Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
48 free Brazilian Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Brazilian food is five cuisines wearing one flag: Portuguese sugar and salt cod, African palm oil and black-eyed peas, Indigenous manioc, tucupi and guaraná, Italian pasta and pizza, and the Japanese and Arab snacks of São Paulo. The national dish is a bean stew, the national cocktail is built on cane spirit, and the most famous sweet was invented to win an election. These 48 questions cover the country region by region: feijoada and brigadeiro, pão de queijo from Minas Gerais, moqueca from Bahia and Espírito Santo, acarajé, vatapá and caruru, churrasco, picanha and the rules of rodízio, açaí bowls and the numbing jambu of Pará, pequi rice in Goiás, chimarrão in the gaúcho south, and the snacks that hold it all together: coxinha, pastel, quibe and bolinhos de bacalhau. Easy questions cover the national dish, the national cocktail and cassava; the expert tier asks about the Kikongo root of quindim, the Sateré-Mawé word for guaraná, the buffalo in barreado, the clay pot of Goiabeiras and the island that sent Brazil its first sugar cane. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation. Play it solo or print it for a food night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which bean-and-meat stew is considered Brazil's national dish?
Feijoada
Feijoada, a stew of black beans with pork and beef cuts, is Brazil's national dish, served with rice, farofa, collard greens and orange slices.
Q 02What is Brazil's national cocktail?
Caipirinha
The caipirinha — cachaça, lime, sugar and ice — is Brazil's national cocktail; a 2003 federal decree fixed its legal definition as a drink made with cachaça, lime and sugar.
Q 03Cachaça, Brazil's native liquor, is distilled from what?
Fermented cane juice
Cachaça is distilled from fermented fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses, which is what separates it from most rum; Brazil makes more than a billion liters a year, nearly all consumed at home.
Q 04Brigadeiros are chocolate truffles made from cocoa powder, butter and what?
Condensed milk
Sweetened condensed milk cooked with cocoa powder and butter makes the fudge, which is rolled in chocolate sprinkles and served in paper cups at every Brazilian birthday party.
Q 05The brigadeiro was created to promote the presidential candidacy of which man?
Eduardo Gomes
Supporters of Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, the air force officer who ran for president in 1945, sold the sweets at campaign events; confectioner Heloísa Nabuco de Oliveira is credited with the recipe.
Q 06Pão de queijo gets its chewy, elastic texture from the flour of which root?
Cassava
Cassava starch (polvilho), used in both sour and sweet forms, gives pão de queijo its stretch and makes the rolls naturally gluten-free.
Q 07Pão de queijo originated in which Brazilian state?
Minas Gerais
Pão de queijo comes from Minas Gerais, where 18th-century mining settlements had little wheat and cooks made rolls from manioc starch and the region's fresh cheese.
Q 08Coxinha, the teardrop-shaped chicken croquette, literally means what?
Little thigh
Coxinha means 'little thigh' (coxa is thigh); the dough is shaped like a drumstick, and legend ties it to a son of Princess Isabel who would eat only that cut.
Q 09Moqueca is a Brazilian stew built around what?
Fish or shrimp
Moqueca is a slow-simmered stew of fish or shrimp with tomatoes, onion, garlic, lime and coriander, cooked and served in a clay pot.
Q 10Bahian moqueca is distinguished by coconut milk and which oil?
Palm oil
Moqueca baiana gets its color and flavor from dendê (red palm oil) and coconut milk; the capixaba version from Espírito Santo uses neither, coloring the stew with annatto instead.
Q 11Açaí na tigela, the açaí bowl, originated in Pará and which other state?
Amazonas
The bowl of frozen, mashed açaí palm fruit comes from Pará and Amazonas in the north; the sweetened version topped with granola and banana spread from Rio's beaches in the 1990s.
Q 12The word guaraná comes from the language of which Amazonian people?
Sateré-Mawé
The Sateré-Mawé of the lower Amazon domesticated guaraná and gave it its name (warana); their origin myth has the first plant sprouting from a buried child's eyes, matching the split fruit's eyeball look.
Q 13Picanha, Brazil's most prized beef cut, is known in the UK as what?
Rump cap
Picanha is the rump cap, the triangular muscle over the top of the rump, called top sirloin cap or coulotte in the US and cooked with its fat cap left on.
Q 21Pastéis are believed to have evolved from which dish adapted by Asian immigrants?
Fried spring rolls
Pastéis are thought to descend from fried spring rolls, adapted by Japanese and Chinese immigrants to sell at Brazilian open-air street markets (feiras) in the 20th century.
Q 22Which drink is the classic partner to a pastel at a Brazilian street market?
Caldo de cana
Pastel and caldo de cana, fresh-pressed sugarcane juice, are the classic pairing at Brazilian feiras, where pastel stands set up beside the cane presses.
Q 23The dessert Romeu e Julieta pairs cheese with a paste made from which fruit?
Guava
Q 14Traditional churrasco picanha is seasoned with just what?
Coarse sea salt
Only sal grosso, coarse sea salt, goes on picanha; the meat is curved onto a skewer, fat side out, and roasted over charcoal.
Q 15In which service style do waiters circulate with skewers of meat for one fixed price?
Rodízio
Rodízio ('rotation') means one fixed price for unlimited rounds: waiters circulate with skewers until you flip your table card to red; pizzerias and sushi bars use the same system.
Q 16Pudim de leite, a staple Brazilian dessert, is a version of which classic?
Crème caramel
Pudim de leite is a crème caramel made with sweetened condensed milk, eggs and caramelized sugar, baked in a ring mold and turned out so the caramel runs down the sides.
Q 17What is farofa?
Toasted manioc meal
It is toasted with butter or oil, bacon, onion or olives, and sprinkled on for crunch.
Q 18Vatapá's name derives from words in which African language?
Yoruba
Vatapá takes its name from Yoruba, the West African language of many enslaved people brought to Bahia; the paste blends bread, dried shrimp, coconut milk, ground nuts and palm oil.
Q 19Acarajé, the Bahian street snack, is a fried ball of which legume?
Black-eyed peas
Acarajé is a fritter of peeled, mashed black-eyed peas fried in dendê oil; Bahian baianas split it open and fill it with vatapá and dried shrimp.
Q 20Which Bahian spread of okra, dried shrimp and nuts in palm oil goes inside acarajé?
Caruru
Caruru is the Bahian okra stew: sliced okra cooked down with dried shrimp, ground nuts, onion and dendê oil until it is thick enough to spread.
Goiabada, a firm guava paste, sliced with fresh Minas cheese is the classic Romeu e Julieta; the sweet-salty pairing also fills pastries and pizzas.
Q 24Quindim is a glistening yellow custard of sugar, egg yolks and what?
Ground coconut
Ground coconut, folded into sugar and egg yolks, gives quindim its chewy base under the glossy custard; baked in a large ring mould it becomes a quindão, served in slices.
Q 25The word quindim comes from dikende in which Bantu language?
Kikongo
Quindim comes from the Kikongo word dikende, describing the charms and gestures of adolescent girls; Kikongo was spoken by many enslaved Bantu people brought to Bahia.
Q 26Pamonha, a festa junina staple, is a sweet or savoury paste boiled inside what?
Corn husks
Pamonha is grated fresh corn and milk wrapped in corn husks, tied and boiled; savoury or sweet, it is sold everywhere during June's festas juninas.
Q 27Pinhão, boiled and eaten in southern Brazil's winter, is the nut of which tree?
Araucaria
Pinhão is the seed of Araucaria angustifolia, the Paraná pine; it is boiled in salted water and eaten through the southern winter, especially around June's festas.
Q 28The Center-West's signature rice dish is seasoned with which Cerrado fruit?
Pequi
Pequi, the pungent yellow fruit of the Cerrado, flavours arroz com pequi, the signature dish of Goiás; eaters gnaw the pulp carefully because the stone is covered in fine spines.
Q 29Chimarrão, the drink associated with the gaúcho, is made from what?
Yerba mate
Chimarrão is hot yerba mate sipped through a metal bomba straw from a gourd called a cuia; tererê is the cold version favoured in Mato Grosso do Sul.
Q 30Pato no tucupi, Pará's famous duck dish, is linked to which Catholic celebration?
Círio de Nazaré
Pato no tucupi is the traditional lunch of the Círio de Nazaré, the huge October procession in Belém; the duck is boiled in tucupi and topped with jambu.