Forbidden Foods
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93 free Forbidden Foods trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
14 free Forbidden Foods trivia questions with answers. Challenge yourself with our Forbidden Foods trivia quiz featuring 14 intriguing questions about foods banned across different cultures and countries. From religious restrictions to government prohibitions, discover fascinating facts about the world's most forbidden delicacies. See how many questions you can answer correctly!
30 of 93 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which of these fish fails the kosher test for want of scales?
Catfish
Catfish have no scales at all, and kosher law admits only fish with both fins and scales, the same rule that takes every kind of shellfish off the menu.
Q 02Which two major religions forbid eating pork outright?
Judaism and Islam
Judaism and Islam both forbid pork, in Leviticus 11 and in the Quran, which allows one exception: a person driven by necessity to eat forbidden food commits no sin.
Q 03Why do many Jains avoid root vegetables such as potatoes, onions and garlic?
Harvesting them harms tiny organisms.
Harvesting them harms tiny organisms in the soil and kills the whole plant, and Jain teaching adds that a single bulb or tuber is itself home to countless souls.
Q 04What common food combination is strictly prohibited in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut)?
Meat and dairy products
Meat and dairy products may not share a meal, a pot or a plate, so observant kitchens keep two sets of dishes and many Jews wait hours after meat before eating dairy.
Q 05Which Jewish festival bans leavened bread and other risen grain foods from the home?
Passover
Passover bars chametz, leavened grain, in memory of the Israelites who fled Egypt too fast for their dough to rise, so families clear every crumb from the house beforehand.
Q 06Which roe-prized fish is non-kosher for most Orthodox authorities because its scales can't be removed cleanly?
Sturgeon
Sturgeon carry bony plates that can't be removed without cutting into the skin, so most Orthodox rabbis bar the fish and its prized roe, while many Conservative rabbis permit it.
Q 07In a kosher kitchen, what term marks neutral foods such as eggs, fruit and fish?
Pareve
Pareve foods belong to neither side of the kosher kitchen's great divide, so they suit any meal; even so, Orthodox custom keeps fish, itself pareve, off a plate of meat.
Q 08In Islam, what is the term for foods that are permissible to eat?
Halal
Halal means 'permissible' in Arabic, the opposite of haram, and the Quran goes on to declare the food of Jews and Christians lawful for Muslims to eat.
Q 09What process does kosher butchery use to remove the blood from meat?
Salting
Salting, or melicha: the meat soaks in water for half an hour, sits under a layer of salt for an hour to draw out the blood, and is then rinsed clean.
Q 10A 2008 rabbinical ruling found which long-necked animal, and its milk, eligible to be considered kosher?
The giraffe
The giraffe: in 2008 Israeli veterinarians and rabbis examined a Safari Ramat Gan giraffe and found its milk curdles, the rabbinic test that confirmed the animal's kosher status.
Q 11In Jewish dietary law, which two signs make a land mammal such as a cow kosher?
Cud-chewing and split hooves
Cud-chewing and split hooves are both demanded by Leviticus 11, which is why cows and sheep pass while the pig, with the right hooves but no cud, does not.
Q 12Alongside meat, fish, eggs and alcohol, which sweet food is strictly prohibited in the Jain diet?
Honey
Honey is forbidden because taking it from the hive is seen as violence against the bees, and observant Jains will not even trade in it.
Q 13Which of these animals' milk is forbidden under Jewish kosher law, because the animal itself fails one of the two signs?
The camel
Q 21French gourmands traditionally eat the ortolan bunting with what over their heads?
A napkin
A napkin: diners drape it over their heads, a ritual said either to trap the bird's aroma or to hide the shame of eating a songbird whole.
Q 22Before cooking, ortolans are traditionally drowned in which spirit?
Armagnac
Armagnac: the fattened songbirds are drowned in the Gascon brandy, then roasted and eaten whole in a single mouthful, bones and all.
Q 23Which French president, dying of cancer, ate ortolan at his final New Year's Eve feast in 1995?
François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand, his appetite ruined by cancer, still saved room for the roasted songbird that night, and he died eight days later.
The camel passes only one of the Torah's two tests for a kosher mammal, so its meat and its milk are both barred to observant Jews, though Islam permits them.
Q 14Which large ocean fish splits kosher authorities because it has scales when young but sheds them as an adult?
Swordfish
Swordfish lose their scales as they mature, so most Orthodox rabbis rule them out, while the Conservative movement accepts the fish as kosher.
Q 15Why can't Kinder Surprise eggs legally be sold in the US?
A toy is sealed inside
A toy is sealed inside the candy, and a 1938 food law bans sweets with a non-food object embedded in them; the FDA's worry is that a child may choke on it unawares.
Q 16Which cooking oil, a staple of Bengali and North Indian kitchens, can't be sold as food in the US?
Mustard oil
Mustard oil pressed from the seed is rich in erucic acid, linked to heart lesions in test animals, so the FDA blocks it as food and bottles are often labelled for topical use only.
Q 17Casu martzu, a Sardinian sheep's cheese banned from sale on health grounds, contains what?
Live fly maggots
Live fly maggots: cheese flies lay their eggs in the pecorino and the larvae digest it into a soft, creamy paste, which some Sardinians eat with the maggots still wriggling.
Q 18French law defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by what process?
Gavage
Gavage, force-feeding through a tube, is written into French law's definition of foie gras; the practice goes back to the ancient Egyptians, who fattened migrating geese the same way.
Q 19Which Caribbean fruit, famously paired with saltfish, can cause deadly 'vomiting sickness' if eaten unripe?
Ackee
Ackee is safe only after the pod ripens and splits open; the unripe flesh holds hypoglycin, a toxin that sends blood sugar crashing.
Q 20Jamaica's national fruit has a scientific name honouring which naval captain, who took it to Kew in 1793?
William Bligh
William Bligh, whose crew had mutinied on HMS Bounty four years earlier, carried the fruit to Kew Gardens, and botanists named its genus Blighia in his honour.
Q 24The FDA banned sassafras oil from mass-produced foods in 1960, killing off its use in which drink?
Root beer
Root beer took its flavour from sassafras root bark until the FDA barred the oil over its main component, safrole; makers switched to safrole-free extract or artificial flavouring.
Q 25In 2012, China's government pledged to ban shark fin soup from what?
Official banquets
Official banquets: China's government said in 2012 that shark fin would leave its receptions within three years, after a campaign against the soup fronted by basketball star Yao Ming.
Q 26The sale of chewing gum has been illegal in which country since 1992?
Singapore
Singapore banned the sale of chewing gum in January 1992 after vandals jammed MRT train door sensors with it; medicinal gum was allowed again from 2004.
Q 27The EU banned jelly mini-cups after choking deaths linked to which gelling agent?
Konjac
Konjac gel does not melt in the mouth as gelatin does, so a swallowed mini-cup could lodge in a child's throat; the FDA issued warnings in 2001 and the EU banned the sweets.
Q 28Which luxury food did the US ban importing in 2005 because its source is critically endangered?
Beluga caviar
Beluga caviar: in 2005 the US Fish and Wildlife Service banned imports from the Caspian and Black Sea basins, where overfishing for the roe had left the fish critically endangered.
Q 29Iceland's fermented delicacy hákarl is made from which species, whose fresh flesh is poisonous?
The Greenland shark
The Greenland shark: its fresh flesh is laced with urea and trimethylamine oxide, so the meat is buried to ferment for six to twelve weeks, then hung to dry for months.
Q 30Which celebrity chef rated fermented shark 'the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing' ever eaten?
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain got off lightly beside Gordon Ramsay, who vomited into a bucket after one bite on The F Word while his guest James May calmly kept his down.