Italian Food Trivia
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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
Farfalle means 'butterflies' in Italian (farfalla is a butterfly); English speakers usually call the pinched rectangles bow ties.
Q 02Orecchiette, the small domed pasta of Apulia, takes its name from which body part?
Little ears
Orecchiette means 'little ears', from orecchia (ear); the thumb-pressed domes of Puglia are classically served with cime di rapa (turnip tops).
Q 03Tortellini are said to be modelled on which body part of the goddess Venus?
Her navel
Legend says an innkeeper at Castelfranco Emilia glimpsed Venus through a keyhole and shaped tortellini on her navel, which is why the pasta is nicknamed ombelico di Venere.
Q 04What does the pasta name 'vermicelli' literally mean?
Little worms
Vermicelli means 'little worms', from verme (worm); Italian vermicelli is cut slightly thicker than spaghetti, while the American version is thinner.
Q 05Pappardelle, the wide Tuscan ribbons, take their name from a Tuscan verb meaning what?
To pig out
Pappardelle comes from the Tuscan verb pappare, 'to pig out' or gobble up; the wide ribbons are traditionally served with a game ragù such as wild boar.
Q 06Under Italian law, dry pasta (pasta secca) may be made only from which grain?
Durum wheat
Italian law allows dry pasta (pasta secca) to be made only from durum wheat semolina and water; soft wheat flour may be used in fresh egg pasta.
Q 07The story that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China is regarded by historians as what?
A myth
The Marco Polo story is a myth: the Arab geographer al-Idrisi described strings of dried dough being made at Trabia 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
Francesco Leonardi's L'Apicio Moderno (1790) carries the first printed recipe for pasta dressed with tomato sauce; tomatoes had reached Italy from the Americas two centuries earlier but were slow to reach the pot.
Q 09Roughly how much pasta did the average Italian eat per year, according to a 2008 estimate?
Over 27 kg
The 2008 figure was over 27 kg (about 60 pounds) of pasta per Italian per year, roughly three times the US rate; Campania, home of spaghetti, is among 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
The first printed carbonara recipe appeared in Chicago, in Patricia Bronté's 1952 restaurant guide to the Near North Side; one theory credits army cook Renato Gualandi with inventing the dish for Allied troops in 1944.
Q 12Cacio e pepe is made from pasta, black pepper and which cheese?
Pecorino romano
Cacio is the central-Italian word for cheese, here aged Pecorino romano, a salty sheep's-milk cheese; a team that worked out how to stop the sauce clumping won an Ig Nobel Prize in physics.
Q 13Amatriciana sauce is named after Amatrice, a town in which Italian region?
Lazio
Q 21Which strong, high-protein flour do Italian bakers blend into long-fermented pizza doughs?
Manitoba flour
Manitoba flour, named for the Canadian prairie province whose hard wheat it was milled from, has enough gluten for long-fermented doughs to 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
Prescinsêua, a tangy fresh curd cheese of Liguria (stracchino is the usual substitute), is sealed between two paper-thin sheets of unleavened dough; focaccia comes from the Latin panis focacius, hearth-baked bread.
Q 23What is the minimum ageing for a wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano?
12 months
Amatrice lies in the province of Rieti in Lazio (it belonged to Abruzzo until 1927); the sauce evolved from pasta alla gricia, the same dish without tomato.
Q 14Which chef caused a 2015 row by calling an unpeeled garlic clove his 'secret ingredient' in amatriciana?
Carlo Cracco
Carlo Cracco's 2015 television remark drew a rebuke from Amatrice, whose official website said the real recipe has only cured pork jowl, pecorino, white wine, San Marzano tomatoes, pepper and chilli.
Q 15In Bologna, ragù alla bolognese is traditionally served with which pasta?
Tagliatelle
Bologna pairs its ragù with fresh egg tagliatelle; spaghetti bolognese is an Anglophone invention, and 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
Béchamel, besciamella in Italian, is the white sauce layered between the ragù and the egg-pasta sheets; the classic Bologna ragù itself includes milk.
Q 17Which nut is pounded into a traditional Genoese pesto?
Pine nuts
Pine nuts join basil, garlic, grated cheese and Ligurian oil in the mortar; pesto comes from the Genoese verb for 'to pound', and the first printed recipe is in Ratto's La Cuciniera Genovese (1863).
Q 18Whom did Raffaele Esposito reputedly honour with his 1889 tomato, mozzarella and basil pizza?
Queen Margherita of Savoy
Esposito of Pizzeria Brandi reputedly served the pizza to Queen Margherita of Savoy in June 1889, but later research found no contemporary newspaper mention 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 AVPN rules call for 60-90 seconds in a wood-fired oven at about 485 C; 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 AVPN recognises only two traditional 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.
Parmigiano Reggiano may not be sold before 12 months of ageing; a wheel weighs about 40 kg and the bank Credito Emiliano accepts them as loan collateral, while Boccaccio's Decameron (c. 1350) already praised the cheese.
Q 24Parmigiano Reggiano graders called battitori check each wheel for internal cracks using what?
A small hammer
The battitore taps each wheel all over with a small hammer and listens for the dull notes that betray internal cracks; wheels that fail are stripped of their rind markings.
Q 25Roughly how many Italian cheeses carry protected PDO status?
About 50
Only about 50 Italian cheeses hold PDO status, Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola and Grana Padano among them, out of several hundred distinct traditional types recorded by the agriculture ministry.
Q 26Which symbol is branded onto a leg of prosciutto di Parma once it has passed inspection?
A ducal crown
Inspectors brand a ducal crown, the five-pointed crown of Parma, onto each leg that passes; the only permitted ingredients are pork and sea salt, the ham hangs at least a year, and it is tested first with a horse-bone needle.
Q 27Campania's PDO mozzarella is made from the milk of which animal?
Water buffalo
Mozzarella di bufala campana is made from the rich milk of the Mediterranean water buffalo; cow's-milk mozzarella is called fior di latte, and the name comes from mozzare, 'to cut off'.
Q 28Traditional balsamic vinegar of Modena and Reggio Emilia must age for at least how long?
12 years
The tradizionale DOP grade must age at least 12 years in a battery of shrinking barrels of cherry, oak, mulberry and other woods; 'extra vecchio' needs 25, and the cheap PGI version may contain as little as 20% grape must.
Q 29Which spice gives risotto alla milanese its yellow colour?
Saffron
Saffron threads steeped in broth turn the rice gold; legend credits a stained-glass painter at the city's Duomo in 1574 with first adding the pigment to rice at a wedding feast.
Q 30Ossobuco, the Milanese braised veal shank, has a name meaning what?
Bone with a hole
Osso buco means 'bone with a hole', the marrow in the hollow shank bone being the prize; the braise is finished with a parsley-and-garlic gremolata.