German Food
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49 free German Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
German cooking is really a dozen regional cuisines sharing a federal border: Swabian noodles, Bavarian white sausage, Frankfurt's green sauce, Hamburg's harbour fish, Berlin's Currywurst and doner. It is a country with more than 1,500 kinds of sausage, around 3,000 breads and a beer law that has been on the books since 1516, and whose citizens complain abroad chiefly about the bread. These 49 questions cover the meat, from Sauerbraten and Bratwurst to Eisbein and Saumagen; the sides, from Spatzle and Maultaschen to Klosse and Bratkartoffeln; the bread culture of Abendbrot and Brotzeit and Pumpernickel; the white asparagus season that ends on St John's Day; cakes and Christmas baking, from Black Forest gateau and Rote Grutze to Dresden Stollen and Lebkuchen; and the drinks, from Pilsner, Kolsch and Berliner Weisse to Apfelwein in a Bembel, Korn, Obstler and Spezi. There are questions on the regions too: the Weisswurst equator, Franconian gravy, Helmut Kohl's favourite pork stomach, and the Turkish guest worker credited with Berlin's doner sandwich. Easy questions cover sausages and beer; the hardest ask about dates, towns and quantities. Every answer is cited to the page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many different types of sausage are made in Germany?
About 1,500
About 1,500; for scalded kinds such as frankfurters, butchers mince the meat with crushed ice so the paste stays cold and doesn't set too soon.
Q 02What is Sauerbraten?
A marinated sour roast
A marinated sour roast: tough cuts soak for days in vinegar or wine, which tenderizes the meat before cooking.
Q 03In which city is the Weisswurst, or white sausage, especially popular?
Munich
Munich's Weisswurst is traditionally eaten before noon, and a local saying holds that the sausages should never hear the midday church bells.
Q 04Lübeck's famous marzipan is made mainly from which nut?
Almonds
Almonds, ground with sugar; marzipan was long sold as a medicine before it became a luxury sweet.
Q 05What is a Rollmops?
A rolled pickled herring fillet
A rolled pickled herring fillet; Germans traditionally eat rollmops as part of a Katerfrühstück, the hangover breakfast.
Q 06What is the German name for fish fingers?
Fischstäbchen
Fischstäbchen; in early British taste tests, herring fish fingers lost out to the bland cod version.
Q 07Which variety of asparagus is especially popular in Germany?
White
White asparagus is grown under mounds of soil, so without sunlight it makes no chlorophyll and never turns green.
Q 08On which saint's day does the German asparagus season traditionally end?
St John's Day
St John's Day falls on 24 June, and growers stop cutting then so the plants can recover and build strength for next year's crop.
Q 09What does Abendbrot literally mean?
Evening bread
Evening bread: because Germans traditionally ate their hot main meal at midday, supper was a light cold spread of bread, cold cuts and cheese.
Q 10Kaffee und Kuchen is compared to which English custom?
Five o'clock tea
Five o'clock tea is its British twin; since coffeehouses were long reserved for men, German women drank coffee together at home in Kaffeekränzchen.
Q 11What are Spätzle?
Egg noodles
Egg noodles: cooks traditionally scrape thin strips of the soft dough off a wooden board straight into boiling salted water.
Q 12Maultaschen are most often compared to which Italian food?
Ravioli
Ravioli is the usual comparison, and Swabians nickname Maultaschen 'little God-cheaters' after a legend that monks hid meat inside them during Lent.
Q 13Which Prussian king promoted the potato in 18th-century Germany?
Frederick the Great
Frederick the Great; the tale that he posted soldiers around potato fields to make the crop look valuable is a legend.
Q 21On a German Spaghettieis, what plays the part of the grated parmesan?
White chocolate
White chocolate, grated over strawberry sauce; Mannheim ice-cream maker Dario Fontanella says he created the dish in 1969, inspired by the dessert Mont Blanc.
Q 22Which bird is the traditional German Christmas roast?
Goose
Goose; Germans also roast one on St Martin's Day, when legend says cackling geese gave Martin away as he hid to avoid becoming a bishop.
Q 23Which fish is a traditional New Year's Eve dish in Germany?
Carp
Carp; an old custom says that keeping one of its coin-like scales in your wallet brings money in the new year.
Q 14What does ordering 'Pommes rot/weiss' get you?
Fries with ketchup and mayonnaise
Fries with ketchup and mayonnaise; in the Ruhr the same order is also called 'Pommes Schranke', after the red-and-white stripes of railway barriers.
Q 15Which city is known for a particularly spicy mustard used in Senfrostbraten?
Düsseldorf
The sweet mustard of the south is reserved almost exclusively for Weisswurst.
Q 16What is Sahnemeerrettich?
Horseradish with cream
Horseradish with cream; the same root is behind most 'wasabi' served outside Japan, because the real wasabi plant is scarce.
Q 17What fruit fills Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte?
Cherries
Cherries; the cake's name may come from the Black Forest's cherry brandy, Kirschwasser, or from the red pom-poms on the region's traditional Bollenhut hats.
Q 18German cheesecake is typically made with which dairy product?
Quark
Apples, plums, strawberries and cherries fill most of the country's cakes.
Q 19What do Berliners themselves call the jam doughnut known elsewhere as a Berliner?
Pfannkuchen
Pfannkuchen; and the tale that JFK's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' called him a jelly doughnut is a myth, since his German was correct.
Q 20Rote Grütze, a northern German dish, is made from what?
Red fruits
Red fruits such as redcurrants and raspberries; the name means 'red groats' because older recipes thickened the juice with semolina or grain.
Q 24Roughly how many types of bread does Germany produce?
About 3,000
About 3,000; that variety earned German bread culture a place on Germany's national register of intangible cultural heritage in 2014.
Q 25How is Pumpernickel traditionally cooked?
Steamed for a long time
Steamed for a long time: loaves bake for at least 16 hours in steam, and that slow heat, not added colouring, turns the rye dark and sweet.
Q 26Bavaria's Semmelknödel dumplings are made mainly from what?
Stale bread rolls
Stale bread rolls: yesterday's hard rolls are sliced, soaked in hot milk and bound with egg before the dumplings are simmered.
Q 27Franzbrötchen, a butter-and-cinnamon pastry roll, comes from which city?
Hamburg
Hamburg; the name, meaning 'French roll', may recall the city's occupation by Napoleon's troops in the early 1800s.
Q 28Which beer style, developed in the mid-19th century, came to dominate most of Germany?
Pilsner
Pilsner; the style was born when Pilsen's townspeople built a new brewery and hired a Bavarian brewer, Josef Groll.
Q 29Kölsch is the light ale of which city?
Cologne
Cologne; its waiters, called Köbes, keep replacing each empty glass with a full one until the drinker lays a beer mat on top.
Q 30Berliner Weisse is often mixed with red raspberry syrup or green syrup of which herb?
Woodruff
Woodruff; the sweet syrups soften a beer made tart by fermenting it with lactic acid bacteria.