50 free Lebanese Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Lebanese cooking is built on olive oil, lemon, garlic, parsley and chickpeas, served as a spread of thirty-odd mezze dishes that a family might shrink to three and a restaurant might stretch to sixty. Centuries of Phoenician, Ottoman and French rule left lamb, baklawa and croissants on the same table, and a glass of anise-flavoured arak beside them. This quiz goes well past hummus. It covers the breads and the ovens they come from, the cheeses aged in goat skins, the stews, the raw kibbeh served at weddings, the sweets that mark a birth or a holiday, the spice blends, the drinks from jallab to Almaza beer, and the history behind them, from an 1885 Beirut cookbook to a 2023 UNESCO listing. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play on your phone or print it for a dinner-party quiz.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Arak, the Lebanese national drink, is flavoured with what?
Anise
It is distilled from grapes with aniseed and usually served alongside a traditional meal rather than on its own.
Q 02Meghli, a spiced rice pudding, is traditionally served to celebrate what?
A newborn baby
It is spiced with caraway and cinnamon and topped with coconut and nuts; it also doubles as a Christmas dessert for Lebanese Christians.
Q 03Who ruled Lebanon from 1516 to 1918 and introduced cooking with lamb?
The Ottomans
The French took over until 1943 and left flan, eclairs, croissants and french fries behind.
Q 04Khalil Sarkis's influential 1885 Beirut cookbook is known by which title?
Tadhkirat al-Khawatin
One of the first widely read Arabic cookbooks of the 19th century, it holds the earliest documented recipe for cheese-filled knafeh and 15 kibbeh recipes.
Q 05Which part of the country is famous for its kibbe?
The south
The Beqaa is known for meat pastries and the north and Sidon for sweets; Beit Mery has a pumpkin kibbe and Ehden an oven-baked one.
Q 06In Lebanese kitchens, what does mouneh refer to?
Preserving food for the year
Late summer and early autumn are spent making bulgur, olive oil, labneh, pickles, jams and tomato paste, once stored in earthenware jars in cool cellars.
Q 07Awarma, a staple of the preserving season, is what?
Lamb confit
Qawarma comes from an old custom of fattening a fat-tailed lamb all spring, then chopping, salting and keeping the meat in its own fat.
Q 08Paper-thin marquq bread is cooked on what?
A metal saj
Taboon bread, by contrast, is baked in a taboon oven or tannur, like the tandoor breads of Asia.
Q 09Ka'ak, often sprinkled with sesame or stuffed with cheese and za'atar, is what kind of food?
A street bread
It is usually eaten as a snack, and ka'ak also appears on the list of the country's best-known desserts.
Q 10Manaeesh dough folded into a triangular pie filled with spinach and onions is called what?
Fatayer
The same dough topped with minced meat and onions is lahm bi 'ajin, and its mini version is sfeeha.
Q 11Ejjeh, made with egg, chopped herbs and scallions, is the traditional Lebanese what?
Omelette
Villages vary it with whatever herbs they grow locally.
Q 12Baladi, made by shepherds at altitude, carries which nickname?
The cheese of the mountains
It has a mild but rich flavour and should not be confused with darfiyeh, the seasonal goat cheese of Ehden and Bcharre.
Q 13Darfiyeh, a seasonal cheese from northern Lebanon, is matured inside what?
A salty goat skin
The 'darf' gives it its name. It is seasonal and native to the mountain villages of Ehden and Bcharre.
Q 21Kousa mahshi is a dish of stuffed what?
Squash or zucchini
It is filled with rice and sometimes meat and cooked on the stovetop or in the oven; the Levantine version is flavoured with mint and garlic.
Q 22Balila is a simple, popular dish of what, boiled with lemon, garlic and spices?
Chickpeas
Chickpeas and parsley are staples of the Lebanese diet; fateh b'hummus layers them with flatbread and spiced yogurt.
Q 23Mutabbel, the mashed aubergine and tahini dip, is traditionally topped with what?
Pomegranate seeds
Anar is pomegranate. Mutabbel is often confused with baba ghanouj, which is char-grilled and does not always contain tahini.
Q 14Shanklish cheese balls are traditionally coated in what?
Chilli flakes
The fermented cow's-milk cheese is seasoned with thyme and pepper; a 2008 Guinness record for the heaviest piece topped 200 kilograms.
Q 15Bamieh bi-zeit, one of Lebanon's most popular stews, combines tomato with which vegetable?
Okra
Add sautéed lamb and it becomes bamya bel lahmeh. It is served with rice, a lemon-dressed salad and warm bread.
Q 16Makhlouta, a stew of mixed beans, wheat and legumes, is a speciality of which town?
Baskinta
Other stews have hometowns too: mjadrat fasoulya in Rashaya, laban immo in Douma and stuffed lamb ribs in Broummana.
Q 17Daoud bacha meatballs, cooked in tomato sauce with cinnamon, are stuffed with what?
Pine nuts
Pine nuts and almonds are the cuisine's signature nuts, showing up everywhere from shish taouk to hummus bi lahmeh.
Q 18Fattoush, the dish of torn pita with cucumber, tomato and mint, is also known as what?
Peasants' salad
Its name comes from the Arabic fatt, 'crush', and sumac gives it its sour edge. A 10th-century cookbook has a bread salad much like it.
Q 19Tabbouleh is built mainly around which finely chopped herb?
Parsley
Levantine tabbouleh is mostly herb with a little bulgur; Western versions flip the ratio. A chef once described a Palestinian version as '80 percent parsley'.
Q 20Lebanese National Tabbouleh Day falls on the first Saturday of which month?
July
It has been celebrated since 2001. The salamouni wheat of the Beqaa Valley was prized in the 1800s for making its bulgur.
Q 24Mujaddara, the lentil and rice dish, is garnished with what?
Sautéed onions
The first recorded recipe is in a 1226 Baghdad cookbook; a saying held that a hungry man would sell his soul for a plate of it.
Q 25What does the Arabic word mujaddara literally mean?
Pockmarked
The lentils among the rice look like pockmarks. In Lebanon the name refers to a puréed version; the chunkier one is mudardara.
Q 26Kibbeh nayyeh is kibbeh prepared in which way?
Raw
Minced lamb or beef with fine bulgur, scooped up with pita. It is served at Lebanese weddings to hundreds of guests, which takes care to avoid poisoning.
Q 27Kebbe lakteen, popular in Beit Mery, is kibbeh flavoured with what?
Pumpkin
Fish kibbeh is another variant, common on the coast and during Lent when red meat is off the menu.
Q 28Shish barak, meat dumplings in yogurt sauce, is often called Lebanese what?
Ravioli
Lebanese meat was traditionally precious and served at weekends, sometimes stretched with bulgur to make it last.
Q 29Sfiha, the open-faced minced-meat pastry, is most associated with which Lebanese town?
Baalbek
Sfiha Baalbakiya has folded sides and is served at weddings; the 2019 liquidity crisis spawned cheaper meatless versions.
Q 30The qawarma custom involved force-feeding a fat-tailed lamb with what?
Mulberry and grape leaves
The lamb was bought in spring and fed day and night until it could be chopped, salted and preserved in its own grease.