Food and drink quiz questions for your next round

Food and drink is one of the most reliable quiz topics going. Everyone eats, most people drink, and there's a near-endless supply of trivia hiding behind every dish and cocktail. These 29 questions cover world cuisine, drinks, and the food history stories that sound made up but check out, organised roughly from easy to hard so you can build a round for any crowd.

Feel free to lift these straight into your own quiz, or use our quiz creator to build a custom round around them.

World Cuisine

Start here with dishes and ingredients most tables will have at least a guess at.

1Which country is generally credited as the birthplace of paella?

Answer:Spain (specifically the Valencia region)(click to reveal)

2Kimchi, made from salted and fermented cabbage, is the national dish of which country?

Answer:South Korea(click to reveal)

3Halloumi cheese has protected status as a traditional product of which Mediterranean island?

Answer:Cyprus(click to reveal)

Traditional halloumi is made mostly from sheep's and goat's milk. Under its EU-protected status, it has to contain at least 51% of the two combined, according to the official rules.

4Emmental, the cheese famous for its large holes, originally comes from which country?

Answer:Switzerland(click to reveal)

5Tempeh, a cake made from fermented soybeans, is a traditional food of which country?

Answer:Indonesia(click to reveal)

6Most of what's sold as "wasabi" outside Japan isn't actually wasabi. What vegetable is it usually made from instead, with green dye added?

Answer:Horseradish (genuine wasabi is one of the most expensive crops in the world to grow, so cheaper horseradish substitutes are far more common)(click to reveal)

7Sushi didn't start out as a way to eat raw fish. The rice was originally there to do what, before being thrown away?

Answer:Ferment and preserve the fish (the fermented rice wasn't eaten at all in the earliest versions, only the cured fish was)(click to reveal)

8Chicken tikka masala is sometimes called Britain's true national dish, despite tasting like an Indian curry. Which country's cuisine is it usually credited to inventing?

Answer:Britain (specifically, one popular origin story points to a restaurant in Glasgow in the 1970s, though the exact history is disputed)(click to reveal)

Drinks and Cocktails

From cocktail basics to a few things you probably didn't know about your coffee.

9Which spirit forms the base of a classic Mojito?

Answer:White rum(click to reveal)

10A Moscow Mule is traditionally made with vodka, lime juice, and which fizzy drink?

Answer:Ginger beer(click to reveal)

11Tequila can legally only be made from one specific type of agave plant, grown in Mexico. What's it commonly known as?

Answer:Blue agave (or Blue Weber agave)(click to reveal)

12A Bloody Mary is traditionally built on vodka and which savoury juice?

Answer:Tomato juice(click to reveal)

13The name of this sparkling wine is legally protected, so it can only be used for wine made in one specific region of France. Name the drink.

Answer:Champagne(click to reveal)

14For more than 140 years, Campari got its distinctive red colour from crushed insects rather than any plant or artificial dye. What's the ingredient called?

Answer:Cochineal (the company switched to artificial colouring around 2006)(click to reveal)

15Which country is the world's largest producer of coffee?

Answer:Brazil(click to reveal)

16What's the name of the world's most expensive coffee, made from beans that have passed through the digestive system of a civet?

Answer:Kopi luwak(click to reveal)

Food History and Trivia

The origin stories and odd facts that make great "did you know" moments between rounds.

17The sandwich is said to be named after an English nobleman who didn't want to leave the card table to eat. What was his title?

Answer:The Earl of Sandwich (John Montagu; historians think he probably didn't invent it so much as popularise it among the English gentry)(click to reveal)

18Ketchup didn't start out as a tomato sauce at all. Its name comes from an Asian sauce originally made from what?

Answer:Fermented fish (the word likely comes from a Hokkien Chinese term for fish sauce, which British traders encountered while travelling through Vietnam and nearby countries)(click to reveal)

19Sealed pots of honey thousands of years old have been discovered still perfectly edible in the tombs of which ancient civilisation?

Answer:Ancient Egypt (including in Tutankhamun's tomb)(click to reveal)

20This yellow fruit, eaten by the bunch, technically meets the botanical definition of a berry. Name it.

Answer:The banana(click to reveal)

21Legend says a certain pizza was named after a queen who tasted it in 1889, with its toppings chosen to match her country's flag. Which country was she queen of?

Answer:Italy (the pizza is Margherita, and food historians now think the story was likely invented decades after the fact)(click to reveal)

22A popular myth credits one 13th-century explorer with bringing pasta back from China to Italy, even though Italians already had it for centuries. Name him.

Answer:Marco Polo(click to reveal)

23Saffron, the world's most expensive spice by weight, comes from the dried stigmas of which flower?

Answer:The crocus (specifically Crocus sativus, and it takes around 70,000 flowers to produce just one pound of saffron)(click to reveal)

Tougher Questions to Finish

Save these for the specialists, or use them as tie-breakers.

24The croissant is thought of as quintessentially French, but the pastry it evolved from actually originated in which country?

Answer:Austria (it developed from a crescent-shaped pastry called the kipferl, brought to Paris by an Austrian baker in the 1830s)(click to reveal)

25Peanuts aren't technically nuts at all. What food family do they actually belong to?

Answer:Legumes (the same family as peas and beans)(click to reveal)

26Which pepper held the Guinness World Record for hottest in the world before being dethroned by "Pepper X" in 2023?

Answer:The Carolina Reaper(click to reveal)

27Narezushi, the ancestor of modern sushi, is thought to have originated not in Japan but in which broad region of the world?

Answer:Southeast Asia (likely around the Mekong river basin, as a way of preserving freshwater fish)(click to reveal)

28Which country overtook France to become the world's largest wine producer in 2024?

Answer:Italy(click to reveal)

29Nearly a third of the world's cocoa comes from a single West African country. Name it.

Answer:Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire)(click to reveal)

Tips for Running a Food and Drink Round

Pair it with a tasting round if you can. Even a small plate of samples or a blind taste test alongside the questions makes food and drink rounds feel like an event rather than just another set of trivia.

Watch for dietary landmines. A few of these questions touch on animal products or alcohol, so if you're running a family or workplace quiz, swap out anything that might make someone uncomfortable answering out loud.

Don't over-rely on one region. It's tempting to lean heavily on European food history since it's so well documented, but mixing in dishes from Asia, Africa, and the Americas keeps the round from feeling narrow.

Use it as a palate cleanser. A lighter food and drink round works well between two more serious rounds like history or science. For more on structuring a full quiz night, see our guide on how to run a great pub quiz.