Kitchen Tools and Utensils
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40 free Kitchen Tools and Utensils trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Every kitchen drawer is a small museum. The gadgets we reach for without thinking were invented by tinsmiths, carpenters, chemists and at least one frustrated socialite, and several of them began life in a workshop or a laboratory rather than anywhere near a stove. This quiz covers the tools and equipment of home and professional kitchens: everyday utensils, pots and pans, knives and their parts, small appliances, famous cookware brands, and the specialist gear that chefs and bakers know by name. Each answer comes with a short explanation of where the tool came from or how it works. It suits home cooks, culinary and home economics students, and anyone who has ever wondered what that thing in the drawer is actually called.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which kitchen appliance did Percy Spencer develop after a radar set melted the candy bar in his pocket?
Microwave oven
The microwave oven's first deliberately cooked food was popcorn. The second was an egg, which exploded in the face of one of the experimenters.
Q 02Which kitchen tool was first patented in 1855, after decades of people using a hammer and chisel instead?
Can opener
The can opener arrived long after canned food itself. Early tins carried the instruction to cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer.
Q 03Which brand of kitchen zester began as a wood-carving rasp made by the Grace brothers?
Microplane
Microplane only moved into kitchens after discovering that cooks were buying its woodworking rasps to zest citrus. The company still sells rasps to woodworkers.
Q 04Which kitchen appliance did Josephine Cochrane unveil at the 1893 World's Fair after building it in her tool shed?
Dishwasher
The dishwasher exists because Cochrane, a wealthy socialite, was tired of servants damaging her good china when they washed it by hand.
Q 05Which food-storage brand, founded by a former DuPont employee, was sold at home parties run by Brownie Wise?
Tupperware
Tupperware parties let women of the 1950s earn an independent income without holding a regular job, and Wise rose to vice president of marketing.
Q 06Which sealed cooking pot descends from the steam digester that French physicist Denis Papin invented in 1679?
Pressure cooker
The pressure cooker began as Papin's attempt to cut the cooking time of food. He presented the device to the Royal Society of London in 1681.
Q 07Which non-stick pan coating did DuPont chemist Roy Plunkett discover by accident in 1938?
Teflon
Teflon gave its name to the first non-stick pans, sold as Tefal: 'Tef' from the coating and 'al' from aluminium.
Q 08Which glass bakeware brand grew out of heat-proof glass first developed for railroad signal lanterns?
Pyrex
Pyrex proved itself in the kitchen when Bessie Littleton baked in a cut-down battery jar after her ceramic casserole dish broke.
Q 09Which fluted ring-shaped cake pan did Nordic Ware nearly discontinue before a 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off made it a hit?
Bundt pan
The Bundt pan took off after a cake called the Tunnel of Fudge took second place at the Bake-Off and home bakers flooded Pillsbury with requests for the pan.
Q 10Which screw-threaded glass canning jar is named after the New Jersey tinsmith who invented and patented it?
Mason jar
The Mason jar spread quickly once John Landis Mason's patent expired, when many other glassmakers began producing the same design for home canning.
Q 11Which perforated kitchen bowl takes its name from the Latin word for sieve?
Colander
The colander gets its name from colum, Latin for sieve. Some cooking pots come with a mated one inside, so food drains as it is lifted out.
Q 12Which wire kitchen tool was once simply a bundle of apple twigs, which lent the dish a fragrance?
Whisk
The whisk is now most often a balloon, a wide teardrop of wire loops whose curved edges fit the sides of a mixing bowl.
Q 13Which round-bottomed pan gives stir-fries a smoky flavour whose name means breath of the pan?
Wok
The wok produces that charred flavour, called wok hei, only when food is tossed over a fierce open flame. Non-stick versions cannot reproduce it.
Q 21Which general-purpose Japanese knife was created in the 1940s to combine the virtues of three traditional knives?
Santoku
The santoku has a name read as a nod to three ingredients (fish, meat and vegetables) or three tasks (chopping, dicing and slicing).
Q 22Which curved herb-chopping blade with a handle at each end is rocked back and forth over the ingredients?
Mezzaluna
The mezzaluna takes its Italian name, meaning half moon, from the curve of its blade. Very large single-blade versions are sometimes used to cut pizza.
Q 23Which wide wire-mesh skimmer on a long handle do East Asian cooks use to lift hot food from liquid?
Spider
The spider is named after its wire pattern, which looks like a web. It is also used to skim the foam off simmering broths.
Q 14Which ancient grinding pair is called molcajete and tejolote in Mexico and suribachi and surikogi in Japan?
Mortar and pestle
The mortar and pestle take their English names from Latin: mortarium, a receptacle for pounding, and pistillum, a pounder.
Q 15Which kitchen slicer has an adjustable blade that food is pushed across by hand to cut even slices?
Mandoline
The mandoline cuts slices of uniform thickness far faster than a knife. With extra blades it also turns out julienne strips and crinkle cuts.
Q 16What is the baked-on layer of polymerized fat that protects a cast-iron skillet from rust called?
Seasoning
Seasoning is built up by heating very thin coats of oil until they bond to the metal, leaving a surface that repels water and resists sticking.
Q 17Which metallic element, at 10.5% or more, gives stainless steel pans and cutlery their resistance to rust?
Chromium
Chromium forms a thin protective film on the surface of the steel, and the film can heal itself when exposed to oxygen.
Q 18Which thick-walled pot with a tight-fitting lid is usually called a casserole dish in Britain?
Dutch oven
The Dutch oven is said to owe its name to Abraham Darby, who studied sand-mould casting in the Netherlands before making cheaper iron pots in England.
Q 19Which stand mixer brand did the Hobart company launch in 1919 after testing prototypes on factory executives' wives?
KitchenAid
KitchenAid got its name when one of those wives said she did not care what the machine was called: it was the best kitchen aid she had ever had.
Q 20Which everyday kitchen tool is the Rex, a 1947 Swiss design icon later honoured on a postage stamp?
Vegetable peeler
The Rex vegetable peeler was invented by Alfred Neweczerzal of Davos. Sweden's rival Jonas design of 1953 has a straight handle that is held like a knife.
Q 24Which very hot overhead grill, like an oven without a door, do professional kitchens use to brown and finish dishes?
Salamander
The salamander takes its name from a mythical amphibian thought to be immune to fire, by way of an 18th-century tool for toasting the top of a dish.
Q 25Which conical, extremely fine-mesh sieve did French cooks name for its resemblance to an Asian hat?
Chinois
The chinois is also called a bouillon strainer. A coarser cousin with much larger holes is known in English as the China cap.
Q 26Which gentle hot-water bath, used to melt chocolate without splitting it, is named after an ancient alchemist?
Bain-marie
The bain-marie has a name meaning Mary's bath: the alchemist Zosimos credited the device to Mary the Jewess. Cheesecakes are often baked in one to stop the top cracking.
Q 27Which North African earthenware pot has a cone-shaped lid that returns condensation to the food below?
Tagine
The tagine gives its name to the Moroccan stew braised inside it, and the lid means the cook needs only a minimal amount of water.
Q 28Which rod kept in many knife blocks maintains an already sharp edge and is commonly mistaken for a sharpener?
Honing steel
A honing steel is for frequent upkeep of an edge that is already sharp, so many cooks use one each time they pick up a knife. A truly blunt blade needs sharpening instead.
Q 29Which kitchen tool did Norwegian carpenter Thor Bjørklund patent in 1925 after experimenting with his woodworking plane?
Cheese slicer
The cheese slicer became an important Norwegian export product, and Bjørklund's design is found today in many households across the Nordic countries.
Q 30What is the portion of a kitchen knife blade that extends into the handle, adding stability and weight, called?
Tang
The tang is sandwiched between two pieces of handle material known as scales, which are usually held in place by three metal rivets.