60 free Taco trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
54 free Taco trivia questions with answers. Tacos are older than the word for them, and the word may have started life as a stick of dynamite. This taco trivia quiz covers the whole story: the fish tacos eaten in the Valley of Mexico before Cortés, the silver miners' 'plugs', the Lebanese shawarma that became al pastor, Jalisco's birria and Tijuana's quesabirria, Baja's fish tacos, and the limewater soak that turns corn into masa. It also follows the taco north: the hard shell that America made its own, Glen Bell's 19-cent tacos and the Mitla Cafe across the street, the Chihuahua that wanted Taco Bell, the Doritos Locos Taco, the Choco Taco, and the two-word trademark that Taco John's, LeBron James and Taco Bell all fought over. About a third of the questions are easy warm-ups, a third are for regular taqueria customers, and the rest are for people who know what a codzito was. Use it for taco night, a food-trivia round or a solo test. Every answer is checked against a cited source shown under the question.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Traditionally, a taco tortilla is made from which grain?
Corn
Wheat-flour tortillas are a later northern Mexican habit; both are now standard around the world.
Q 02Aside from food, what does the Spanish word 'taco' also mean?
A plug or wedge
The Real Academia Española lists wedge, wad, billiard cue, ramrod and even 'short, stocky person'.
Q 03One popular theory says the culinary word 'taco' was coined by which Mexican workers?
Silver miners
Their explosive charges were paper wrapped around gunpowder, and the little plugs were called tacos.
Q 04Before the Spanish arrived, what did people of the Valley of Mexico reportedly fill their tacos with?
Small fish
Bernal Díaz del Castillo recorded the first taco feast eaten by Europeans, a meal Cortés laid on for his captains in Coyoacán.
Q 05Which region's local name for the taco was 'codzito'?
Yucatán and Quintana Roo
In Guanajuato and Michoacán the same thing was called a burrito, before Mexico City's word won out.
Q 06In 2024, El Califa de León in Mexico City became the first taco stand to receive what?
A Michelin star
The stand is barely bigger than a hallway and serves just a handful of cuts of beef.
Q 07Tacos al pastor are cooked on what?
A vertical rotisserie
The spinning trompo is a direct descendant of shawarma brought by Lebanese immigrants to Puebla.
Q 08Al pastor descends from a dish brought to Mexico by immigrants from which country?
Lebanon
The Lebanese made it with lamb; Mexicans switched to pork, added adobo, and topped it with pineapple.
Q 09Which Mexican state is considered the home of tacos al pastor?
Puebla
In some regions the same taco goes by tacos de adobada or tacos árabes.
Q 10What does 'al pastor' literally mean?
Shepherd style
It comes from asado al pastor, the countryside spit-roast used at rodeos and cattle brandings.
Q 11Where did fish tacos originate?
Baja California
In the U.S. they were first popularised by the Rubio's chain and remain most popular in California, Colorado and Washington.
Q 12Which U.S. chain is credited with first popularising fish tacos north of the border?
Rubio's
The classic version: fried fish, cabbage, pico de gallo and a creamy citrus sauce.
Q 13What are tacos dorados better known as in the U.S.?
Taquitos or flautas
'Golden tacos' are rolled and fried; the flauta gets its name from its flute-like shape.
Q 21Corn for tortillas is soaked in what before being ground into masa?
Limewater
The alkaline soak, nixtamalization, loosens the hulls and unlocks the niacin that plain cornmeal cannot deliver.
Q 22Populations that ate untreated maize without nixtamalization risked which deficiency disease?
Pellagra
European settlers in the American South skipped the lime soak as unnecessary, and pellagra became endemic among the poor there.
Q 23What does the word 'tortilla' literally mean in Spanish?
Little cake
In Spain the same word means a potato omelette, which has confused many a tourist.
Q 14Why are tacos sudados called 'sweaty tacos'?
They are kept in a cloth-covered basket that traps steam
The same tacos are sold as tacos de canasta, basket tacos, by bicycle vendors in Mexico City.
Q 15Tacos de lengua are made from what?
Beef tongue
There is a saying that a taquería without lengua on the menu is not a real taquería.
Q 16What is a mulita?
Meat and cheese pressed between two tortillas
It means 'little mule'; in the south of Mexico the flour-tortilla version is called a gringa.
Q 17Birria, the stewed meat now famous in dipping tacos, comes from which Mexican state?
Jalisco
It was traditionally goat; the beef version took off in Tijuana after a taquero named Guadalupe Zárate found goat too pricey.
Q 18The quesabirria, a cheese-stuffed birria taco served with consommé, was first developed in which city?
Tijuana
It swept North America in the 2010s; a ramen version called birriamen followed in Mexico City.
Q 19How is traditional barbacoa prepared?
Slow-cooked in a pit dug in the ground
The pit is lined with agave leaves; the Nahuatl called the method nakakoyonki and the Maya píib.
Q 20Carnitas, 'little meats', are traditionally made by cooking pork in what?
Lard
Three to four hours of simmering, then a blast of heat to crisp the outside; the dish is a cousin of France's rillons de Tours.
Q 24Flour tortillas are typical of which part of Mexico?
The north
Wheat arrived with the Spanish and took root in the arid north, which is why Sonora is famous for its enormous flour tortillas.
Q 25What is the traditional stone used to grind nixtamal into masa called?
Metate
The comal is the griddle the tortilla is baked on; the molcajete is the mortar for salsa.
Q 26Where did the hard-shell, crispy taco tradition develop?
The United States
By the late 1930s, companies were selling appliances for frying shells, and the first patents came in the 1940s.
Q 27The first U.S.-published cookbook with a hard-shell taco recipe came out in 1949 in which city?
Santa Fe
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert's The Good Life: New Mexican Food got there years before Taco Bell existed.
Q 28Glen Bell got the idea for his tacos by watching queues at which restaurant across from his hot dog stand?
The Mitla Cafe
The Rodriguez family's San Bernardino café was famous for its tacos dorados, and Bell sold a simplified version.
Q 29In which California city did Glen Bell open the first Taco Bell in 1962?
Downey
The building was about the size of a two-car garage, with mission-style arches over a walk-up window.
Q 30What did Glen Bell sell before tacos?
Hot dogs
Bell's Drive-In opened in San Bernardino in 1948 after Bell served as a Marine Corps cook in World War II.