Lebanese Food Trivia
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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
Anise. The seeds are crushed and distilled with a grape spirit, and their oil is what gives arak its faint liquorice taste: ouzo, raki and pastis belong to the same family.
Q 02Meghli, a spiced rice pudding, is traditionally served to celebrate what?
A newborn baby
A newborn baby. Visitors who come to see the child are each handed a bowl topped with nuts and coconut, and Christians make it again at Christmas to mark the birth of Jesus.
Q 03Which empire ruled Lebanon from 1516 to 1918 and left its mark on Lebanese sweets?
The Ottomans
The Ottomans. Four centuries of Turkish rule brought baklava-style pastries and made lamb more popular; the French, who governed next, left flan and croissants behind.
Q 04Toum, the fluffy white sauce served with Lebanese grilled chicken, gets its punch from which raw ingredient?
Garlic
Garlic. Toum is simply the Arabic word for it; pounded with salt and whipped with oil and lemon, the cloves turn into something as thick and white as mayonnaise.
Q 05Which Lebanese street food is a deep-fried ball of ground beans and herbs?
Falafel
Falafel. The beans are only soaked overnight before grinding, never cooked: tinned ones hold too much water, and the balls would fall apart in the hot oil.
Q 06In Lebanese kitchens, what does mouneh refer to?
Preserving food for the year
Preserving food for the year. Late summer goes on putting up bulgur, pickles, jams, tomato paste and labneh, a habit born of the need for food security that families have fallen back on in wartime.
Q 07Awarma, a staple of the Lebanese winter larder, is what?
Lamb confit
Lamb confit. The meat is fried slowly until its fat renders, then sealed under that fat in jars so it keeps through the winter: the Lebanese cousin of Turkish kavurma.
Q 08Paper-thin marquq bread is cooked on what?
A metal saj
A metal saj. The dough is tossed and stretched by hand until it is almost see-through, then flipped onto the domed griddle to bake.
Q 09Beirut's street ka'ak, hung from a pole on the bakers' carts, is nicknamed after which object it resembles?
A handbag
A handbag. The sesame-crusted loaf is baked as a lopsided ring with a thin 'handle', so vendors can string dozens along a pole; it is torn open and spread with za'atar or soft cheese.
Q 10Which Lebanese pastry is a triangle of dough folded around spinach and onions?
Fatayer
Fatayer. A round of dough is pinched up on three sides over the filling to make the triangle, and the spinach version is sharpened with plenty of lemon.
Q 11Ejjeh, made with heaps of chopped herbs and scallions, is the traditional Lebanese what?
Omelette
Omelette. It is closer to a frittata than to a French one, because the eggs are only there to bind a thick mass of chopped herbs, so it sets firm.
Q 12Baladi, a cheese made by Lebanese shepherds, carries which nickname?
The cheese of the mountains
The cheese of the mountains. It is made up in the high pastures from unpasteurised goat's, sheep's and cow's milk, uncultured and unaged, so it has to be eaten fresh.
Q 13Darfiyeh, a seasonal cheese from northern Lebanon, is matured inside what?
A salty goat skin
Q 21Kousa mahshi is a dish of stuffed what?
Squash or zucchini
Squash or zucchini. The flesh cored out to make room for the rice is never thrown away: it is cooked up as a small dish of its own, or fried with the morning eggs.
Q 22Balila, served warm with lemon and spices, is a simple Lebanese dish of boiled what?
Chickpeas
Chickpeas. They are served hot and left whole, dressed with lemon and spices, rather than mashed into a dip or ground and fried.
Q 23Mutabbel, the smoky aubergine and tahini dip, is often topped with which garnish?
Pomegranate seeds
Pomegranate seeds. They add a sweet pop against the smoke of the charred aubergine, and it is the tahini that makes this mutabbel: a traditional baba ghanouj goes without it.
A salty goat skin. The hide is cleaned, salted and tied shut at the legs to make a sack, then packed with goat's-milk cheese and left to ripen in damp caves for months.
Q 14Shanklish cheese balls are rolled in thyme or which other coating?
Chilli flakes
Chilli flakes. The aged yogurt cheese is rolled in red pepper for heat or thyme for fragrance, and it grows harder and more pungent as it dries.
Q 15Bamieh bi-zeit, a Lebanese stew, combines tomato with which vegetable?
Okra
Okra. Bamieh is simply the word for the vegetable and 'bi-zeit', in oil, marks the meatless version; cooks find frozen pods work nearly as well as fresh, so the stew needn't wait for the season.
Q 16Which Beqaa Valley town, known for its outdoor riverside restaurants, is famous for its arak distilleries?
Zahlé
Zahlé. Arak is distilled from grapes, and the town sits among the valley's vineyards, home to wineries and distilleries alike: it styles itself the 'city of wine and poetry'.
Q 17Daoud bacha meatballs, simmered in tomato sauce, are often made with which nut?
Pine nuts
Pine nuts. They are toasted and scattered over the meatballs, or tucked inside them, and the dish is cooked with extra sauce because it is eaten over vermicelli rice.
Q 18Fattoush, the dish of torn pita with cucumber, tomato and mint, is also known as what?
Peasants' salad
Peasants' salad. Farmers threw in whatever vegetables were to hand, and the fried or toasted bread on top began as a thrifty way to use up stale loaves.
Q 19Tabbouleh is built mainly around which finely chopped herb?
Parsley
Parsley. In a Lebanese tabbouleh the herb is the salad and the bulgur only a sprinkle; it is the supermarket versions abroad that turn the proportions upside down.
Q 20Lebanese 'white coffee', offered to guests in place of the real thing, contains no coffee and is scented with what?
Orange blossom
Orange blossom. The flower essence is stirred into a steaming cup, sweetened or not, and café blanc is poured for guests who skip the usual coffee because it is caffeine-free and thought to be soothing.
Q 24Mujaddara, the lentil and rice dish, is garnished with what?
Sautéed onions
Sautéed onions. They are cooked low and slow for half an hour or more until dark and sweet, and cooks insist the dish is not the same without them.
Q 25The Arabic name mujaddara describes brown lentils dotted through pale rice, and literally means what?
Pockmarked
Pockmarked. The lentils scattered through the pale grains are the pockmarks, and the word shares its root with the Arabic for smallpox: an unflattering name for comfort food.
Q 26Kibbeh nayyeh is kibbeh prepared in which way?
Raw
Raw. The meat has to be bought the day it is eaten, and it was traditionally pounded to a paste in a stone mortar before food processors took over the job.
Q 27Kebbe lakteen, a meatless kibbeh, is made from bulgur and which vegetable?
Pumpkin
Pumpkin. The purée is kneaded with bulgur to make the shell, and the filling is deliberately sour to balance its sweetness; with no meat anywhere, it was vegan long before the word caught on.
Q 28Shish barak, meat dumplings in yogurt sauce, is often called Lebanese what?
Ravioli
Ravioli. Each round of dough is folded over the meat into a half-moon, then its two corners are pinched together around a fingertip, so the finished parcel looks more like tortellini.
Q 29Sfiha, the small open-faced meat pie, is most associated with which Beqaa Valley town?
Baalbek
Baalbek. Its version is tiny, with the sides pinched up around the meat, and the town's butchers bake it by the kilo for weddings, funerals and Ramadan evenings.
Q 30Which grain, harvested green and set alight in the field for a smoky taste, goes into Lebanese soups and pilafs?
Freekeh
Freekeh. The fire burns off the straw and chaff and leaves the green wheat smoky, and the charred husks are then rubbed away, which is what the Arabic name means: 'rubbed'.