Korean Food Trivia
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52 free Korean Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Korean food trivia quiz covers everything from the fermented cabbage on every table to the chicken-and-beer combo that got its own word. The easy questions are the ones any fan of Korean restaurants can answer: what kimchi is, what bibimbap means, what goes into bulgogi and what soju tastes like. From there the set digs into the stories behind the dishes: the earthenware jars buried to keep winter kimchi from freezing, the UNESCO listing for kimjang, the Pyongan-dialect origin of the word bulgogi, the palace cook who invented japchae for a king, and the woman in Sindang who made tteokbokki spicy in 1953. The harder end is for real Korean food obsessives: the cheop system for counting side dishes, the Mongol origins of soju, the Andong home brew, the ginseng chicken soup eaten on the three hottest days, the army stew born from post-war poverty and Spam, the 1977 franchise that started the fried chicken boom, the astronaut who took space kimchi into orbit, the New Year rice cake soup that makes you a year older, and the government contest that named makgeolli drunken rice. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Korean cuisine and its individual dishes and drinks before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our South Korea, World Food and Asian Cuisine quizzes next.
30 of 52 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Kimchi is most often made from which salted vegetable?
Napa cabbage
Napa cabbage kimchi mattered so much that during the Vietnam War, South Korea's president asked the US to help get kimchi to his troops.
Q 02Traditionally, where was winter kimchi stored to keep it from freezing?
In earthenware jars buried in the ground
In earthenware jars buried in the ground, kimchi stayed unfrozen through winter; today many Korean homes use special kimchi refrigerators instead.
Q 03What is the name for Korea's communal late-autumn custom of preparing a winter's supply of salted vegetables together?
Kimjang
Kimjang comes in late autumn, when communities make and share big batches of kimchi so every household has enough to last the harsh winter.
Q 04Squid Game players must carve a shape out of which Korean street snack without breaking it?
Dalgona
Dalgona is just melted sugar puffed with baking soda, and after the show, fans flooded TikTok trying the challenge at home, mostly cracking theirs.
Q 05What does the word bibimbap literally mean?
Mixed rice
Mixed rice is the literal meaning, and one custom had families eat bibimbap on lunar New Year's Eve to use up leftover side dishes.
Q 06Which city is most famous for its version of bibimbap?
Jeonju
Jeonju celebrates the dish with a yearly Bibimbap Festival, where visitors can learn to make it themselves.
Q 07What is dolsot bibimbap served in?
A very hot stone pot
A very hot stone pot keeps the rice cooking at the table, so the layer touching the pot turns into a crisp, golden crust.
Q 08What does the word bulgogi literally mean?
Fire meat
Fire meat is the literal meaning, and the flavour has jumped into fast food: South Korean burger chains sell bulgogi burgers.
Q 09On Black Day, when South Korean singles gather to commiserate, which noodle dish do they traditionally eat?
Jajangmyeon
Jajangmyeon, noodles in black bean sauce: singles who got no gifts on Valentine's Day or White Day gather wearing black to eat it.
Q 10Korean barbecue was adapted to Japanese tastes and is known in Japan by what name?
Yakiniku
Yakiniku caught on as the name after Korea's division split Japan's Korean restaurant owners into rival North and South camps.
Q 11Galbi, a favourite of Korean barbecue, is made from which cut?
Beef short ribs
Beef short ribs are grilled, then snipped into pieces over the grill with kitchen scissors and wrapped in lettuce.
Q 12What is samgyeopsal, a staple of Korean barbecue restaurants?
Grilled pork belly
Grilled pork belly is a newer favourite than you'd think: 'samgyeopsal' only entered the standard Korean dictionary after 1994.
Q 13Which Korean summer dessert piles sweetened red beans on a bed of shaved ice?
Patbingsu
Patbingsu has an old forerunner: Joseon officials were given ice from royal stores and ate it crushed with fruit.
Q 21Dangmyeon, the glass noodles of Korean cooking, are made from what?
Sweet potato starch
Sweet potato starch is what gives dangmyeon their springy, elastic chew, unlike softer rice vermicelli.
Q 22Yi Chung created which dish for a 17th-century palace banquet of King Gwanghaegun?
Japchae
Japchae then had no glass noodles at all: it was stir-fried vegetables, and the noodles only joined the dish in the 20th century.
Q 23Samgyetang is a soup of a whole young chicken stuffed with rice, garlic, jujube and what?
Ginseng
Ginseng is the star today, but the soup's roots are traced to a chicken broth with milkvetch root served to an ailing Joseon queen.
Q 14Ma Bok-rim, credited with inventing spicy gochujang tteokbokki, sold it in which Seoul neighbourhood?
Sindang
Sindang is now home to a whole 'Tteokbokki Town' of restaurants, and her spicy red version became the most common kind.
Q 15What is the non-spicy, soy-sauce-based version of tteokbokki called?
Gungjung (royal court) style
Gungjung (royal court) style is the older dish: an 1800s cookbook records it, long before today's red, spicy version took over.
Q 16What do Koreans call online broadcasts of a host eating large amounts of food while chatting with viewers?
Mukbang
Mukbang blends the Korean words for eating and broadcasting, and fans send money to hosts they enjoy, so top stars earn a high income.
Q 17Chilli peppers, the heat behind gochujang, are native to which part of the world?
The Americas
The Americas: European explorers carried chillies out of the New World, and they now power Korean staples from gochujang to kimchi.
Q 18What is the collective name for the small side dishes served with rice at a Korean meal?
Banchan
Banchan are often vegetarian, but the kimchi among them usually isn't, since it's typically seasoned with salted seafood.
Q 19In Parasite, 'ram-don' combines two instant noodles with which pricey topping?
Beef sirloin
Beef sirloin was the rich family's upgrade to a cheap noodle mix, and after the film, fans rushed to cook 'ram-don' themselves.
Q 20Which Korean province is particularly famous for serving many different side dishes in a single meal?
Jeolla
Jeolla's plentiful tables draw on rice from the fertile Honam Plain and fish from the Yellow Sea off its coast.
Q 24When is samgyetang traditionally eaten?
On the three sambok days, the hottest of summer
On the three sambok days, the hottest of summer, Koreans 'fight heat with heat', eating steaming soup to replace what sweating takes out.
Q 25Budae-jjigae, or army stew, is famous for containing which American canned food?
Spam
Spam came off US army bases in the war's hungry aftermath, and though meat is plentiful now, army stew without it is still unimaginable.
Q 26Which city claims to have invented budae-jjigae and has a street of specialist restaurants?
Uijeongbu
Uijeongbu sat beside US Army bases stocked with food scarce elsewhere, so the stew spread especially fast there.
Q 27What does the name soju literally mean?
Burned liquor
Burned liquor hints at distilling, yet most cheap soju is ethanol diluted with water and sweeteners rather than a slow-distilled spirit.
Q 28Who introduced the distilling technique behind soju to Korea in the 13th century?
The Yuan Mongols
The Yuan Mongols had picked up distilling from the Persians during their conquests.
Q 29Which city's soju is considered the direct root of modern Korean soju?
Andong
Traditional hand-crafted Andong soju is about 45 percent alcohol.
Q 30Which soju maker's flagship brand was the world's best-selling spirit in 2013?
HiteJinro
HiteJinro's Jinro soju is only about 20 percent alcohol, so some US restaurants can sell it with just a beer and wine licence.