38 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, yet he never explained the p, which may stand for a word for 'power' such as German Potenz.

Danes call their flaky pastry the 'bread' of which city?

Vienna is in the Danish name, wienerbrød, 'Viennese bread', yet German-speaking bakers turn it around and call the same pastry Kopenhagener, after Copenhagen.

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

Spain and Portugal keep the plain name under EU rules, so a sangria made anywhere else has to name where it was produced, such as a 'German sangria'.

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

Veal is the rule, so an Austrian menu has to flag a pork version, for example as 'Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein'.

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

Fondue was unknown in most of Switzerland before the campaign, which even sent fondue sets to army regiments so soldiers carried the habit home.

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

Bonn gave Haribo its 'bo', yet in 2018 the company moved its headquarters out of the city to Grafschaft, keeping a factory in Bonn.

Which pale, mildly bitter vegetable is grown by forcing chicory roots to sprout in darkness?

Belgian endive, witloof or 'white leaf' in Dutch, stays pale because darkness stops it forming chlorophyll, and the whiter the leaf, the less bitter it tastes.

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

Borscht was fast-tracked as a case of 'extreme urgency', because the war that began in February 2022 displaced many of the people who cook it.

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.

Which fish, dried and salted, is the bacalhau found all over Portuguese cooking?

Cod was salted and dried because Portugal's North Atlantic fishing tradition developed before refrigeration, and the catch had to keep on long voyages home.

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

Ammonium chloride above 2% made German salty liquorice carry the warning 'Adult liquorice – not children's liquorice' under national food rules.

Which Polish dumplings have a classic potato-and-curd-cheese version called 'ruskie', after historic Ruthenia?

Pierogi ruskie recall Poland's former eastern borderlands, the historic region around Lviv that now lies in western Ukraine.

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

The stomach made a natural pot for perishable offal, a trick the Romans used too, though modern haggis is often cooked in an artificial casing.

Chef Joe Sheridan is credited with inventing Irish coffee for flying-boat passengers at which terminal near Shannon?

Foynes passengers were reportedly served Sheridan's drink, and after travel writer Stanton Delaplane brought word of it, San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe began serving Irish coffee in 1952.

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 is thought to be kaffi, a dialect word for coffee, with its syllables swapped, and Swedes use it as both a noun and a verb.

Which Dutch treat, two thin discs glued with syrup, was first made in the city of Gouda?

Stroopwafels are often laid on top of a cup of coffee or tea before eating, so the rising heat warms the biscuit and softens the syrup.

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

Mustard is the classic dip, and bitterballen aren't bitter at all: they were traditionally eaten with a 'bittertje', a glass of herbal liquor or jenever.

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.

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

French-speaking Romandy lies across the 'Rösti ditch', a line often invoked when Swiss referendum results split by language region.

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 goes in the middle, and Georgia has moved to protect khachapuri legally as one of its national foods.

Which Russian pancakes are the signature food of Maslenitsa, the 'butter week' before Lent?

Blini suit Maslenitsa's farewell to rich food: meat is already off the menu, and the week ends with the last day devout Orthodox Christians eat dairy before Easter.

Lithuania's national dish, oval potato dumplings stuffed with meat, is named after a pioneer of what?

Zeppelin airships lent the dumplings their name, since their big oval shape resembles Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's rigid airships.

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

Apothecary Abraham Kunze first sold the balsam as medicine, advertising its healing properties, before it became a drink for general enjoyment.

Iceland's caraway schnapps brennivín earned which grim nickname?

Black Death, svarti dauði in Icelandic, is its nickname, and the state gave the newly legal spirit a stark black label meant to put drinkers off.

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

Seaweed, laver plucked from rocks and boiled into a purée, is the whole base, so despite its name laverbread contains no bread at all.

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

Swede goes into a pasty that tin miners once carried as a complete meal, needing no plate or cutlery underground.

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

Trdelník was a Moravian village pastry long before Prague stalls began selling it to tourists as an old tradition in the 21st century.

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 Hungarians once baked kürtőskalács mainly for festive occasions, but it has since become an everyday treat.

Which Balkan country gives its name to the Lactobacillus that ferments milk into yoghurt?

Bulgaria's yoghurt supplied the sample: Stamen Grigorov isolated a bacillus from it in a Geneva laboratory in 1905, and the strain was called bulgaricus.

Which island produces Commandaria, an amber sweet dessert wine named in crusader times?

Cyprus's Commandaria is said to have been served at Richard the Lionheart's wedding to Berengaria, where he reputedly praised it as 'the wine of kings'.

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

Licitar hearts are a traditional love token, given by a young man to a girl to show his affection, and today at weddings and on Valentine's Day.

Which rolled Slovenian cake, protected by the EU, classically holds a walnut filling?

Potica is baked in a potičnik, a round mould with a cone in the middle, which is why the finished cake has a hole at its centre.

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

Ćevapi are thought to have reached the Balkans with the Ottomans, and today many Balkan countries count them as a national dish.

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

Beans for tavče gravče have their first boiling water thrown away and replaced, so the finished dish causes less flatulence.