129 Fun Facts About World Food

Poutine, the dish of fries, cheese curds and hot gravy, was created in the late 1950s in which country?

It came out of the Centre-du-Québec region and was mocked for years; in 2007 a CBC poll ranked it among the greatest Canadian inventions.

Which savoury pudding of sheep's heart, liver and lungs is the centrepiece of a Burns supper?

Haggis, the sheep-offal pudding, is piped in at Burns suppers held on or near 25 January, Robert Burns's birthday; the US banned sheep lung in food in 1971, shutting out the traditional version.

In which city is chicken tikka masala, hailed in 2001 as 'a true British national dish', thought to have been invented?

Glasgow's Shish Mahal restaurant is the usual claimant: owner Ali Ahmed Aslam supposedly improvised a creamy tomato sauce for a customer who found his chicken tikka too dry.

The croissant is descended from the kipferl, a crescent pastry from which country?

An Austrian officer, August Zang, opened a Viennese bakery in Paris in 1838 or 1839, and the French laminated-dough version grew from there.

The word ketchup most likely comes from Hokkien Chinese words for the brine of what?

Hokkien kê-tsiap meant the brine of pickled fish; the sauce reached Europe through Southeast Asian trade, and tomato ketchup only appeared with James Mease's 1812 American recipe.

From the 1600s, ketchup in Britain was made mainly from which ingredient?

Mushroom ketchup is still sold in the UK; the tomato version is an American invention of the early 1800s.

Pavlova, the meringue dessert, is claimed as a national dish by Australia and which other country?

New Zealand and Australia both claim the pavlova, named for ballerina Anna Pavlova, who toured both countries in 1926; food historian Helen Leach traced a New Zealand meringue recipe to 1929.

In 2022 UNESCO listed which country's borscht-cooking culture as heritage in need of urgent safeguarding?

UNESCO added Ukraine's borscht-cooking culture to its urgent-safeguarding list in July 2022, months into Russia's full-scale invasion; the soup's name comes from hogweed, its original fermented base.

Injera, the spongy sour flatbread of Ethiopia and Eritrea, is traditionally made from which grain?

Teff, a tiny Ethiopian highland grain, is ground and fermented for a few days to give injera its sour tang and spongy bubbled surface; the bread then doubles as plate and cutlery.

Ceviche joined UNESCO's heritage list in December 2023 as a traditional dish of which country?

Peru had already declared it national heritage and gave it its own holiday, National Ceviche Day on 28 June.

The communal autumn making and sharing of which fermented dish was recognised by UNESCO in 2013?

Kimchi comes in more than 180 recognised varieties, and in 2008 a bacteria-free version was engineered so astronaut Yi So-yeon could take it into space.

The red, white and green of a pizza Margherita are popularly said to represent what?

Legend has the pizza made for Queen Margherita of Savoy in June 1889, its tomato, mozzarella and basil matching the red, white and green of the Italian flag; historians note similar pizzas existed decades earlier.

Which Neapolitan pizzaiolo is credited by legend with creating the pizza Margherita in 1889?

Raffaele Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi supposedly baked it for Queen Margherita's 1889 visit to Naples; Gennaro Lombardi, by contrast, is credited with opening America's first pizzeria in New York in 1905.

In the strictest Neapolitan tradition there are only two true pizzas: the Margherita and which other?

The marinara has no cheese at all, just tomato, garlic, oregano and oil. Neapolitan pizza has been an EU traditional speciality guaranteed since 2010.

The name of the dessert tiramisu translates from Italian as what?

Tiramisù means 'pick me up' (tirami sù); the lift comes from espresso-soaked savoiardi biscuits layered with mascarpone cream and dusted with cocoa.

In which city was tiramisu reportedly invented at Ado Campeol's restaurant Le Beccherie in 1969?

Le Beccherie in Treviso, in the Veneto, credits Campeol's wife Alba di Pillo and pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto with the dessert; the recipe was first published by Giuseppe Maffioli in 1981.

The Turkish word döner, as in döner kebab, comes from a verb meaning what?

Döner comes from the Turkish verb dönmek, 'to turn' or 'to rotate': the meat cooks on a rotating vertical spit, and the sandwich version was popularised by Turkish immigrants in 1970s West Germany.

Currywurst was invented in 1949 by Herta Heuwer, who sold it from a stand in which city?

Heuwer's stand stood on Kantstraße in Charlottenburg, Berlin; she reputedly got ketchup and curry powder from British soldiers stationed there, and a memorial plaque marks the spot.

Which country's Cheese Union, a cartel trying to sell more cheese, promoted fondue as a national dish in the 1930s?

Switzerland's Cheese Union pushed fondue as the national dish in the 1930s and later pitched it to Americans at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

What is the name of the communal pot in which fondue is served?

The caquelon, a wide ceramic or enamelled cast-iron pot, sits over a small spirit burner (réchaud) so the cheese-and-wine mixture stays liquid throughout the meal.

Pho, the broth-and-rice-noodle soup usually made with beef, comes from which country?

Pho is Vietnam's signature soup; one theory ties the name to the French pot-au-feu, since beef became common under colonial rule, and Vietnamese refugees carried it worldwide after 1975.

Residents of which northern city are credited as the first to create pho, in the early 1900s?

Nam Dinh, a textile town southeast of Hanoi, is usually named as pho's birthplace; cooks from its Van Cu village carried the soup to Hanoi, where it became a street food before spreading south.

The friendly "Jollof wars" over the best jollof rice are fought mainly between Nigeria and which country?

Ghana and Nigeria trade jollof bragging rights online and at cook-offs; the dish takes its name from the Wolof people of Senegal, whose Jolof Empire flourished from the 14th century.

"Paella" is the Valencian word for what?

Paella is simply the Valencian word for a frying pan, from Latin patella; the rice dish cooked in that wide shallow pan grew up around Valencia's Albufera lagoon in the mid-1800s.

Which of these belongs in a traditional paella valenciana, according to Valencian cooks?

The classic version uses rabbit, chicken, duck, snails and beans; seafood, in the words of purists, is absolutely out of the question.

What is the single defining component of sushi?

Sushi is defined by its vinegared rice (shari); the dish evolved from narezushi, fish fermented in rice for preservation, and the rice, originally thrown away, became the point once vinegar replaced fermentation.

Nigiri sushi, seafood on hand-pressed rice, was invented around 1824 by which Edo-period cook?

Hanaya Yohei sold nigiri from a stall in Edo's Ryogoku district around 1824 as fast food for workers; the pieces were far larger than the modern two-bite version.

Which country produces around 90% of the world's saffron?

Iran, chiefly its Khorasan region, grows around 90% of the world's saffron crop; premium grades fetch upwards of US$5,000 a kilogram, making it the most expensive spice by weight.

Roughly how many crocus flowers does it take to produce one kilogram of saffron?

Each crocus yields just three crimson stigmas, all picked by hand, so roughly 150,000 flowers go into a kilogram of dried saffron, which is the whole reason for the price.

Which pungent 'king of fruits' is banned from hotels and public transport in Singapore?

Durian's smell can linger for days, which is why hotels and transit in Singapore and Bangkok ban it; Thailand was the world's top exporter as of 2018.

Casu martzu, a Sardinian sheep-milk cheese outlawed across the EU, is famous for containing what?

The name means "rotten cheese" in Sardinian; enthusiasts eat it maggots and all.

Iceland's hákarl is fermented for months because which animal's fresh flesh is poisonous?

Fresh Greenland shark is loaded with urea and trimethylamine oxide, so the meat is buried and dried for months; Anthony Bourdain called the result the single worst thing he had ever eaten.

In 2006 several airlines banned surströmming, Sweden's fermented herring, because the cans might do what?

British Airways and Air France banned the fish in 2006, ruling that its pressurised cans might explode; the herring keeps fermenting in the tin, so cans bulge and are traditionally opened outdoors.

Fugu, the Japanese pufferfish delicacy, is dangerous because it carries which poison?

Tetrodotoxin, concentrated in the liver, ovaries and skin, is a nerve poison with no antidote, so fugu may only be prepared by licensed chefs; the Emperor is by tradition forbidden to eat it.

Balut, a popular street food in the Philippines, is what?

Balut is a fertilised duck egg incubated for about 14 to 21 days, then boiled and eaten straight from the shell, embryo included; it is also common in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Vegemite, the dark Australian spread, is made from the leftover extract of what?

Chemist Cyril Callister made it in Melbourne in 1922 from spent brewers' yeast bought from the Carlton brewery, and it went on sale in 1923 as Australia's rival to Britain's Marmite.

Bunny chow, a fast food from Durban, South Africa, is curry served inside what?

The curry is ladled into a hollowed-out quarter or half loaf of white bread, the scooped-out centre serving as a lid; it grew up among Durban's Indian community, and 'chow' is slang for food.

Under Austrian law, a dish sold as Wiener schnitzel must be made from which meat?

Austria's food codex reserves the name for a breaded, pan-fried veal cutlet; a pork version must be labelled 'Wiener Schnitzel vom Schwein' or 'Schnitzel Wiener Art'.

Along with Chardonnay and Meunier, which dark-skinned grape is used to make almost all Champagne?

Pinot noir, pressed gently so its dark skins do not colour the juice, is grown chiefly on the Montagne de Reims and in the Aube; Dom Pérignon, despite legend, did not invent the bubbles.

Roquefort, the first cheese given France's AOC protection, is made from which animal's milk?

Roquefort is a blue cheese made from raw sheep's milk (the Lacaune breed) and was the first to get AOC status, in 1925; only wheels ripened in the Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may use the name.

The Mexican preparation mole takes its name from an Aztec-language word meaning simply what?

Mole comes from the Aztec word mōlli, simply 'sauce'; mole poblano from Puebla is the famous version, often running to 20 or 30 ingredients, with chocolate a later addition rather than a pre-Hispanic staple.

Feijoada, the national food of the largest country in South America, is a slow-cooked stew built on what?

In Brazil it is usually black beans with salted pork and beef, served with rice, farofa and orange slices to help digestion.

Which slow-cooked Indonesian meat dish topped CNN's 2011 poll of the world's 50 best foods?

Rendang, the Minangkabau dry beef curry of West Sumatra, won CNN's 2011 readers' poll of the world's 50 best foods; cooked dry enough, it keeps for weeks without refrigeration.

Which Indonesian dish came second in CNN's 2011 poll of the world's most delicious foods?

It is fried rice with sweet kecap manis, regarded as a national dish of Indonesia; some 35,000 people voted.

Koshary, Egypt's national dish, piles rice, lentils, chickpeas and fried onions on top of what?

Koshary layers macaroni pasta with rice and lentils under tomato sauce, chickpeas and crisp fried onions; the dish is usually traced to 19th-century Egypt and the Indian rice-and-lentil dish khichdi.

Ackee, half of Jamaica's national dish ackee and saltfish, is what kind of food?

Ackee is the fruit of a West African tree brought to Jamaica in the 1700s; its unripe arils contain the toxin hypoglycin, so only fruit from naturally opened pods is safe, and the US restricts fresh imports.

Which Beijing restaurant, established in 1864, became famous for its hung-oven Peking duck?

Quanjude, founded by Yang Quanren in 1864, roasts its ducks in an open hung oven over fruitwood; rival Bianyifang, dating from 1416, uses the older closed-oven method.

In WWII, fish and chips was one of the few British foods never subject to what?

The wartime government exempted fish and chips from rationing, judging it too important for morale; the first shops appeared in the 1860s, and newspaper wrapping lasted until hygiene rules ended it.

White Castle, the first hamburger restaurant chain, opened in 1921 in which city?

Walter Anderson and Billy Ingram opened the first White Castle in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, selling five-cent sliders; the chain later moved its headquarters to Columbus, Ohio.

The potato was first domesticated 7,000 to 10,000 years ago around which body of water?

Lake Titicaca sits in the high Andes of southern Peru and Bolivia, where wild Solanum species were domesticated; the Spanish carried the potato to Europe in the second half of the 1500s.

Traders from which country carried chili peppers to Africa, Arabia and Asia in the 1500s?

Ships from Portugal carried the New World chili to Goa, Africa and Southeast Asia within decades of Columbus; India, Thailand and Sichuan had no chilies before the Columbian exchange.

Rice is the staple food for roughly what share of the world's population?

Rice is the staple for more than half of humanity, over 3.5 billion people, mostly in Asia; it was first domesticated in China's Yangtze valley roughly 9,000 years ago.

The word tomato comes, via Spanish, from tomatl, a word in which language?

Tomatl is Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, who grew the plant in Mexico though it originated in western South America; the Spanish took it to Europe in the 1500s, and botanically the fruit is a berry.

World Food Day is held every 16 October to mark the 1945 founding of which organisation?

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was founded in Quebec City on 16 October 1945; its 20th General Conference created World Food Day in November 1979.

Which bread's artisanal know-how joined UNESCO's intangible heritage list in 2022?

UNESCO inscribed the artisanal know-how and culture of baguette bread in November 2022; France's 1993 'bread decree' bars additives and freezing from any loaf sold as traditional.

Who invented instant noodles in 1958?

Momofuku Ando launched Chikin Ramen through his Nissin company in 1958 and followed with Cup Noodles in 1971; a 2000 Japanese poll voted instant noodles the country's best invention of the 20th century.

Halloumi, the grillable cheese that won EU protected status in 2021, comes from which island?

Halloumi has been made in Cyprus since at least the 16th century from sheep's and goat's milk; the EU registered it as a protected designation of origin in April 2021.

In 2023 which country grew more coffee than any other, with Vietnam second?

Brazil has led world coffee production since the 1840s, with Vietnam a distant second in 2023; arabica is native to Ethiopia's highlands, and the earliest solid evidence of coffee drinking comes from 15th-century Sufi Yemen.

Mace, the spice, is made from which part of the nutmeg fruit?

The tree is native to Indonesia's Banda Islands; in 1667 the English swapped the nutmeg island of Run to the Dutch in exchange for Manhattan.

Which 12-year-old enslaved boy discovered in 1841 how to hand-pollinate vanilla, making it a global crop?

Edmond Albius, enslaved on the French island of Réunion, worked out in 1841 how to marry the orchid's pollen to its stigma with a sliver of bamboo; outside Mexico vanilla has no natural pollinator.

The Hungarian word gulyás, root of the word goulash, means what?

Gulyás means 'cattle herder' (from gulya, a herd): the dish began as herdsmen's food cooked in kettles over open fires on the Hungarian plains and became a national symbol.

Adobo, the Philippines' unofficial national dish, simmers meat in garlic, soy sauce and what?

Vinegar is adobo's defining ingredient, a pre-colonial way of preserving meat in the tropical heat; the Spanish name (adobar, to marinate) was attached later to an indigenous method.

The empanada is thought to have originated in the Middle Ages in which region of Spain?

Galicia is the usual birthplace claim: the 12th-century Pórtico da Gloria of Santiago de Compostela's cathedral carves empanadas in stone; the name comes from empanar, to wrap in bread.

Reading fortunes in the grounds left after drinking Turkish coffee is a practice known as what?

Tasseography (from French tasse, cup) reads the patterns in tea leaves or coffee grounds; Turkish coffee is brewed unfiltered in a cezve, which leaves the thick sediment to interpret.

The name of the Korean dish bibimbap literally describes what?

Bibimbap literally means 'mixed rice' (bibim, mixed; bap, rice): warm rice is topped with seasoned vegetables, egg and gochujang, then stirred together at the table; the dolsot version comes in a sizzling stone bowl.

In 2010, which country had the world's highest tea consumption per person?

Turkey topped the 2010 per-person tea league, drinking black çay from tulip-shaped glasses; most of it is grown on the Black Sea coast around Rize, and tea is the world's most drunk beverage after water.

Across Mesoamerican civilisations, cocoa beans were used as what?

Cocoa beans served as currency: a 1545 Nahuatl price list records a turkey hen at 100 beans and a tamale at one, and beans were demanded as tribute; the drink itself was taken bitter with spices.

The Italian word gelato literally means what?

Gelato is simply Italian for 'frozen', the past participle of gelare, to freeze; artisanal gelato has only 4 to 9 percent butterfat and is served warmer and denser than American ice cream.

Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia and which country jointly nominated couscous to UNESCO in 2020?

Morocco joined Algeria, Mauritania and Tunisia in the December 2020 joint nomination, setting aside a long argument over who owns the dish; the granules are rolled semolina steamed over a stew in a couscoussier.

A tagine's tall conical lid is designed to do what?

The shape means a stew can cook for hours with very little water, which suited the dry Berber homelands where the pot originated.

In 2010, 300 cooks in which country made a record-breaking 10,450 kg plate of hummus?

Lebanon's 10,452 kg plate, made in Beirut in May 2010, more than doubled the mark set months earlier in the Israeli-Arab village of Abu Gosh; the word hummus is simply Arabic for chickpeas.

Under its 2011 protected status, a genuine Cornish pasty must be D-shaped and crimped where?

The 2011 PGI spec says the crimp runs along one side, never across the top; the thick crimp gave tin miners a handle for dirty fingers, and the filling is beef, potato, swede and onion.

Tamales, the Mesoamerican dish steamed in a husk, are made from masa, a corn dough treated by which process?

Nixtamalization produces the masa, which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf; the word tamale comes from the Nahuatl 'tamalli'.

Poland's first cookbook, which includes a pierogi recipe, was published in which year?

Stanisław Czerniecki's Compendium ferculorum, albo Zebranie potraw, printed in Kraków in 1682, is Poland's first cookbook and already gives pierogi recipes; typical fillings include potato and twaróg cheese.

Which chef created the modern Greek moussaka, with its béchamel top, in the 1920s?

Nikolaos Tselementes layered the modern version under a béchamel top in the 1920s, and even supplied a vegan variant for Orthodox fast days.

Jamaican jerk seasoning is built around Scotch bonnet peppers and which other key spice?

Allspice, the dried berry of the pimento tree native to Jamaica, is the backbone of jerk alongside Scotch bonnets; the word 'jerk' likely comes from 'charqui', the Spanish form of Quechua ch'arki, dried meat.

The Cantonese term 'dim sum' translates literally as what?

Dim sum (dian xin) literally means 'touch the heart', a light bite rather than a full meal; the Cantonese custom of yum cha, eating them with tea, flourished in Guangzhou's 19th-century teahouses.

Which Turkish city's pistachio baklava was the first Turkish product to win EU protected status?

Gaziantep's Antep Baklavası was registered as a Protected Geographical Indication in 2013, after Çelebi Güllü brought the recipe there from Damascus in 1871.

Rice noodles came from China centuries ago, but pad thai itself was invented in which decade?

Pad thai dates from the late 1930s, when Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram's nationalist campaign pushed a 'Thai' noodle dish; it was originally called kuai tiao pad thai, kuai tiao being a Teochew loanword for rice noodles.

Raw salmon only became a common sushi topping in Japan after a 1980s sales drive by which country?

Norway had more farmed salmon than it could sell, so its exporters pitched it to Japan, where raw salmon had been avoided for fear of parasites.

Caesar Cardini is credited with creating the Caesar salad in 1924 at his restaurant in which city?

Tijuana drew thirsty Americans over the border during Prohibition, and by his daughter's account Cardini improvised the salad when a Fourth of July rush emptied his kitchen.

Captain James Cook loaded barrels of which German staple on his Pacific voyages to ward off scurvy?

Sauerkraut is cabbage soured by its own bacteria, which gives it a long shelf life while keeping the vitamin C that sailors on long voyages went without.

Real wasabi is so scarce that most wasabi paste sold outside Japan is mainly which dyed root?

Horseradish, coloured green, stands in because the real plant is hard to farm even in ideal conditions: it needs cool, humid air and shrinks from direct sunlight.

Fortune cookies, not Chinese in origin, were popularised in the early 1900s in which US state?

California is where rival immigrant bakers all claimed the idea. It most likely came from Japanese immigrants, and a very similar cookie was made in Kyoto in the 1800s.

Which Tex-Mex snack is named after Ignacio Anaya, who improvised it in Piedras Negras in 1943?

Nachos carry his nickname, the usual short form of Ignacio. A maître d' who could not find the cook, he topped fried tortilla triangles with cheese and jalapeños for a party of US officers' wives.

The Michelin Guide, whose stars are fine dining's top honour, is published by a maker of what?

Tyres were the point: the Michelin brothers launched the guide in 1900 hoping motorists would drive further and wear out their rubber sooner.

In a popular legend, Kaldi discovered coffee after which of his animals turned lively on the plant?

Goats are the heroes of the tale, though it is probably a myth: Kaldi supposedly lived in the ninth century, and no version of the story appears in print before 1671.

The prized ingredient of Chinese bird's nest soup is a nest that swiftlets build out of what?

Their saliva sets into hard interwoven strands, and in water the nest turns gelatinous, a texture that has made it a delicacy for more than 400 years.

Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi extracted his research vitamin C from which red spice?

Paprika supplied the vitamin for his experiments, and it also colours Hungary's best-known dishes, including the stew the rest of the world calls goulash.

Kopi luwak, one of the priciest coffees, uses cherries that were eaten and excreted by which animal?

Civet droppings are the harvest: the cherries ferment in the animal's gut, and coffee gathered from wild animals sells for about ten times the price of the farmed kind.

Escargot, a French delicacy that was already an elite food in ancient Rome, is which animal?

Snail farming has its own name, heliciculture, and a Roman breeder, Quintus Fulvius Lippinus, is remembered as its father.

Tzatziki, the chilled Greek dip, blends strained yogurt and garlic with which vegetable?

Cucumber is the constant in a very old idea: the first Ottoman cookbook, printed in 1844, already described a near-identical dish as yogurt with cucumber and garlic.

Which Japanese port city gives its name to a famously marbled beef from the Tajima strain of Wagyu?

Kobe beef is so tightly defined that the animals must be born in the surrounding Hyōgo Prefecture and meet rules set by a local marketing association.

Tequila, named after a town in the Mexican state of Jalisco, must be distilled from which plant?

Blue agave is the only agave allowed, and that is what separates tequila from mezcal, a spirit that can be distilled from other agave species.

Poke, the diced raw fish dish now sold in bowls around the world, comes from which US state?

Hawaii gave the dish its name as well: poke is the Hawaiian word for slicing or cutting crosswise into pieces.

The sandwich takes its name from John Montagu, an 18th-century holder of which English noble title?

Earl of Sandwich was his title, and the story goes that he ordered roast beef between slices of toast so he could keep gambling without greasing his cards.

Beef Stroganoff, sautéed beef in sour cream, is named after a noble family from which country?

Russia's Stroganov family lent the name, and legend says a chef posted to Siberia cut the beef into strips because the cold had left it too hard to carve any other way.

Black pudding, a fixture of the full breakfast in England, gets its dark colour from what?

Blood, usually from pigs, is bound with oatmeal or barley, and that high share of cereal is what sets black pudding apart from other blood sausages.

Tahini, the paste that enriches hummus, baba ghanoush and halva, is ground from which seeds?

Sesame is the whole recipe: the seeds are usually hulled and toasted, then ground into an oily paste.

Which rhizome of the ginger family gives curry powder its deep orange-yellow colour?

Turmeric was a dye before it was a seasoning, and in India its yellow still colours the robes of monks and priests.

The scale that rates the heat of chillies is named after which American pharmacist?

Wilbur Scoville's test relied on tongues: a chilli extract was diluted in sugar water until most of a five-person panel could no longer feel the heat.

The tandoor, a vase-shaped oven used since antiquity to bake naan and roti, is usually made of what?

Clay tandoors can reach about 480 °C and are routinely kept lit for long stretches, and fine hairline cracks let their walls expand and contract.

Traditionally, true caviar is the salt-cured roe of which fish of the Caspian and Black seas?

Sturgeon roe is the only kind traditionally called caviar, and the rarest and costliest of all comes from the critically endangered beluga.

Moules-frites, a pot of mussels served with fries, is the national dish of which country?

Belgium claims the dish, though much of the shellfish in the pot comes from farms just over the border in Zeeland in the Netherlands.

Pesto, pounded from basil, pine nuts, garlic and hard cheese, originated in which port city?

Genoa's dialect named it too: pesto comes from the Genoese verb for pounding or crushing, the same Latin root that gives English the word pestle.

Bouillabaisse began with fishermen cooking bony rockfish they could not sell in which French port?

Marseille still serves it in two acts: the broth comes first with bread and rouille, then the fish arrives separately on a large platter.

Which soft cheese is named after the Normandy village where Marie Harel reportedly first made it?

Camembert owes its recipe, by tradition, to a churchman: Harel is said to have followed the advice of an abbot from Alençon in 1791.

The finest jamón ibérico comes from free-range pigs that spend their last months eating only what?

Acorns are bellota in Spanish, and the top grade, jamón ibérico de bellota, is named for them: the pigs roam oak pastures called dehesas.

Which empire's people nicknamed quinoa chisiya mama, Quechua for the mother of all grains?

The Inca prized quinoa, but the Spanish who colonised the Andes looked down on it as a subsistence food.

Gazpacho, the cold soup of raw blended vegetables, takes its full name from which Spanish region?

Andalusia lends the soup its full name, Andalusian gazpacho, and one theory traces it to a Roman-era mix of bread, olive oil, garlic and water.

Guanciale, the cured pork used in spaghetti alla carbonara, comes from which part of the pig?

Cheek is in the name: guanciale comes from guancia, the Italian word for it, and the same cut flavours the tomato-based amatriciana.

The savoury galette, a thin pancake that once stood in for bread, is tied to which French region?

Brittany's galette is served in crêperies all over France, where the smaller, sweeter wheat-flour pancakes take the name crêpe instead.

Under Germany's official baking guidelines, which cherry drink must be clearly tasted in a Black Forest gateau?

Kirsch, a clear spirit distilled from cherries, has to come through clearly in the taste, and one theory says the gateau takes its name from it.

Smørrebrød, Denmark's open-faced sandwich, is traditionally built on bread made from which grain?

Rye makes rugbrød, the dense, dark sourdough bread under the toppings, which is spread with butter or, in some versions, lard.

The tingling, numbing part of the 'mala' flavour in dishes such as mapo tofu comes from which spice?

Sichuan peppercorn is no relative of black pepper or chillies: it is the dried husk of a plant in the citrus family.

Which tinned food, a star of South Korea's 'army base stew', was illegal to sell there until 1987?

Spam reached Korean kitchens through black markets around US bases, and during one crackdown smuggling it was a crime punishable by death.

Vindaloo grew out of a colonial-era pork dish, marinated in garlic and vinegar, from which Indian state?

Goa's pork dish became, in its British form, a fiery curry-house staple made with a choice of meats and known as the curry to eat after pub closing time.

Butter chicken was popularised in the 1950s by the Moti Mahal restaurant in which city?

Delhi's Moti Mahal is said to have hit on it by chance, stirring leftover tandoori chicken into a buttery tomato gravy.

Lutefisk, a Nordic Christmas dish with a jelly-like texture, is dried cod cured in what?

Lye is in the very name, which means lye fish, and the stiff dried cod turns gelatinous as it is rehydrated over several days.

Pastéis de nata, the custard tarts, were created by monks at a monastery in which Lisbon district?

Belém's monks began selling the tarts at a nearby sugar refinery after the Liberal Revolution of 1820 left their monastery facing closure.

Mansaf, lamb cooked in fermented dried yogurt, is the national dish of which Arab country?

Jordan claims a long pedigree for mansaf: tradition there dates the dish to a king of Moab in the ninth century BCE.

Bagels were first mentioned in 1610, in Jewish community rules written in which Polish city?

Kraków's 1610 rules name the bagel as a gift for women in childbirth, and the city's ring-shaped obwarzanek shows up in royal accounts as early as 1394.

Which stuffed corn griddle cake is El Salvador's national dish, with its own day of celebration?

Pupusa fillings run from cheese to squash and chicharrón, and neighbouring Honduras disputes El Salvador's claim to be the cake's birthplace.

Fish amok, a mousse-like curry steamed in a banana leaf, is a national dish of which country?

Cambodia's cooks steam the curry for 20 to 30 minutes until it sets, and the dish is believed to go back to the royal kitchens of the Khmer Empire.

Which country's national dish is khachapuri, a cheese bread whose price is used to track inflation?

Georgia's economists really do track it: the khachapuri index, devised at Tbilisi State University, compares the cost of making one in different cities.

Carpaccio, raw beef sliced thin at Harry's Bar in Venice in 1950, was named after a Venetian what?

Painter Vittore Carpaccio was known for his red and white tones, and Giuseppe Cipriani first made the dish for a countess whose doctors had told her to eat raw meat.

The stroopwafel was first made, folklore says from sweetened bakery scraps, in which Dutch city?

Gouda, better known abroad for its cheese, had 17 stroopwafel factories by 1960, and one story credits the invention to a local baker, Gerard Kamphuisen.

Chemist Kikunae Ikeda identified umami in 1908, then teamed up with a businessman to sell which seasoning?

MSG, short for monosodium glutamate, went on sale in Japan in 1909 under the name Ajinomoto, a year after Ikeda's discovery.

Which French chef drew on his army service to organise restaurant kitchens into the brigade system?

Auguste Escoffier, hailed by the French press as the king of chefs and chef of kings, also created Peach Melba in honour of the singer Nellie Melba.