Meat Trivia
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49 free Meat trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
42 free meat trivia questions with answers. This meat trivia quiz carves through everything carnivorous: which animal supplies the most meat on Earth, why red meat is red, what dry-aging does, the Maillard reaction that browns a steak, and the cuts from tenderloin to skirt. It travels the world's charcuterie board — Kobe and Wagyu, Prosciutto di Parma, jamón ibérico de bellota, bresaola, chorizo, mortadella, pastrami, corned beef, biltong and jerky — and stops at haggis, black pudding, foie gras, kangaroo, Rocky Mountain oysters, turducken, Spam and the first lab-grown burger. Frankfurters, wieners, bratwurst and the döner kebab get their due too. Early questions suit anyone who has stood at a barbecue; later ones reward cooks and food-history buffs who know why haggis is banned in the US and what pemmican is named for. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which meat was the most produced in the world in 2023, at about 34% of global output?
Chicken
Chicken production has more than doubled since 2000; pigs come a close second, also around a third of the total.
Q 02Which pigment gives red meat its colour and turns brown when it oxidises?
Myoglobin
Myoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein in muscle, gives red meat its colour; when its iron oxidises to metmyoglobin, the surface turns brown.
Q 03What is the name of the process, involving amino acids and sugars, that browns a seared steak?
The Maillard reaction
Louis Camille Maillard described it in 1912; it takes off at around 140-165°C.
Q 04What is 'marbling' in a cut of beef?
Fat deposited near the muscle fibres
Marbling is intramuscular fat deposited near and between the muscle fibres; it melts during cooking, which is why well-marbled beef is juicier and more tender.
Q 05Which of the four Wagyu breeds is actually responsible for the famous rich marbling?
Japanese Black
Japanese Black (Kuroge Washu) makes up around 90% of Japan's Wagyu and carries the genetics for intense intramuscular fat; the Tajima strain of it is used for Kobe beef.
Q 06In which Japanese prefecture must cattle be raised to qualify as Kobe beef?
Hyōgo
Kobe beef must come from Tajima-strain cattle born, raised and slaughtered in Hyōgo Prefecture, whose capital is Kobe; the Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association certifies it.
Q 07What is the most tender cut of beef?
Tenderloin
The tenderloin, the psoas major muscle along the spine, does almost no work, making it the most tender cut; filet mignon and chateaubriand are both cut from it.
Q 08How is dry-aged beef produced?
Hung or racked to dry for several weeks
Dry-aged beef is hung or racked uncovered in a chilled, humidity-controlled room for several weeks; moisture loss and natural enzymes concentrate the flavour and tenderise the meat.
Q 09Which cut of the pig is 'streaky' bacon made from?
The belly
Streaky bacon is cut from the pork belly, whose alternating layers of fat and muscle give it the streaks; it is the standard bacon in the United States.
Q 10What are the only ingredients permitted in Prosciutto di Parma?
Pork leg, sea salt and lard
Prosciutto di Parma allows only pork leg, sea salt and lard: the lard (sugna) is smeared on the exposed meat to slow drying during a cure of at least twelve months; nitrites and smoke are banned.
Q 11The finest jamón ibérico is labelled 'de bellota'. What have the pigs eaten?
Acorns
It must come from pure Black Iberian pigs or crosses at least 50% Black Iberian with Duroc.
Q 12Bresaola, the air-dried salted beef, originated in which region of Italy?
Lombardy
Bresaola della Valtellina comes from the Valtellina, an Alpine valley in Lombardy near the Swiss border; it is salted, air-dried for two to three months and turns a deep purple-red.
Q 13What gives Spanish chorizo its deep red colour and smokiness?
Smoked red peppers (pimentón)
Mexican chorizo uses chili peppers instead of paprika.
Q 21By French law, foie gras must be the liver of a duck or goose fattened by what method?
Gavage (force feeding)
French law (Code rural) defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose specially fattened by gavage, or force feeding; the technique goes back to ancient Egypt around 2500 BC.
Q 22What is Spam made from?
Pork and ham
Spam is chopped pork shoulder and ham, with salt, water, potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite; Hormel devised it partly to use up pork shoulder, a cut that did not sell.
Q 23In which year did Hormel introduce Spam?
1937
Hormel introduced Spam on 5 July 1937, naming it via a $100 contest won by Ken Daigneau; wartime shipments spread it worldwide and a Monty Python sketch gave its name to junk email.
Q 14What must mortadella contain at least 15% of, by rule?
Cubes of pork fat
Mortadella Bologna PGI must be at least 15% cubes of pork fat (lardelli), cut from the neck and mixed through the finely ground pork; pistachios are an optional extra.
Q 15Pastrami originated in the Jewish community of which country?
Romania
The word probably passed from Turkish pastirma via Romanian pastramă into Yiddish.
Q 16Where does the word 'corned' in corned beef come from?
Large grains ('corns') of rock salt
'Corned' refers to the large grains, or 'corns', of rock salt once used to cure the beef; Commonwealth countries often just call it salt beef.
Q 17The word 'jerky' comes from which language?
Quechua
'Jerky' comes from the Quechua word ch'arki, meaning dried, salted meat; Spanish colonists in the Andes borrowed it as charqui before it entered English.
Q 18How does biltong differ from jerky in its production?
It is air-dried rather than heated
Biltong is cured with vinegar and salt and then air-dried for days rather than heated, whereas jerky is dried with heat; biltong originated among the Dutch settlers of Southern Africa.
Q 19What is the traditional casing for haggis?
A sheep's stomach
Haggis is traditionally encased in a sheep's stomach, which holds the minced pluck, oatmeal, suet and onion as it simmers for several hours; artificial casings are common today.
Q 20What is black pudding made from?
Pork blood, fat and cereal
Black pudding is a blood sausage of pork blood, pork fat and cereal, usually oatmeal or barley groats; the high cereal proportion sets it apart from continental blood sausages.
Q 24The word 'frankfurter' comes from Frankfurt, but 'wiener' refers to which city?
Vienna
'Wiener' is German for Viennese: the Wiener Würstchen, a pork-and-beef sausage, was popularised in Vienna in the early 19th century by Frankfurt-trained butcher Johann Georg Lahner.
Q 25In which German city is bratwurst first documented, in 1313?
Nuremberg
Nuremberg's city records of 1313 hold the first documented bratwurst, the ancestor of the Nürnberger Rostbratwurst; the name joins Old High German brät, finely chopped meat, to Wurst.
Q 26How is a döner kebab cooked?
On a vertical rotisserie
Döner meat is stacked on a vertical rotisserie and shaved off as the outside cooks, a 19th-century Ottoman technique that also gave rise to shawarma, gyros and Mexican al pastor.
Q 27What is a turducken?
A turkey stuffed with duck and chicken
The English version with goose is called a gooducken.
Q 28What are Rocky Mountain oysters?
Bull testicles
Rocky Mountain oysters are bull (or calf) testicles, a by-product of castrating ranch cattle; they are skinned, floured and deep-fried and served as a bar snack in the American West.
Q 29Which glands are served as 'sweetbreads'?
Thymus or pancreas
Sweetbreads are the thymus gland or the pancreas, usually from a calf or lamb; the French call the veal version ris de veau.
Q 30What is veal?
Meat from calves
Most comes from young male dairy calves not needed for breeding.