80 free World Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This world food trivia quiz takes you around the globe one plate at a time. You will find the national dishes (poutine, haggis, feijoada, koshary, jollof rice, adobo), the food that turned out to come from somewhere unexpected (the croissant, ketchup, chicken tikka masala), the dishes UNESCO has declared cultural heritage, and the ones that get banned from planes, hotels and entire trading blocs. There are questions on the ingredients that changed the world too: where the potato, tomato and chili pepper started out, which country grows most of the world's saffron and coffee, and the enslaved boy whose trick made vanilla a global crop. The mix runs from easy questions anyone who eats out will get, to expert ones about who invented what and when. Every answer has been checked against a reliable source, so it is safe to use for a pub quiz, a classroom geography lesson or a dinner-party argument.
30 of 80 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Poutine, the dish of fries, cheese curds and hot gravy, was created in the late 1950s in which country?
Canada
It came out of the Centre-du-Québec region and was mocked for years; in 2007 a CBC poll ranked it among the greatest Canadian inventions.
Q 02Which savoury pudding of sheep's heart, liver and lungs is the centrepiece of a Burns supper?
Haggis
The supper falls on or near 25 January, Robert Burns's birthday. Since 1971 the real thing has been illegal to import into the US because of a ban on food containing sheep lung.
Q 03In which city is chicken tikka masala, hailed in 2001 as 'a true British national dish', thought to have been invented?
Glasgow
The usual credit goes to Ali Ahmed Aslam of the Shish Mahal restaurant, who supposedly added a tomato-cream sauce for a customer who found his chicken too dry.
Q 04The croissant is descended from the kipferl, a crescent pastry from which country?
Austria
An Austrian officer, August Zang, opened a Viennese bakery in Paris in 1838 or 1839, and the French laminated-dough version grew from there.
Q 05The word ketchup most likely comes from Hokkien Chinese words for the brine of what?
Pickled fish
The first tomato ketchup recipe did not appear until 1812, when James Mease published one in America.
Q 06From the 1600s, ketchup in Britain was made mainly from which ingredient?
Mushrooms
Mushroom ketchup is still sold in the UK; the tomato version is an American invention of the early 1800s.
Q 07Pavlova, the meringue dessert, is claimed as a national dish by Australia and which other country?
New Zealand
A recipe for "Strawberries Pavlova" ran in the New Zealand Herald as early as 11 November 1911, which the Kiwis consider decisive.
Q 08In 2022 UNESCO listed which country's borscht-cooking culture as heritage in need of urgent safeguarding?
Ukraine
The listing came shortly after the Russian invasion. The soup's name predates the beetroot: it originally referred to a soup of pickled hogweed.
Q 09Injera, the spongy sour flatbread of Ethiopia and Eritrea, is traditionally made from which grain?
Teff
The bread doubles as plate and cutlery: stews are ladled onto it and diners tear off pieces to scoop them up.
Q 10Ceviche joined UNESCO's heritage list in December 2023 as a traditional dish of which country?
Peru
Peru had already declared it national heritage and gave it its own holiday, National Ceviche Day on 28 June.
Q 11Kimjang, the communal autumn making of which fermented dish, was recognised by UNESCO in 2013?
Kimchi
There are more than 180 recognised varieties, and in 2008 a bacteria-free version was engineered so astronaut Yi So-yeon could take it into space.
Q 12The red, white and green of a pizza Margherita are popularly said to represent what?
The Italian flag
The legend has the pizza made for Queen Margherita of Savoy on 10 June 1889, though historians note similar pizzas existed decades earlier.
Q 13Which Neapolitan pizzaiolo is credited by legend with creating the pizza Margherita in 1889?
Raffaele Esposito
Q 21Pho, the broth-and-rice-noodle soup usually made with beef, comes from which country?
Vietnam
One theory ties the name to the French pot-au-feu, since beef became common there under French rule; refugees carried the soup around the world after 1975.
Q 22Residents of which northern city are credited as the first to create pho, in the early 1900s?
Nam Dinh
It reached Hanoi soon after and became a street food there before spreading south.
Q 23The friendly "Jollof wars" over the best jollof rice are fought mainly between Nigeria and which country?
Ghana
The dish itself is named for the Wolof people of Senegal, whose Jolof Empire ruled the region from about the 12th century.
The Royal Palace of Capodimonte commissioned it. Lombardi, by contrast, is the man usually credited with opening America's first pizzeria in New York.
Q 14In the strictest Neapolitan tradition there are only two true pizzas: the Margherita and which other?
Marinara
The marinara has no cheese at all, just tomato, garlic, oregano and oil. Neapolitan pizza has been an EU traditional speciality guaranteed since 2010.
Q 15The name of the dessert tiramisu translates from Italian as what?
Pick me up
The lift comes from espresso-soaked savoiardi biscuits layered with mascarpone and dusted with cocoa.
Q 16In which city was tiramisu reportedly invented at Ado Campeol's restaurant Le Beccherie in 1969?
Treviso
His wife Alba di Pillo and pastry chef Roberto Linguanotto get the credit; the restaurant is still there.
Q 17The Turkish word döner, as in döner kebab, comes from a verb meaning what?
To rotate
The meat cooks on a vertical rotisserie; the sandwich version we know today was popularised by Turkish immigrants in 1970s West Berlin.
Q 18Currywurst was invented in 1949 by Herta Heuwer, who sold it from a stand in which city?
Berlin
She got the ketchup (or possibly Worcestershire sauce) and curry powder from British soldiers. Germany now eats an estimated 800 million currywursts a year.
Q 19Which country's Cheese Union promoted fondue as a national dish in the 1930s?
Switzerland
The union was a cartel trying to sell more cheese; it later pitched fondue to Americans at the 1964 New York World's Fair.
Q 20What is the name of the communal pot in which fondue is served?
Caquelon
It sits over a small portable stove so the cheese and wine mixture stays liquid throughout the meal.
Q 24"Paella" is the Valencian word for what?
Frying pan
The dish grew up around Valencia's Albufera lagoon in the mid-1800s and is one of the region's identifying symbols.
Q 25Which of these belongs in a traditional paella valenciana, according to Valencian cooks?
Rabbit
The classic version uses rabbit, chicken, duck, snails and beans; seafood, in the words of purists, is absolutely out of the question.
Q 26What is the single defining component of sushi?
Vinegared rice
The dish evolved from narezushi, fish fermented in rice for preservation; the rice was originally thrown away and only later became the point.
Q 27Nigiri sushi, seafood on hand-pressed rice, was invented around 1824 by which Edo-period cook?
Hanaya Yohei
It was fast food for Edo's workers, sold from stalls; the pieces were far larger than the modern two-bite version.
Q 28Which country produces around 90% of the world's saffron?
Iran
Premium saffron regularly sells for more than US$5,000 a kilogram, which makes it the most expensive spice by weight.
Q 29Roughly how many crocus flowers does it take to produce one kilogram of saffron?
150,000
Each flower yields just three crimson threads, all picked by hand, which is the whole reason for the price.
Q 30Which pungent 'king of fruits' is banned from hotels and public transport in Singapore?
Durian
The smell can linger for days. Thailand was the world's top exporter as of 2018.