 1920.

Which pale, bitter vegetable was found by accident in the 1850s when chicory roots sprouted in the dark in Brussels?

Belgian endive, witloof or 'white leaf' in Dutch, is still grown by forcing chicory roots in darkness, which keeps the tight heads pale and mild.

In 2022 UNESCO put the cooking culture of which Ukrainian beetroot soup on its urgent-safeguarding heritage list?

Borscht was inscribed months after Russia's invasion, though UNESCO stressed that neighbouring countries cook it too and that no nation owns the soup.

Hagelslag, which the Dutch shake onto buttered bread at breakfast, is what?

Chocolate sprinkles are a national breakfast: the name means 'hailstorm', and the Dutch also top bread with chocolate vlokken flakes and aniseed muisjes.

Bacalhau, which the Portuguese claim to cook more than 365 ways, one for each day, is which dried and salted fish?

Cod cured in salt had become a staple for ordinary Portuguese by the 1700s, shipped in from North America and later from Iceland and Norway; some say there are 1,001 recipes.

Salmiakki, Finland's beloved salty liquorice, owes its sharp kick to which compound rather than table salt?

Ammonium chloride, or sal ammoniac, doubles as an old cough medicine, an expectorant, which is one reason the sweets taste faintly medicinal to newcomers.

Which Polish dumplings' classic 'ruskie' filling of potato and curd cheese takes its name from Ruthenia, not Russia?

Pierogi ruskie means 'Ruthenian pierogi', after the historic lands on Poland's old eastern borders, and foreigners routinely mistranslate the name as Russian.

Haggis, sheep's heart, liver and lungs minced with oatmeal, is traditionally cooked inside which part of the animal?

The stomach made a handy pot: offal spoils fast, so hunters could cook it in the animal's own paunch, though modern haggis usually goes into an artificial casing.

Chef Joe Sheridan devised Irish coffee in the 1940s to warm passengers at which Irish flying-boat terminal near Shannon?

Foynes sat about 15 kilometres from today's Shannon Airport, and Sheridan later emigrated to serve his whiskey-laced coffee at the Buena Vista Cafe.

Which Irish potato griddle cake stars in a rhyme warning that a woman who cannot make it 'will never get a man'?

Boxty is built on finely grated raw potato, and the verse runs in full: 'Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan; if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man.'

Which cream-filled Swedish bun does popular myth blame for King Adolf Frederick's death after a huge 1771 meal?

Semla was the king's favourite dessert, and legend says he ate it after sauerkraut, turnips, caviar, smoked herring and champagne before dying of digestion problems.

Which Swedish coffee-and-pastry break is so much an institution that some employment contracts explicitly include it?

Fika traditionally falls at set times, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and helps keep Sweden among the world's heaviest coffee drinkers per head.

Which Dutch treat, two thin discs glued with caramel syrup, was first made in Gouda by bakers sweetening their crumbs?

Stroopwafels emerged in Gouda in the late 18th or early 19th century, and by 1960 that one town had 17 factories turning them out.

Dutch bitterballen, crisp-coated balls of meat ragout served in bars with toothpicks, are dipped in what?

Mustard arrives in a small ramekin alongside, and the balls hide a soft roux-thickened filling that scalds anyone who bites too soon.

The Liège waffle differs from the lighter, rectangular Brussels waffle by having what caramelise inside its dough?

Pearl sugar nuggets caramelise on the iron, giving the Liège waffle a chewier, stickier bite that locals eat plain rather than under toppings.

Which Viennese cake was fought over in court until 1963 by the hotel that created it and the Demel patisserie?

Sachertorte's verdict split the difference: the hotel won the word 'Original', while Demel was upheld on the number of sponge layers, making its version with one.

Pastel de nata tarts were first baked by monks in which Lisbon parish, whose name still brands the originals?

Belém's Jerónimos monks baked them, and the pastéis de Belém sold beside their old cloister today still claim that original recipe.

The Röstigraben, a 'ditch' named after a potato dish, divides German-speaking Swiss from speakers of which language?

French-speaking Romandy sits across the 'Rösti ditch', a term coined during World War I, while the Italian-speaking line to Ticino is the Polentagraben.

Which Hungarian deep-fried flatbread is named for 'flame', having once been baked while the oven was still heating up?

Lángos comes from láng, the Hungarian for flame; today it is fried in oil rather than baked and piled with sour cream, grated cheese and garlic.

Adjarian khachapuri, Georgia's boat-shaped cheese bread, is served with a knob of butter and what in the middle?

An egg yolk sits in the molten cheese, and the boat shape is said to stand for Adjara's Black Sea coast, with the yolk playing the sun.

Which Russian pancakes were traditionally eaten twice a day during Maslenitsa, the 'butter week' that precedes Lent?

Blini marked the end of winter: served with salt herring, caviar or smoked salmon, sour cream and melted butter, they were the last indulgence before the fast.

Lithuania's national dish, oval potato dumplings stuffed with meat, was renamed in 1900 in honour of a pioneer of what?

Zeppelin airships gave cepelinai their modish name; before Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's fame they were didžkukuliai, or 'dumb-bells'.

Riga Black Balsam, Latvia's bitter herbal liqueur, was first mixed in 1752 by Abraham Kunze, a man of which trade?

An apothecary's tonic it remained for years: Kunze advertised its 'healing properties' in a 1762 newspaper and sold it in wax-sealed flasks stamped with his initials.

Iceland's caraway schnapps brennivín earned which grim nickname, helped by the skull once printed on its state label?

Black Death, svarti dauði in Icelandic, stuck after the state demanded a stark black-and-white label to discourage drinking when spirits were re-legalised.

Laverbread, which the actor Richard Burton called 'Welshman's caviar', is a purée of what?

Seaweed called laver is boiled for hours into a dark paste, then rolled in oatmeal and fried with bacon and cockles for a Welsh breakfast.

A protected Cornish pasty must contain beef, potato, onion and which root vegetable that Cornish people call turnip?

Swede, known as rutabaga in America, is simply 'turnip' in Cornwall, and the 2011 protected status followed a nine-year campaign by the Cornish Pasty Association.

Which spit-roasted sweet pastry, sold to Prague tourists as tradition, has EU protected status tied to Slovak Skalica?

Trdelník was recorded as a Slovak dish in the mid-19th century and a Moravian one in the 20th, before Prague vendors adopted it for tourists in the 21st.

Bryndzové halušky, potato dumplings under soft sheep's cheese and bacon bits, are a national dish of which country?

Slovakia's bryndza is a salty sheep's-milk cheese, and Hungarians across the border know the very same dumplings as sztrapacska.

Kürtőskalács, the spit-baked 'chimney cake', belongs to the Székely Hungarians of which region, now part of Romania?

Transylvania's Székely Land gave the cake its first written record in 1679, and from there it spread to fairs across Central Europe.

Which Balkan country names the Lactobacillus that ferments milk into yoghurt, first isolated there by a doctor in 1905?

Bulgaria's Stamen Grigorov found the bacterium in a sample of home-made yoghurt, and Pasteur Institute professor Ilya Metchnikoff went on to link Bulgarians' longevity to their yoghurt.

Commandaria, named by crusaders and the world's oldest named wine still in production, comes from which island?

Cyprus has made this wine since at least 800 BC, when the poet Hesiod described it, and the name dates from the crusades of the 12th century.

Which decorated honey-dough hearts, a gingerbread craft of northern Croatia, joined UNESCO's heritage list in 2010?

Licitar hearts are colourfully glazed biscuits of sweet honey dough, counted as cultural heritage in both Croatia and neighbouring Slovenia.

Which rolled Slovenian cake, protected with at least three turns of dough and filling, classically holds walnuts?

Potica was described as early as 1689 by the polymath Valvasor, and the protected specification allows just five fillings, including tarragon and tarragon with cottage cheese.

Which grilled minced-meat fingers, served in flatbread with onion and kajmak, are a national dish of Serbia and Bosnia?

Ćevapi in Bosnia are pure beef, hand-mixed and shaped with a funnel, while the Serbian ćevapčići may blend beef, lamb and pork.

Tavče gravče, the Macedonian dish baked and served in an unglazed earthenware pot, is built around which ingredient?

Beans on a tava is the literal meaning, and the pot goes into a 220 °C oven under a lid once everything has been added, to be found in restaurants across North Macedonia.