Food
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191 free Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
65 free food trivia questions with answers. Sixty-five multiple choice food trivia questions covering the whole plate: world cuisines, ingredients, cooking science and famous dishes. The early questions are the warm-up kind most home cooks will get; the later ones are built as hard food trivia for people who think they know food, and they turn to the strange corners of the culinary world: the fish that only licensed chefs may prepare, the cheese Italy bans from sale, the shark that is poisonous until it has been buried, the coffee that passes through a civet, and the pharmacist who gave chillies their heat scale. It works as a stand-alone quiz, a pub trivia round with a hard finish, or a challenge for the food nerd in your group chat. Every answer has been checked against a reference source, shown under each question once you answer, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 191 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which spice is the hand-picked, dried stigma of a crocus?
Saffron
Saffron is the stigma of Crocus sativus; each flower bears just three, so about 150 flowers must be hand-picked for a single gram of the dried spice.
Q 02Which blue-veined Italian cheese is named after a town near Milan?
Gorgonzola
Gorgonzola is named after its home town north-east of Milan; cheesemakers pierce each wheel with metal rods so air reaches the Penicillium mould and the blue veins grow.
Q 03Which kitchen verb means simmering a sauce, stock or wine so water evaporates and the flavour thickens and intensifies?
Reduce
Reduce is also how maple syrup is made: roughly 40 litres of sap are boiled down to get a single litre of syrup.
Q 04Which fruit is botanically classified as a berry, despite its common culinary perception?
Banana
Bananas are botanical berries because each fruit grows from one flower's single ovary, with no stone around its seeds; strawberries are not, since their flesh grows from the flower's receptacle.
Q 05Which Valencian dish takes its name from the wide, shallow pan it is cooked in?
Paella
Paella is Valencian for 'frying pan'; farm labourers likely first cooked it in the Albufera rice fields with what was at hand, such as snails and water birds.
Q 06What is the main ingredient in hummus?
Chickpeas
Chickpeas, cooked and mashed, are hummus's base; from Egypt to the Levant, diners scoop it up with flatbread such as pita.
Q 07Which East Asian mushroom is named in Japanese for the tree whose dead logs it grows on?
Shiitake
Shiitake means 'shii-tree mushroom'; eaten raw or lightly cooked, it can rarely cause shiitake dermatitis, an itchy rash of streaks like whiplash marks.
Q 08Ghee is commonly used in which cuisine?
Indian
Indian cooks rely on ghee, which is also poured into the sacred fire as an offering in Hindu homa rituals.
Q 09Edomae sushi is named after the old name of which city?
Tokyo
Tokyo was called Edo until 1868, when it was renamed 'eastern capital' and the emperor moved his residence there from Kyoto.
Q 10What grain is couscous traditionally made from?
Wheat
Wheat semolina is sprinkled with water and rolled by hand into tiny pellets, which are then steamed above the simmering stew.
Q 11Which thorny Southeast Asian fruit is nicknamed the 'king of fruits'?
Durian
Durian's smell can linger for days, so Singapore's metro and some Southeast Asian hotels ban the fruit.
Q 12Which technique finishes crêpes Suzette at the table?
Flambéing
Flambéing ignites the liqueur in the sauce; by one disputed account, crêpes Suzette began when a teenage Henri Charpentier's sauce caught fire by accident as he served the Prince of Wales.
Q 13In Japanese cuisine, what is mirin?
A sweet rice wine
Mirin is a sweet rice wine whose sugars give teriyaki its glossy glaze; the 'teri' in teriyaki means shine.
Q 21What is kombucha primarily made from?
Fermented sweetened tea
Fermented sweetened tea is what kombucha is made from: the culture, nicknamed the tea mushroom, eats the sugar and leaves a sour, lightly fizzy drink thought to have originated in China.
Q 22What is the traditional Japanese fermented soybean paste often used in soup?
Miso
Miso is soybeans fermented with salt and koji mould; during the Sengoku civil wars, soldiers relied on it as field rations.
Q 23Which vegetable is known as aubergine in some parts of the world?
Eggplant
Eggplant is the nightshade Solanum melongena; the name first described white cultivars that look very much like hen's eggs.
Q 14What traditional French pastry is made from choux dough and often filled with cream?
Éclair
Éclair means 'flash of lightning', reputedly because it is eaten so quickly; until about 1850 the pastry was called pain à la duchesse.
Q 15Which fruit only starts to ripen once it is picked?
Avocado
Avocado growers owe the Hass variety to a single tree in Rudolph Hass's California garden: every Hass tree descends from it.
Q 16What chemical compound is primarily responsible for the sensation of heat in chili peppers?
Capsaicin
Capsaicin triggers the TRPV1 heat receptor in mammals, causing the burn; birds lack that sensitivity, so they eat the peppers and spread the seeds.
Q 17Which nut is primarily used to make marzipan?
Almonds
Almonds, ground with sugar, make marzipan; cheaper persipan swaps in apricot or peach kernels and often carries a little starch so an iodine test can tell the two apart.
Q 18Fresh Italian pasta is usually made from flour and which ingredient, unlike dried pasta?
Eggs
Eggs go into fresh pasta, while Italian law requires plain dried pasta made and sold in Italy to be only durum semolina and water.
Q 19What is a roux typically made of?
Flour and fat
Flour and fat, cooked together, make a roux; the longer it cooks, the darker and nuttier it gets but the less it can thicken, as with a near-chocolate gumbo roux.
Q 20What type of fish is most commonly used for traditional British fish and chips?
Cod
Cod is traditionally the first choice, and fish and chips was one of the few British foods never rationed during the Second World War.
Q 24Sauerkraut's sourness comes from which acid, made by bacteria already living on raw cabbage leaves as they ferment it?
Lactic
Lactic acid bacteria are naturally present on cabbage, so sauerkraut needs no added culture, only salt; the same family of microbes sours yogurt.
Q 25What is the main ingredient in polenta?
Cornmeal
Cornmeal only became polenta's base after maize reached Italy from the Americas; before that, polenta was made from grains such as farro.
Q 26What is the outer layer of citrus fruit, rich in aromatic oils, called when used for flavor?
Zest
Zest is the coloured outer peel of citrus, above the white pith; rubbing it into sugar draws out its oils to flavour baking.
Q 27What is the primary ingredient in pesto sauce?
Basil
Basil is pesto's heart, crushed with pine nuts, garlic, cheese and oil; Genoa even holds a world championship where the sauce must be made in a mortar.
Q 28Which US city is so tied to sourdough that a sourdough bacterium was named after it?
San Francisco
San Francisco names the sourdough bacterium Fructilactobacillus sanfranciscensis, which feeds on maltose while the starter's yeast prefers other sugars, so the two don't compete.
Q 29What is tahini primarily made from?
Sesame seeds
Sesame seeds make tahini: they are soaked to soften their hulls, which are separated off in water before the kernels are toasted and ground.
Q 30Traditional baked beans are usually made from which bean variety, also called haricot?
Navy
Navy beans, the small white haricot, are the classic baked bean, yet canned 'baked beans' are not actually baked: they are cooked sealed in the can.