50 free Italian Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free Italian food trivia questions with answers. Italian food trivia that goes well beyond 'what is in a margherita'. This quiz works through the whole table: the pasta shapes and what their names mean, the Roman trio of carbonara, cacio e pepe and amatriciana, Bolognese as Bologna actually makes it, the rules for a true Neapolitan pizza, and the protected names - Parmigiano Reggiano, prosciutto di Parma, mozzarella di bufala, traditional balsamic vinegar - and what those labels really guarantee. Then dessert and drinks: gelato versus ice cream, cannoli, tiramisu, panettone, espresso history, Prosecco, Aperol and limoncello. The easy questions any pasta-lover will get open the set. The later ones - which grape was renamed Glera, how long a Parma ham hangs, which chef started a national row by suggesting garlic in amatriciana - will separate the tourist from the person who has argued about cream in carbonara at an Italian dinner table. Every answer has been checked against a reference page and each question shows its citation, so the set is safe to lift for a pizza night, a cooking club or a pub quiz food round.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pasta shape's name translates as 'butterflies'?
Farfalle
English speakers usually call them bow ties; conchiglie are shells and rigatoni are the 'grooved' tubes.
Q 02Orecchiette, the small domed pasta of Apulia, takes its name from which body part?
Little ears
Linguine are the 'little tongues'; orecchiette are classically served with cime di rapa (turnip tops).
Q 03Which pasta's name means 'priest-chokers' or 'priest-stranglers'?
Strozzapreti
The rolled short pasta is common in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany; cavatappi are 'corkscrews' and ditalini 'thimbles'.
Q 04Vermicelli, thinner than spaghetti, has a name that literally means what?
Little worms
Capellini, thinner still, are the 'thin hair' pasta known in English as angel hair.
Q 05Pappardelle, the wide Tuscan ribbons, take their name from a Tuscan verb meaning what?
To pig out
Tagliatelle come from tagliare, 'to cut'; pappardelle are traditionally served with game ragù such as wild boar.
Q 06Under Italian law, dry pasta (pasta secca) may be made only from which grain?
Durum wheat
Fresh egg pasta in the north uses soft wheat; pizzoccheri from Valtellina are a buckwheat exception among regional pastas.
Q 07The story that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China is regarded by historians as what?
A myth
The Arab geographer al-Idrisi described strings of dried dough being made in Norman Sicily in 1154, a century before Polo was born.
Q 08Which 1790 cookbook by Roman chef Francesco Leonardi has the first written recipe for pasta with tomato sauce?
L'Apicio Moderno
Tomatoes had arrived from the Americas two centuries earlier but were slow to reach the pot; Artusi's canonical La Scienza in Cucina came a century later.
Q 09Roughly how much pasta did the average Italian eat per year, according to a 2008 estimate?
Over 27 kg
That is about 60 pounds a head; Campania, home of spaghetti, is one of the biggest producers and consumers.
Q 10Which cured pork product is the traditional meat in a Roman carbonara?
Guanciale
Guanciale is cured pig's cheek; pancetta is the usual stand-in abroad, and cream is not part of most Italian recipes.
Q 11The first attested recipe for carbonara appeared in 1952 in a cookbook published in which city?
Chicago
One theory holds that a young army cook, Renato Gualandi, invented the dish for American troops in 1944 using their bacon and cheese rations.
Q 12Cacio e pepe is made from pasta, black pepper and which cheese?
Pecorino romano
The name means 'cheese and pepper'; a team that worked out how to stop the sauce clumping won the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize in physics.
Q 13Amatriciana sauce is named after Amatrice, a town in which Italian region?
Lazio
It evolved from pasta alla gricia, the same dish without tomato; Rome serves it on bucatini, Amatrice itself on spaghetti.
Q 21Which strong Canadian import, brought to Italy under the Marshall Plan, may make up 20% of pizza dough?
Manitoba flour
Its high protein content lets long-fermented doughs hold their structure; the rest is Italian type 00 or 0 flour.
Q 22Focaccia di Recco sandwiches which soft cheese between two thin sheets of dough?
Prescinsêua
The name focaccia comes from the Latin panis focacius, bread baked on the hearth; Genoese eat the plain version dunked in cappuccino at breakfast.
Q 23What is the minimum ageing for a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano?
12 months
A wheel weighs about 38 kg and the bank Credito Emiliano will accept them as loan collateral; Boccaccio praised the cheese as early as 1348.
Q 14Which chef caused a 2015 row by calling an unpeeled garlic clove his 'secret ingredient' in amatriciana?
Carlo Cracco
The town of Amatrice replied on its official website that the real recipe has only guanciale, pecorino, white wine, San Marzano tomatoes, pepper and chilli.
Q 15In Bologna, ragù alla bolognese is traditionally served with which pasta?
Tagliatelle
Spaghetti bolognese is an Anglophone invention; the Italian Academy of Cuisine deposited an official ragù recipe with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1982.
Q 16Besides ragù, which sauce is layered into lasagne alla bolognese?
Béchamel
The white sauce is called besciamella in Italian; the meat ragù itself includes milk in the classic Bologna recipe.
Q 17Genoese pesto is traditionally pounded in a mortar. Which nut goes in?
Pine nuts
The word comes from the Genoese verb for 'to pound'; the first printed recipe appeared in Giovanni Battista Ratto's La Cuciniera Genovese in 1863.
Q 18Whom did Raffaele Esposito reputedly honour with his 1889 tomato, mozzarella and basil pizza?
Queen Margherita of Savoy
Later research found no newspaper mention of the visit and traced the story's promotion to the 1930s and 40s.
Q 19How long should a true Neapolitan pizza bake in a 485 C wood-fired oven?
60-90 seconds
The dough may contain only flour, yeast, salt and water, and must be stretched by hand, never with a rolling pin.
Q 20Which two variants are the only strictly traditional Neapolitan pizzas?
Marinara and Margherita
The marinara has no seafood at all, just tomato, garlic, oregano and oil; the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo joined UNESCO's heritage list in 2017.
Q 24Parmigiano Reggiano graders called battitori check each wheel for internal cracks using what?
A small hammer
The tap test takes about six or seven seconds per wheel; wheels that fail are stripped of their rind markings.
Q 25Roughly how many Italian cheeses carry protected PDO status?
About 490
That is out of more than 600 distinct types; Italy also consumes about 30% of the world's olive oil.
Q 26Which symbol is branded onto a leg of prosciutto di Parma once it has passed inspection?
A ducal crown
The only ingredients allowed are the hind leg, sea salt and lard; the ham hangs at least 14 months and is tested with a horse-bone needle first.
Q 27Mozzarella di bufala campana PDO is made from the milk of which animal?
Water buffalo
Cow's-milk mozzarella is called fior di latte; the word mozzarella comes from mozzare, 'to cut off', from the way the curd is lopped into balls.
Q 28Traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena and Reggio Emilia must age for at least how long?
12 years
The 'extra vecchio' grade needs 25 years in a battery of shrinking barrels of chestnut, cherry, oak, mulberry, ash and juniper; the cheap PGI version can contain as little as 20% grape must.
Q 29Which spice gives risotto alla milanese its yellow colour?
Saffron
Legend credits a glass painter working on Milan's Duomo who used the pigment in his colours; the first printed recipe in 1809 also called for bone marrow.
Q 30Ossobuco, the Milanese braised veal shank, has a name meaning what?
Bone with a hole
The marrow in the hole is the prize; it is finished with gremolata of lemon zest, garlic and parsley and often served with saffron risotto.