50 free Soup trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Soup trivia questions with answers. Soup is the oldest cooked food there is, and it turns out to be excellent quiz material. These 50 questions travel from Marseille to Yokohama by way of Kyiv, Andalusia, Hanoi and a New Jersey cannery, asking what the word actually means, why ramen noodles are yellow, and what a bird's nest is really made of. The quiz covers technique as well as geography: how Escoffier divided the whole category in two, what clarifies a consommé, why Manhattan clam chowder is an insult in New England, and how a Polish king in exile got onion soup onto the table at Versailles. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the dates, origins and prices here are accurate rather than restaurant folklore. Difficulty runs from easy warm-ups to a few questions that will only fall to someone who reads cookbooks for pleasure.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'soup' comes from a root meaning what?
Soaking
The same root gives English 'sup' and 'supper'. Originally the word described bread soaked in liquid rather than the liquid itself.
Q 02In Old French, what did 'soupe' originally mean?
Bread soaked in liquid
Broth poured over bread was the whole dish. French onion soup with its raft of baguette is a direct survivor.
Q 03How did Escoffier divide soups?
Into clear and thick
Consommés fall on one side; purées, veloutés and creams on the other. The scheme still underpins professional kitchens.
Q 04Which American company introduced condensed canned soup in 1897?
Campbell's
Removing half the water doubled the volume once the customer added it back. The idea reshaped the American store cupboard.
Q 05Who worked out how to condense soup commercially in 1897?
John T. Dorrance
He was a chemist with degrees from MIT and Göttingen. He halved the heaviest ingredient in the can: water.
Q 06Where did the red and white colour scheme on cans come from?
A university football uniform
An executive admired the crisp carnelian red of Cornell's kit in 1898. The design has barely changed since.
Q 07Which artist made silkscreens of soup cans in 1962?
Andy Warhol
He returned to the subject on and off for two decades. The cans became one of the defining images of pop art.
Q 08In which year was the company founded?
1869
A fruit merchant and a partner started it in New Jersey. The condensed soup came almost thirty years later.
Q 09Where can the origins of ramen be traced to?
Yokohama Chinatown
It arrived in the late 19th century from southern Chinese noodle cooking. The name was borrowed from a northern Chinese dish it does not descend from.
Q 10What gives ramen noodles their yellow colour and springy bite?
Alkaline water, kansui
The mineral water changes how the wheat proteins behave. Without it the noodles would be ordinary pasta.
Q 11Who invented instant noodles in 1958?
Momofuku Ando
The invention took ramen worldwide and made it student food everywhere. A museum in Osaka is devoted to it.
Q 12Which is the oldest of the ramen seasoning styles?
Shio
It is built on salt, cooking alcohols and umami ingredients. The miso style only reached national prominence around 1965.
Q 13Which country is pho from?
Vietnam
It appeared in the north of the country around 1900. The broth is simmered with charred onion and ginger for hours.
Q 14Which kind of noodle goes into pho?
Q 21Which ingredient thickens a traditional gazpacho?
Stale bread
Bread, oil and vinegar form the base, with tomato, cucumber, pepper and garlic. It was originally food for farm labourers.
Q 22Which French port is bouillabaisse from?
Marseille
The name comes from two Provençal verbs meaning to boil and to reduce the heat. It began as a fisherman's dish made from unsellable rockfish.
Q 23What does the name 'bouillabaisse' literally describe?
Boiling then lowering the heat
The instruction is the recipe. Traditional versions require at least three kinds of fish.
Flat rice noodles
Their width varies by region. The broth is simmered with bones, charred onion, charred ginger and spices.
Q 15How does southern Vietnamese pho differ from the northern version?
It is sweeter and cloudier
The south piles on bean sprouts, chilli, hoisin and herbs. The north keeps the broth clear and the garnishes minimal.
Q 16Which vegetable gives borscht its colour?
Beetroot
The soup can be served hot or cold. UNESCO listed the Ukrainian tradition of cooking it in 2022.
Q 17Which country's borscht tradition did UNESCO list as intangible heritage in need of urgent safeguarding?
Ukraine
The listing came in 2022, shortly after the invasion. The soup predates all the modern arguments about it by centuries.
Q 18Before its familiar red vegetable, what plant was borscht originally made from?
Common hogweed stems
The pickled stems, leaves and umbels were fermented. The modern red version is a much later development.
Q 19Gazpacho is served at what temperature?
Cold
It is a summer dish from southern Spain and Portugal.
Q 20When were tomatoes added to gazpacho?
In the 19th century
The red version everyone knows is comparatively modern. Older recipes rely on bread, oil, vinegar and garlic.
Q 24What is rouille, served with bouillabaisse?
Garlic and saffron mayonnaise
It goes on grilled slices of bread and floats on the broth. Cayenne gives it the rusty colour its name refers to.
Q 25What is the main difference between New England and Manhattan clam chowder?
Cream against tomato
The tomato version is a long-running culinary insult in New England. Both are properly full of clams and potato.
Q 26The word 'chowder' may come from which French word?
Chaudron, a cauldron
The first chowders were probably cooked in exactly such a pot. Another candidate is a French dish called chaudrée.
Q 27According to Alexandre Dumas, how did onion soup reach the French royal court?
An exiled Polish king learned the recipe at an inn
Louis XV's father-in-law Stanislas was the enthusiast. Onions had until then been regarded as peasant food.
Q 28Which stock is normally used in French onion soup?
Beef
The onions are cooked slowly in butter or oil until golden first. Grated cheese under a grill finishes the dish.
Q 29How was onion soup regarded socially before the 18th century?
Peasant food, avoided by the rich
Onions were cheap, plentiful and unfashionable. A Polish king's enthusiasm changed that at Versailles.
Q 30What are the two basic components of miso soup?
Fermented paste and dashi stock
The stock is usually made from seaweed, bonito flakes, dried sardines or dried shiitake. Tofu and wakame are the classic additions.