7 Fun Food Quizzes

I've spent half a century (yikes) writing for radio and print—mostly print. I hope to be still tapping the keys as I take my last breath.

All foodies should find these quizzes simple. Identify the correct definition and win a boost to your self-esteem!

Upmarket “Dining”

The genesis of this article was an experience I had at one of those restaurants where you have to ask the server “What’s this?” for almost every item on the menu.

That experience spawned the idea of testing the culinary vocabulary of ordinary folk, but to be far less food snobbish than questions about pork nduja or deer lichen. Go on. Give it a try. It might be fun.

The rules are simple. Something to do with the culinary arts is listed and three possible definitions are offered—only one of which is correct. The questions are grouped in small batches to allow for the insertion of images and videos. I'm told people need stimulation of a visual kind these days or they'll lose interest.

There is only one trick question. See if you can spot it.

Food Quiz #1

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Kedgeree
   • Rice, eggs, and smoked fish often served at breakfast.
   • Turkish Delight wrapped in phyllo pastry.
   • A crawfish festival held every year by radio station KEDG in Alexandria, Louisiana.
2. Nun’s Fart
   • Tripe and onions.
   • Deep-fried French pastry balls that puff up during cooking.
   • Durian fruit added as a finishing touch to raspberry sorbet.
3. Reduction
   • A cooking technique that allows restaurants to add 10 percent to the bill.
   • The process of thickening a sauce to intensify its flavour.
   • What happens to your restaurant bill when the server pours hot coffee into your lap.

Answer Key

1. Rice, eggs, and smoked fish often served at breakfast.
2. Deep-fried French pastry balls that puff up during cooking.
3. The process of thickening a sauce to intensify its flavour.

Food Quiz #2

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Succotash
   • A dish combining sweet corn and beans.
   • A cocktail of sweet vermouth and Benedictine over crushed ice.
   • A cocktail made from root beer, Pernod, and a dash of bitters.
2. Buttocktongue
   • Strips of dried ostrich or dik-dik meat.
   • Meatloaf made by a combination of rump steak and tongue.
   • A salve made from herbs such as lovage and henbane.
3. Kleftiko
   • A Greek cheese.
   • Leg of lamb baked in parchment with garlic, herbs, and lemon.
   • A recipe stolen from a friend’s cook book.

Answer Key

1. A dish combining sweet corn and beans.
2. Strips of dried ostrich or dik-dik meat.
3. Leg of lamb baked in parchment with garlic, herbs, and lemon.

Food Quiz #3

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Alewives
   • Specially trained barmaids who serve widowers.
   • Members of the herring family.
   • Insects vital to the fertilization of vines.
2. Cockaleekie
   • Roast chicken with leek, mushroom, and garlic stuffing.
   • A bladder problem caused by drinking too much fortified wine, most likely to affect men..
   • A Scottish soup.
3. Dog and Maggot
   • Sea biscuit eaten by British sailors.
   • A Korean dish typically served with fermented cabbage.
   • An unfortunately named pie served at the Dog and Maggot pub in Chartly-cum-Fotheringhay, Gloucestershire, England.

Answer Key

1. Members of the herring family.
2. A Scottish soup.
3. Sea biscuit eaten by British sailors.

Food Quiz #4

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Haggis
   • The most revolting dish ever concocted by humans.
   • The second most revolting dish ever concocted by humans.
   • A Scottish “delicacy.”
2. Welsh Rarebit
   • Grilled cheddar cheese sauce on toast.
   • An almost extinct but very tasty rodent that lives in Snowdonia.
   • An especially comely damsel who serves in a pub in Cardiff.
3. Kunga Cake
   • Cake contained in a thick chocolate shell topped with butter cream.
   • Pickled fresh ginger.
   • An East African dish made from compressing hundreds of thousands of midges.

Answer Key

1. A Scottish “delicacy.”
2. Grilled cheddar cheese sauce on toast.
3. An East African dish made from compressing hundreds of thousands of midges.

Food Quiz #5

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Bubble and Squeak
   • Fried mashed potato and cabbage.
   • A dish combining jelly and blanc mange.
   • Unleavened rice flour bread.
2. Solomon Gundy
   • Moose meat casserole.
   • A special cookie baked for Passover.
   • Pickled herring and onion.
3. Sweetbreads
   • Goat testicles.
   • Thymus or pancreas of a calf.
   • Unleavened rye cakes sprinkled with icing sugar.

Answer Key

1. Fried mashed potato and cabbage.
2. Pickled herring and onion.
3. Thymus or pancreas of a calf.

Food Quiz #6

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Hasenpfeffer
   • A Bavarian drink of peppermint schnapps and vodka.
   • Marinated rabbit cooked with onions and wine.
   • Grilled horse flank steak served with green peppercorn sauce.
2. Fricassee
   • Braised or fried meat served in a white sauce.
   • A cooking technique using smoke from apple wood chips.
   • Eggs baked with tomatoes, onions, and cheese.
3. Headcheese
   • A jellied meat loaf made up of all the parts of a pig that can’t be sold otherwise.
   • Gorgonzola before the mold sets in.
   • Gorgonzola after the mold sets in.

Answer Key

1. Marinated rabbit cooked with onions and wine.
2. Braised or fried meat served in a white sauce.
3. A jellied meat loaf made up of all the parts of a pig that can’t be sold otherwise.

Food Quiz #7

For each question, choose the best answer. The answer key is below.

1. Confit
   • A fruity dessert combining peaches, apricots, and guavas.
   • A bamboo basket used for steaming vegetables.
   • Meat that is cooked in its own fat.
2. Capers
   • What the cook gets up to after she’s been into the cooking sherry.
   • The brined and unripened flower buds of the Flinders rose.
   • Topping for a fruitcake.

Answer Key

1. Meat that is cooked in its own fat.
2. The brined and unripened flower buds of the Flinders rose.

The Trick Question

Did you catch it? It’s the one about haggis. The three questions were:

• The most revolting dish ever concocted by humans.
• The second most revolting dish ever concocted by humans.
• A Scottish “delicacy.”

All three answers are correct.

There might be a way of combining all answers to give you a cumulative score for the entire quiz, but such remains well beyond the digital skills of the quizmaster.

Bonus Factoids

“Will that be six fries with that?” Harvard Professor Eric Rimm recommends, for health reasons, restricting a serving of French fries to six (6). Who says Ivy League academics aren’t in touch with the lives of ordinary people?

The story is that, in 1789, when Marie-Antoinette was told the people had no bread, she replied, “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” This has been widely translated as “Let them eat cake.” But, the phrase was in circulation for many years before the French queen was born, and most historians agree that Marie-Antoinette almost certainly did not utter the words.

© 2018 Rupert Taylor

Comments

Susan Edwards on December 10, 2018:

My children used to sing "Hot dogs are made up of lips and eyelashes" to the Sound of Music song These are A Few of My Favourite Things. More useful parts of a cow.

Pamela Oglesby from Sunny Florida on December 08, 2018:

This was a fun quiz where I did a lot of guessing. Perhaps some traveling abroad would have improved my score, but on several questions I did have a good idea for answering.

Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on December 07, 2018:

Hi Mr. Happy. I grew up England where it was said you could eat everything a pig had to offer except its squeal. N. Americans do eat the entire cow or hog when they bite into a hot dog; they just don’t realise it.

Mr. Happy from Toronto, Canada on December 07, 2018:

Reduction: "A cooking technique that allows restaurants to add 10 percent to the bill." - That is actually correct too LOL Reduction helps thicken a sauce, bringing out the flavors but it also gets more expensive. If I'm in a restaurant kitchen an extra twenty minutes reducing your sauce, You're gonna pay for it! Haha!! Unless I invited You to come over for dinner at the house. Then, it's free.

"A jellied meat loaf made up of all the parts of a pig that can’t be sold otherwise." - You can sell them otherwise too just not to North Americans who have been here for a couple of generations. When You go to the supermarket, You only find chicken breast, chicken thighs, chicken legs. Where's the head? Where's the neck? Where are the feet? Or, do North American chickens grow without feet and head? LOL Many people don't know how to use an entire animal in North America, unless You're Native, or come from some other place (not US, or Canada). I remember when my grandma would cut the pig in the fall/winter: everything was used, from tail to snout, to feet - no waste.

Well, this was fun! I cook regulary. I worked in restaurants, I have friends who owned/own restaurants but even with all that I failed most of the quizes. It's because of all the fancy names they give to simple things. I was thickening my sauces by leaving them on low heat, before I knew about "reduction" LOL

Okay, enough of me for now. Thank You for your article and all the best!

Liz Westwood from UK on December 07, 2018:

Thanks for that. I enjoyed it, but there were some retakes!

Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on December 06, 2018:

Glad you enjoyed it Rochelle. As to the rutabaga it was banished from my life more than half a century ago. I have never missed it.

Rochelle Frank from California Gold Country on December 06, 2018:

That was fun. I actually knew about half of them and got quite a few more by dumb luck.

On the other hand, I'm not tempted to try or even taste most of them. I noticed that the poor rutabaga was once again ignored.