Beef Trivia
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This beef trivia quiz has 117 free questions with answers and covers the whole animal and everything people have done with it: where the word comes from, how cattle were domesticated, which primal cuts give you brisket, T-bones and filet mignon, and how USDA and Japanese grading actually work. There are questions on Wagyu and Kobe, the invention of the hamburger and the Big Mac, corned beef and pastrami, Beef Wellington and Stroganoff, mad cow disease, and dishes from Argentine asado to Korean bulgogi and Vietnamese phở. Easy questions suit a family quiz night; the hardest will test a butcher or a barbecue obsessive. Every answer has been verified against primary and encyclopaedic sources, so the production figures, dates and cuts are the real ones.
30 of 117 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The English word 'beef' ultimately comes from which Latin word?
bōs
Bōs became Old French buef and then English 'beef', which for centuries could mean the living animal as well as its meat, a wrinkle in the old tale of Norman lords dining on what Saxon peasants raised.
Q 02Which old plural of 'beef' is still used for cattle raised for meat?
Beeves
Beeves was the original plural when 'a beef' meant the animal itself, which is why ranchers and old cattle-trade writers use it; the other plural, 'beefs', is kept for complaints.
Q 03Which wild ox, shown in the cave art of Lascaux, is the ancestor of modern domestic cattle?
The aurochs
The aurochs once ranged across Europe, Asia and North Africa, but forest clearance shrank its range and hunting it became a privilege of nobles and kings, until the last herd died out in the 17th century.
Q 04In which region were cattle first domesticated, roughly 10,500 years ago?
The Near East
The Near East: DNA studies trace today's taurine cattle to a small founding herd tamed in what is now Turkey and Syria, while the humped zebu was domesticated separately in South Asia.
Q 05Which country was the world's largest beef producer in 2018, ahead of Brazil and China?
United States
The United States produced about 12 million tons of beef that year, more than Brazil, even though Brazil's cattle herd was over twice the size of the American one.
Q 06Beef ranks where among the most widely consumed meats in the world?
Third
Third: pork and poultry are both ahead, yet the world produced more beef than poultry until the mid-1990s, when chicken output overtook it and kept climbing.
Q 07Which potent greenhouse gas do cattle produce as microbes ferment grass in their stomachs?
Methane
Methane: contrary to the popular joke, almost all of it leaves the animal as burps rather than from the other end, a by-product of the fermentation that lets cattle live on grass.
Q 08India ranked among the world's top beef exporters in the 2010s, yet nearly all of that meat came from which animal?
Water buffalo
Water buffalo: its meat, sold as carabeef, falls outside the cow-slaughter bans in force across most Indian states, so a large export trade grew up around it while cow beef stayed off limits.
Q 09A cow's stomach has how many compartments?
Four
Four: the first and largest, the rumen, holds microbes that break down the tough cellulose in grass, and the cow brings the half-digested cud back up to chew it again.
Q 10Oxen, the cattle trained to pull ploughs and carts, are usually which kind of animal?
Castrated males
Castrated males: without testosterone they are docile and far safer to handle than bulls, yet they grow bigger than cows, which are in any case more valued for their calves and milk.
Q 11A cow's pregnancy lasts about as long as which other mammal's?
A human's
A human's: a cow carries her calf for about nine months, and because a dairy cow has to calve to keep giving milk, she is bred again and again through her working life.
Q 12Which primal cut is the classic choice for both Texas barbecue and corned beef?
Brisket
Brisket comes from the chest, whose muscles carry much of the standing animal's weight and are full of connective tissue, so the meat stays tough unless it is cooked long and slow.
Q 13In American butchery, T-bone and porterhouse steaks are cut from which primal?
Short loin
Short loin: both steaks are slices across the same T-shaped bone, and one only earns the name porterhouse when it comes from the thick rear end, where the smaller of its two muscles is widest.
Q 21Which sauce of butter, egg yolk and tarragon is a classic partner for steak?
Béarnaise
Béarnaise is a child of hollandaise, flavoured with shallot and tarragon; although named after the province of Béarn, it is commonly said to have been created at a restaurant near Paris in 1836.
Q 22Which dish is made from raw minced beef?
Steak tartare
Steak tartare is usually said to take its name from tartar sauce, once served alongside the raw beef; the old tale of Tartar horsemen softening meat under their saddles is only a legend.
Q 23The word 'wagyu' literally means what?
Japanese cattle
Japanese cattle: 'wa' means Japanese and 'gyu' cow, yet until the Meiji Restoration of 1868 these animals were kept to pull ploughs and carts, and their meat was rarely eaten.
Q 14Filet mignon is cut from which part of the animal?
The tenderloin
The tenderloin lives up to its name as the tenderest part of the animal, but the dish's name travels oddly: order filet mignon in France and you will usually get a cut of pork or veal rather than beef.
Q 15Which primal cut is used mostly for grinding, apart from one long, flat steak that shares its name?
Flank
Flank: its namesake steak has long, coarse muscle fibres, so cooks slice it thinly across the grain to keep it from being chewy, which is how it is served as London broil.
Q 16As a rule, beef gets more tender the farther it is from what?
Hoof and horn
Hoof and horn: the legs and neck do the most work, so cuts near them such as shank and chuck are tough, while the little-used muscles along the middle of the back give the tenderest steaks.
Q 17In USDA grading, which grade denotes beef of the highest quality with heavy marbling?
Prime
Prime demands the most marbling, the flecks of fat within the lean, and comes from young, well-fed cattle, which is why it is generally sold in upscale restaurants.
Q 18The word 'steak' is related to an Old Norse verb meaning to cook meat in which way?
Roasting on a spit
Roasting on a spit: Old Norse steik meant roast meat, from the verb steikja, and the word is kin to 'stick', the skewer that the meat was cooked on.
Q 19Which New York restaurant, opened by two Swiss brothers in 1827, gave its name to a style of steak?
Delmonico's
Delmonico's began as a small café and pastry shop and grew into a string of grand dining rooms, whose kitchens are also credited with Delmonico potatoes and Lobster Newberg.
Q 20In which South American country, known for the cattle ranches of its Pampas, is the asado barbecue a cherished tradition?
Argentina
Argentina: escaped cattle ran wild and multiplied on its grasslands, and the gauchos who hunted the herds lived almost entirely on beef.
Q 24Which of the four Wagyu breeds makes up about nine in ten of the national Wagyu herd?
Japanese Black
Japanese Black grew out of native draught cattle that were crossed with imported European breeds, until the crossing was halted around 1910 because the meat was getting worse.
Q 25In the Japanese grading system for beef, which of these is the top grade?
A5
A5: Japanese carcasses are graded twice, with a letter for how much meat they yield and a number for quality, so a 5 for quality only tops the scale when the yield earns an A as well.
Q 26Kobe beef must come from cattle raised in which Japanese prefecture?
Hyōgo
Hyōgo: the name is reserved for Tajima-strain cattle born, raised and slaughtered in the prefecture, and a local association then turns away any carcass whose marbling or grade falls short.
Q 27In which Japanese dish do diners cook paper-thin slices of beef by dipping them briefly into a pot of simmering broth?
Shabu-shabu
Shabu-shabu takes its name from the sound of the cooking pot, and each diner cooks the meat piece by piece at the table, unlike sukiyaki, which is simmered together in a sweeter sauce.
Q 28Which Chicago sandwich of thinly sliced roast beef is often dunked whole in its own cooking juices?
Italian beef
Italian beef goes back to the city's Italian-American immigrants around the 1930s, and found a new audience in the 2020s through The Bear, a TV drama set in a sandwich shop that specialises in it.
Q 29The last known wild ancestor of domestic cattle died around 1627 in which country?
Poland
It died in the forests of Mazovia, and a memorial stone now marks the spot at Jaktorów.
Q 30Angus beef cattle were first bred in the north-east of which country?
Scotland
Scotland: the breed takes its name from the counties of Aberdeen and Angus, and four bulls shipped across the Atlantic in 1873 began its spread through American ranching.