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50 free Polish Food trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Polish food is built for long winters and longer tables: dumplings by the dozen, sour soups, smoked sausage, cakes that appear only at Easter or Christmas Eve, and a milk-bar culture that still serves dinner for pocket change. Behind almost every dish is a story, from a queen's Italian cooks to a 1394 royal receipt for bread rings. These 50 questions cover the dishes and what goes into them, the Wigilia and Easter table, Fat Thursday bakes, protected regional specialities from the Tatras to Greater Poland, vodka, mead and beer, the cookbooks that shaped the cuisine, and where Polish food went when Poles emigrated. It suits anyone who has eaten their way through Kraków, anyone with a Polish grandmother, and quiz hosts who want a food round with a few surprises. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave knowing more than you arrived with.
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Q 01Prince Polo, the Polish wafer bar made in Cieszyn since 1955, is the best-selling chocolate bar of which country?
Iceland
Iceland has bought more Prince Polo than any other chocolate bar for decades, Nielsen data shows, and for years it was one of the few bars sold there at all. Icelanders call it Prins Póló.
Q 02Which MLB team stages a race of mascots in giant pierogi costumes between innings, copying Milwaukee's racing sausages?
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pittsburgh Pirates run the Great Pierogi Race at every home game, with Potato Pete, Sauerkraut Saul and Cheese Chester sprinting between the fifth and sixth innings. The pierogi even travel to Milwaukee once a year to race the sausages.
Q 03Włoszczyzna, the Polish name for the soup-vegetable bundle of carrot, parsley and leek, literally credits which country?
Italy
Włoszczyzna comes from Włochy, the Polish name for Italy, a nod to the Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza whose court cooks popularised the vegetables in the 1500s. Court records show she imported oranges, olives, figs and even tomatoes.
Q 04Ptasie Mleczko, the chocolate-coated marshmallow bars E. Wedel has sold since 1936, translates from Polish as what?
Bird's milk
Bird's milk is an ancient figure of speech for an impossible luxury: Aristophanes used 'the milk of the birds' in The Birds and The Wasps as a proverbial rarity. Wedel still holds exclusive rights to the name in Poland.
Q 05The Maxwell Street Polish, a grilled sausage under fried onions and yellow mustard, is a street food of which US city?
Chicago
Chicago counts the Maxwell Street Polish among its classic foods alongside the Italian beef and the Chicago hot dog, yet it was invented by Jimmy Stefanovic, a Macedonian immigrant who took over a Maxwell Street market stand in 1939.
Q 06Mizeria, the cucumber and sour cream salad beside a Polish breaded cutlet, takes its name from a word for what?
Poverty
Poverty, misère in French or miseria in Latin, is the root given for mizeria, most likely a sneer from the Polish aristocracy at a dish of the peasant table. It is now the standard side for a Sunday kotlet schabowy.
Q 07Grochówka wojskowa, the 'military' pea soup of Polish field kitchens, is said to be thick enough to hold what upright?
A spoon
A spoon should stand straight up in a proper grochówka wojskowa, according to a common Polish saying. The soup is cooked in army messes but is associated with the kuchnia polowa, the mobile field kitchen wheeled out at public events.
Q 08After a day of fasting, what sight in the sky tells a Polish family that Wigilia supper may begin?
The first star
The first star signals the start of Wigilia, which is why Christmas itself is sometimes called Gwiazdka, 'little star', in Poland. Children keep watch at the window so the family can sit down the moment it appears.
Q 09Spirytus Rektyfikowany from Polmos, often called the world's strongest liquor, is bottled at what strength?
96% ABV
96% ABV is about the ceiling of ordinary distillation, since column stills top out at 96 to 96.5 per cent before water and alcohol refuse to separate. Poles mostly use Spirytus for home-made fruit infusions, not for drinking neat.
Q 10Kopytka, the Polish potato dumplings cut on the diagonal and served under goulash, are named for resembling what?
Little hooves
Little hooves is the literal meaning of kopytka, from kopyto, because the dumplings are shaped like hooves. The same dumplings are eaten in Belarus and Lithuania, sweet with butter and sugar as often as savoury.
Q 11Zapiekanka, the toasted half-baguette of 1970s Polish street food, is classically topped with cheese and what?
Sautéed mushrooms
Sautéed mushrooms under melted cheese, finished with a stripe of ketchup, define the classic zapiekanka, and the stands on Plac Nowy in Kraków's Kazimierz district have a cult following. The name comes from zapiekać, to bake.
Q 12Alongside stewed plum powidła, which flower's petal jam is the traditional filling of a Polish pączek doughnut?
Rose
Rose petal jam made from wild roses is the classic pączek filling, though bakeries now pipe in custard, strawberry, blueberry and Bavarian cream. The name is easily confused with paczki, which simply means parcels.
Q 13Faworki, the brittle fried ribbons dusted with icing sugar that Poles eat before Lent, go by which name in English?
Q 21Sernik, the baked Polish cheesecake known since the 17th century, uses which fresh curd cheese instead of cream cheese?
Twaróg
Twaróg, the traditional Polish quark, gives sernik its body together with eggs and butter but no cream or sour cream. The krakowski version wears a lattice crust, the królewski a cocoa crust top and bottom, and the wiedeński none at all.
Q 22Hamtramck, the Polish enclave inside Detroit, throws its annual Pączki Day parade on which day of the church calendar?
Shrove Tuesday
Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday to the locals, is Pączki Day in Hamtramck, where the Polish pre-Lent tradition merged with the Mardi Gras timing of other immigrants. Bakeries across Metro Detroit draw queues for pączki that morning.
Q 23How do Poland's surviving milk bars, now privately owned, keep serving a full dinner for a few złoty?
Angel wings
Angel wings, or chruściki, are strips of dough twisted, deep-fried and showered with powdered sugar, and Polish-American bakeries in Buffalo, Philadelphia and Milwaukee make them too. A twist through a slit gives the wing shape.
Q 14Why do Polish families lay one extra place at the Wigilia table, however many diners are expected on Christmas Eve?
For an unexpected guest
For an unexpected guest, whoever may knock, the spare setting celebrates hospitality, one of several Wigilia customs that begin only after a full day of abstinence. Nobody should be alone on Wigilia night.
Q 15Święconka, observed across Poland on the Saturday before Easter, is the church blessing of what?
Baskets of food
Baskets of food are carried to church to be blessed, each item symbolic: eggs for resurrection, bread for Jesus, horseradish for Christ's bitter sacrifice and a lamb figure for Christ himself. The custom is said to date to the 7th century.
Q 16Kotlet schabowy, the breadcrumbed cutlet at the heart of a Polish Sunday dinner, is pounded from which cut of meat?
Pork loin
Pork loin, with or without the bone, is sliced, hammered flat, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and fried for a kotlet schabowy, a cousin of the Viennese schnitzel and Japanese tonkatsu. Schab is simply the Polish word for loin.
Q 17Rosół, the clear noodle broth of Polish weddings and sickbeds, is most often made from which meat?
Chicken
Chicken makes rosół z kury, the most popular version, though a rosół królewski layers beef, hen and duck in one pot. The name comes from Old Polish rozsół, the soaking of preserved meat.
Q 18What gives chłodnik litewski, the chilled soup that cools Polish summers, its shocking pink colour?
Beetroot
Beetroot and its young leaves, whisked into kefir or soured milk, turn chłodnik pink, and 'litewski' recalls the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where cold sour soups fed nobles and peasants alike. Lithuanians call the same bowl šaltibarščiai.
Q 19Krówki, the soft Polish milk toffees in white-and-yellow wrappers, are named as the diminutive of which farm animal?
Cows
Cows, or rather 'little cows', is what krówki means, and most wrappers carry a picture of a Holstein to prove it. The Pomorski family claims to have made the first ones before the German occupation forced a move to Milanówek.
Q 20Grójec, a medieval castellany seat, now sits in a district called Europe's biggest orchard for which fruit?
Apples
Apples from the Grójec district make up every third apple sold in Poland, and the local microclimate is credited with their deep red colour. Poland's orchards make it one of the world's leading apple producers after China.
State subsidies
State subsidies still flow to the privately owned milk bars, which is why activist groups fight for them when gentrification threatens a good location. The Communist state had planned them as public canteens beside the workplace bufet.
Q 24Oscypek, the spindle-shaped smoked cheese of the Tatras, may legally be made only in which part of the year?
Late April to early October
Late April to early October is the only window, because the highland flocks must be grazing fresh mountain grass. The protected recipe also fixes every cheese at 600 to 800 grams and 17 to 23 centimetres long.
Q 25Obwarzanek krakowski, the braided bread ring sold from Kraków street carts, holds which EU food label?
Protected Geographical Indication
Protected Geographical Indication status, registered in 2010, ties the obwarzanek to Kraków and its district, the same tier of label as the Cornish pasty. The rings are boiled, then sprinkled with sesame or poppy seed before baking.
Q 26The earliest record of Kraków obwarzanki, a 1394 court account for 'rings', was written for which Polish queen?
Jadwiga
Jadwiga, Poland's reigning queen and wife of Władysław Jagiełło, was billed 1 grosz for obwarzanki on 2 March 1394, in an entry that also gives the medieval Latin name circuli. Her court's accounts are the oldest proof the bread existed.
Q 27Rogal świętomarciński, the white-poppy crescent baked for St Martin's Day, is the protected pride of which city?
Poznań
Poznań bakers were already advertising St Martin's croissants in the Dziennik Poznański in 1860, and the EU registered the name and recipe in 2008. The filling is white poppy seed, not the usual blue-grey kind.
Q 28Kiełbasa wiejska, the 'country' sausage of pork and veal, is seasoned with garlic and which herb?
Marjoram
Marjoram and garlic, sometimes with a pinch of coriander, flavour kiełbasa wiejska, whose name means rural or village. Kabanosy, the thin dry sticks, get caraway instead.
Q 29Kaszanka, the Polish blood sausage grilled with onions and eaten with potatoes, is bulked out with which groats?
Buckwheat
Buckwheat groats, kasza, give kaszanka its name and crumbly bite, bound with pig's blood and liver inside a natural casing; barley is the other traditional filler. In Yiddish-influenced districts the same sausage is kiszka.
Q 30Flaki, eaten in Poland since the 14th century and a favourite of King Władysław Jagiełło, is a peppery stew of what?
Beef tripe
Beef tripe cut into thin strips is flaki, a word that literally means 'guts' and was borrowed from the German Fleck. The diminutive flaczki names the same soup, and German cousins go by Kuttelsuppe.