Garlic Trivia
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49 free Garlic trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This garlic trivia quiz covers everything about the world's most pungent bulb. It starts with the plant itself: what genus it belongs to, where it is native, why crushing a clove is what releases the smell, and what a garlic scape actually is. It moves through the kitchen, with questions on toum, aioli, skordalia, black garlic, garlic bread, green garlic and how to keep garlic from turning blue in the pickling jar. History and folklore get their share: the garlic found in Tutankhamun's tomb, the Greek offerings to Hecate at crossroads, the Mishnah's 'garlic eaters', the Korean bear who became a woman on a garlic diet, the Israelites longing for it in the wilderness, and the Central European belief that it wards off vampires. There are also questions on where garlic is grown today, why milk beats water for garlic breath, and what happened to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia's articles on garlic and its relatives and the sources they cite, and each question quotes the sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Garlic belongs to which plant genus, alongside onions, leeks and chives?
Allium
Allium, the onion genus, holds garlic along with onions, leeks, chives and shallots; it contains several hundred species, most of them bulb-forming perennials of the Northern Hemisphere.
Q 02To which region is garlic native?
Central Asia
Central Asia, with north-eastern Iran, is garlic's homeland; at least 120 cultivars originate there, making it the crop's main centre of diversity, and the plant has since naturalised across Mediterranean Europe.
Q 03Which country produced about 73% of the world's garlic in 2024?
China
World production that year was around 30 million tonnes.
Q 04A typical garlic bulb is made up of roughly how many cloves?
10 to 20
10 to 20 cloves make up a typical bulb; those nearest the centre are symmetrical, while the outer ones are lopsided, and each clove sits in its own papery skin.
Q 05What triggers the sharp flavour and smell of garlic?
Damaging the plant's cells
Damaging the plant's cells is the trigger: an enzyme kept in the vacuoles meets stored compounds only when a clove is chopped, chewed or crushed, which is why a whole roasted clove stays sweet.
Q 06Which compound is most responsible for the 'hot' sensation of raw garlic?
Allicin
It opens the same heat-sensing receptor channels that chilli does, and cooking destroys it.
Q 07What element gives garlic its pungent odour and flavour?
Sulfur
Sulfur compounds, formed when a clove's cells are broken, give garlic its pungency; garlic holds a higher concentration of them than onions or leeks, which is why it smells stronger.
Q 08Which volatile compound, carried from the blood to the lungs and skin, causes lingering garlic breath?
Allyl methyl sulfide
Allyl methyl sulfide, which the gut cannot break down, passes into the blood and is released through the lungs and skin for hours, so brushing the teeth barely helps.
Q 09According to studies, which drink neutralises garlic breath best when taken with the garlic?
Milk
Milk, drunk with the garlic rather than after it, cut the main garlic-breath compound most in a 2010 Ohio State University study; whole milk beat skimmed, so the fat-and-water mix is the key.
Q 10Why does garlic sometimes turn green or blue when pickled?
Sulfur compounds react with amino acids to form coloured pyrroles
Sulfur compounds react with amino acids to form coloured pyrroles: the three-ring pyrrole looks blue, the four-ring one green, as in chlorophyll, and all of them are harmless to eat.
Q 11What are the two main subspecies of cultivated garlic?
Hardneck and softneck
Hardneck types suit cooler climates and give big cloves; softnecks grow nearer the equator with small, tightly packed cloves and are the ones you can braid.
Q 12So-called elephant garlic is actually a variety of which plant?
Wild leek
Wild leek, Allium ampeloprasum, is the species elephant garlic belongs to; its huge bulb looks like garlic but it is botanically a leek, which is why it tastes so much milder.
Q 13How is almost all commercial garlic propagated?
By planting individual cloves
Q 21Which Roman naturalist listed the conditions garlic was thought to cure in his Natural History?
Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder, writing in the 1st century AD, devoted a chapter of his Natural History to garlic's supposed cures; Galen, a century later, called it the 'rustic's theriac', a countryman's cure-all.
Q 22In the Dangun myth, how many days of garlic and mugwort were prescribed to the bear?
100
100 days on 20 cloves of garlic and a bundle of mugwort, out of the sunlight, was Hwanung's prescription; the tiger quit, while the bear endured and became the woman Ungnyeo after 21 days.
Q 23Central European folklore held garlic to be a ward against which creatures?
Vampires, werewolves and demons
Nearly all commercial garlic is propagated by planting individual cloves, each of which grows into a new bulb; the plant is a clone, and raising it from true seed is possible but rarely done.
Q 14What is a garlic scape?
The immature flower stalk of a hardneck
The immature flower stalk of a hardneck is the scape; growers snap it off so the plant puts its energy into the bulb, then sell the curly stalks to be stir-fried like asparagus.
Q 15Single-clove garlic, also called solo or pearl garlic, originated in which Chinese province?
Yunnan
Yunnan, in south-west China, is where single-clove garlic originated; the marble-sized bulbs form when the plant is grown without the cold spell it needs to divide into multiple cloves.
Q 16The word 'garlic' comes from Old English words meaning what?
Spear leek
Spear leek: Old English garleac joins gar, meaning spear, with leac, meaning leek, the spear most likely describing the pointed cloves.
Q 17How far north can garlic be grown if planted at the right time and depth?
Alaska
Alaska is within garlic's range: autumn-planted cloves survive hard frosts under mulch, and the plant prefers loose, dry, well-drained soil in full sun.
Q 18In which pharaoh's tomb, dating to about 1325 BC, was well-preserved garlic found?
Tutankhamun
Tutankhamun's tomb, sealed about 1325 BC, held well-preserved garlic cloves; Herodotus reported that the builders of the Great Pyramid were fed rations of garlic, onions and radishes.
Q 19The ancient Greeks left garlic on piles of stones at crossroads as a supper for which goddess?
Hecate
Hecate, goddess of crossroads and witchcraft, received garlic left on the stone heaps at crossroads; Theophrastus records the practice in his sketch of 'The Superstitious Man' in the Characters.
Q 20What nickname does the Mishnah give the Jews of antiquity, reflecting their love of the bulb?
Garlic eaters
Garlic eaters is the Mishnah's term (Nedarim 3:10): a vow against 'garlic eaters' was read as a vow against Jews; Numbers 11:5 also has the Israelites missing Egypt's garlic.
Vampires, werewolves and demons were the targets: Central European folk belief had garlic worn, hung in windows, or rubbed on chimneys and keyholes to keep them out.
Q 24Garlic sits on the haft-sin table at Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, because of what?
Its local name begins with the letter S
All seven items on the table start with the letter sin; garlic is 'seer' in Persian.
Q 25Some Mahayana Buddhists avoid garlic, onions, scallions, chives and leeks, known collectively as what?
The five pungent vegetables
The five pungent vegetables, wu hun in Chinese, are garlic, onions, scallions, chives and leeks; some Mahayana monastics avoid them because they are believed to inflame the passions and hinder meditation.
Q 26What nickname does garlic go by because of its strong smell?
The stinking rose
The stinking rose is garlic's old nickname; San Francisco's restaurant The Stinking Rose, on Columbus Avenue in North Beach, built its entire menu around the bulb.
Q 27What is toum?
A Levantine sauce of garlic crushed with olive oil
A Levantine sauce of garlic crushed with olive oil, salt and lemon, toum takes its name from the Arabic word for garlic and is the classic partner for shawarma and grilled chicken.
Q 28Emulsifying garlic with olive oil produces which sauce?
Aioli
Aioli, from the Provençal and Catalan words for garlic and oil, is the emulsion of crushed garlic and olive oil; the Greek skordalia adds a base of bread or potato instead.
Q 29Ajoblanco, the cold Spanish soup, is made by blending garlic and soaked bread with which nut?
Almond
Almonds, blanched and ground, are blended with garlic, soaked bread, olive oil and water for ajoblanco; the Andalusian soup is often called white gazpacho and usually served with grapes or melon.
Q 30Laba garlic, served with dumplings at Chinese New Year in northern China, is prepared how?
Soaked in vinegar
Soaked in vinegar from the Laba festival in the twelfth lunar month, the cloves turn a striking jade green by Chinese New Year and are eaten with dumplings across northern China.