Vegetables
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50 free Vegetables trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Vegetables have stranger histories than their place on the dinner plate suggests. One was outlawed for a time by a European government, another gave a famous foot race its name, and a third landed a head of state in trouble with farmers. This quiz collects the best of those stories. The questions cover the plants themselves (their colours, their relatives, and what makes some of them sting, smell or bite), the dishes built on them from Louisiana to the Levant, and the towns, brands and fictional characters that vegetables have made famous. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with something to pass on. It is pitched for a mixed table: most questions can be reasoned out by a curious adult, with a handful of harder ones for keen cooks and growers. Use it for a pub round, a classroom starter or a quiet challenge of your own.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which vegetable did President George H. W. Bush refuse to eat in 1990, saying he had hated it since childhood?
Broccoli
Broccoli growers answered the president by sending 10 tons of it to the White House in trucks. The delivery never reached the menu and was donated to a Washington food bank.
Q 02The original Halloween jack-o'-lanterns of Ireland and Scotland were carved from which root vegetable?
Turnip
Turnip lanterns carved with grotesque faces lit Halloween across Ireland and Britain in the 19th century. Immigrants took the custom to the United States, where a far larger native gourd took over.
Q 03A thousand years ago, long before the orange variety took over, cultivated carrots were typically which colour?
Purple
Purple roots were the norm in the 10th century, coloured by anthocyanin pigments. Orange carrots did not become the standard until centuries later, helped along by growers in the Netherlands.
Q 04Which major US city takes its name from a Miami-Illinois word for a wild relative of the onion?
Chicago
Chicago is a French rendering of šikaakwa, the name of a pungent wild plant that grew profusely in the area. The explorer La Salle recorded the site as 'Checagou' around 1679.
Q 05Mark Twain joked that which vegetable is 'nothing but cabbage with a college education'?
Cauliflower
Cauliflower gets the line in Twain's novel Pudd'nhead Wilson, as one of the mock proverbs that open each chapter. The same entry claims the peach was once a bitter almond.
Q 06Which spring vegetable, as the novelist Marcel Proust noted, gives urine a distinctive smell soon after eating?
Asparagus
Asparagus contains asparagusic acid, which digestion breaks down into pungent sulfur compounds. The effect can be detected as little as 15 minutes after a meal.
Q 07In 1937, growers in Crystal City, Texas, put up a statue of which cartoon character for boosting their crop?
Popeye
Popeye earned the statue in 1937 because growers credited the spinach-eating sailor with making their cash crop more popular. Alma, Arkansas, disputes the town's claim to the 'capital' title.
Q 08Outside Japan, the green paste sold as wasabi is widely made from which other pungent root vegetable?
Horseradish
Horseradish stands in because true wasabi is hard to farm on a large scale, which keeps it scarce and expensive. The usual substitute blends it with mustard, starch and green colouring.
Q 09In Hans Christian Andersen's tale, a princess proves her royal blood by feeling which vegetable under her bedding?
A pea
A pea is hidden beneath twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds to test the stranger's claim. The story ends with it on display in a museum, 'where it might still remain'.
Q 10In 1948 a California growers' association gave a young Marilyn Monroe a sash naming her queen of which vegetable?
Artichoke
Artichoke Queen was the title on the sash, presented at a Kiwanis Club meeting during a week-long publicity visit. Nearby Castroville calls itself the Artichoke Center of the World.
Q 11The Caesar salad was created in 1924 by Italian-born restaurateur Caesar Cardini in which Mexican border city?
Tijuana
Tijuana drew American diners dodging Prohibition, which is why Cardini ran a restaurant there. The salad is said to have been improvised when the kitchen was overwhelmed and short on ingredients.
Q 12Louisiana gumbo can be thickened with roux, filé powder or the gooey pods of which vegetable?
Okra
Okra pods release a slippery mucilage as they cook, which gives the stew its body. The dish may well be named after it: in the Kimbundu language the plant is called ki ngombo.
Q 13Which vegetable do people in Wales traditionally wear on St David's Day, as an alternative to the daffodil?
Leek
Q 21The Greek town of Marathon, which gave the long-distance race its name, is itself named after which vegetable?
Fennel
Fennel is 'marathon' in Greek, so the site of the famous ancient battle literally means a plain with fennel.
Q 22Each 23 December, the Mexican city of Oaxaca holds a contest for scenes carved from which oversized vegetable?
Radishes
Radishes were first carved by local farmers to catch shoppers' eyes at the Christmas market, and the city made it a formal competition in 1897. The carvings wilt within hours of being cut.
Q 23Tapioca, the starch rolled into the chewy pearls of bubble tea, is extracted from which tropical root vegetable?
Cassava
Cassava starch is pressed through a sieve while still moist to form the pearls, known as boba in East Asia. The word tapioca itself comes from the Tupi language of Brazil.
Leeks became a Welsh emblem because, by tradition, Welsh troops wore them in battle to tell their own side from the enemy. The plant is also regarded as Saint David's personal symbol.
Q 14Which vegetable gives borscht, the Ukrainian soup often served with sour cream, its distinctive red colour?
Beetroot
Beetroot colours the best-known Ukrainian version, but the soup began as a sour brew of pickled hogweed, the wild meadow plant that gave the dish its Slavic name.
Q 15In Cajun and Creole cooking, the 'holy trinity' is onions, bell peppers and which third vegetable?
Celery
Celery survived from the French mirepoix that Louisiana cooks adapted. They swapped the carrots of the original for bell peppers, partly for reasons of availability and cost.
Q 16Baba ghanoush, the smoky Levantine dip served with pita bread, is made by roasting and mashing which vegetable?
Eggplant
Eggplant is charred whole over an open flame before peeling, which leaves the pulp soft and smoky. The dish's Arabic name is sometimes translated as 'pampered daddy'.
Q 17The sauce aioli takes its name from the Provençal and Catalan words for oil and which other ingredient?
Garlic
Garlic and olive oil worked into an emulsion are the whole of the classic recipe. Versions that add egg yolk and lemon juice are closer to a flavoured mayonnaise.
Q 18Pepitas, roasted as a snack and common in Mexican cooking, are the green hulled seeds of which vegetable?
Pumpkin
Pumpkin seeds have a white outer husk and are light green once it is removed. They are typically roasted, then salted and sometimes spiced.
Q 19In the animated series VeggieTales, Bob the Tomato shares hosting duties with Larry, who is which vegetable?
A cucumber
A cucumber and a tomato lead a cast of talking produce that lives on a kitchen countertop, retelling Bible stories and parodying pop culture.
Q 20Which US state, home to the Snake River Plain, puts the slogan 'Famous Potatoes' on its licence plates?
Idaho
Idaho owes its potato fame to that belt of low-lying land across the south of the state, which grows almost a third of the nation's crop.
Q 24In the Native American 'Three Sisters' method, maize and climbing beans grow alongside which third crop?
Squash
Squash sprawls between the mounds, where its wide leaves shade the ground, keeping the soil moist and the weeds down. The cornstalks, meanwhile, act as a trellis for the beans.
Q 25Which leafy Chinese cabbage has a Cantonese name that literally means 'white vegetable'?
Bok choy
Bok choy is the Cantonese baak choi, written with two characters meaning 'white vegetable'. Mandarin speakers prefer to use the very same characters for napa cabbage.
Q 26Which leafy green, known in Italy as cavolo nero, is a traditional ingredient of the Tuscan soup ribollita?
Kale
Kale of this dark Tuscan type is also sold as dinosaur kale, because its bumpy leaves are thought to resemble dinosaur skin. Ribollita, the soup's name, means 'reboiled'.
Q 27Which salad leaf is sold as 'rocket' in Britain, a name that traces back to the Latin word for caterpillar?
Arugula
Arugula reached American English from an Italian dialect. Its first known appearance in print there was a 1960 New York Times article by the food editor Craig Claiborne.
Q 28Which scale, devised by an American pharmacist in 1912, rates the heat of chilli peppers?
Scoville
The Scoville scale began as a taste test: pepper extract was diluted in sugar water until most of a panel of five trained tasters could no longer detect any heat.
Q 29An enzyme in the small intestine converts the beta-carotene in carrots into which essential nutrient?
Vitamin A
Vitamin A from carrots will not help you see in the dark unless you are deficient in it. Eat huge amounts for a long time, though, and your skin can turn a harmless yellow-orange.
Q 30Coleslaw takes its name from 'koolsla', a word meaning cabbage salad in which language?
Dutch
Dutch 'kool' sounds like 'cole', which is how the dish got its English name in the 18th century. The 'cole' half traces back to the Latin caulis, meaning a stalk or cabbage.