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50 free Cuban Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Cuban food is Spanish cooking that went to the Caribbean and picked up black beans, plantains, bitter orange and a lot of pork. A national dish called "old clothes" arrived from the Canary Islands, the rice and beans are named after Moors and Christians, and the most famous sandwich in the cuisine may have been perfected not in Havana but in the cigar towns of Florida. These 50 questions cover the plates and the glasses. On the table: ropa vieja, Moros y Cristianos and congrí, picadillo with olives and raisins, tostones pounded flat in a tostonera, yuca with mojo, vaca frita, ajiaco and the frita burger that Cuba forgot. From the bakery: Cuban bread scored with a palmetto frond and the medianoche on sweet egg bread. At the bar: the mojito's yerba buena, the daiquiri invented by a mining engineer, the Cuba libre that needed Coca-Cola to exist, Hatuey beer, Bacardi's charcoal filtration and the Havana Club trademark war. And café cubano, from espumita to colada. Easy questions stick to what is in a mojito and a Cuban sandwich; the hard tier asks which bakery first sold Cuban bread in 1896 and who notarised the birth of the Cuba libre. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Cuban cuisine is largely based on the cooking of which country?
Spain
Amerindian, African and other Caribbean influences were layered on top, with a small Chinese influence around Havana.
Q 02What does "Moros y Cristianos" literally mean?
Moors and Christians
The black beans are the Moors and the white rice the Christians, a nod to the centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia.
Q 03What distinguishes Moros y Cristianos from plain arroz con frijoles?
Beans and rice cooked in one pot
Congrí is the related name, used more often for the red-bean version eaten in eastern Cuba.
Q 04In Cuba, congrí most commonly refers to rice cooked with which legume?
Red beans
That version is traditional in the eastern part of the island.
Q 05What does "ropa vieja" literally mean?
Old clothes
The name may come from leftovers or from the tattered look of the shredded beef.
Q 06Immigrants from where are believed to have brought ropa vieja to Cuba?
The Canaries
It was first reported cooked in Cuba in 1857 and is now counted as a national dish.
Q 07Among which community did ropa vieja's slow-cooked ancestor first arise?
Sephardic Jews of Iberia
It began as a Shabbat stew called handrajos before spreading to North Africa and the Canaries.
Q 08During which era did ropa vieja largely vanish from ordinary Cuban tables?
The Special Period
After the Soviet Union fell, beef was scarce; the dish returned with legal paladares in 2010.
Q 09In which two Florida places did the Cuban sandwich likely originate?
Tampa or Key West
Both were early Cuban immigrant communities built around the cigar industry.
Q 10Which ingredient divides the Tampa and Miami versions of the Cuban sandwich?
Salami
Tampa adds Genoa salami, probably thanks to Italian neighbours in Ybor City; South Florida leaves it out.
Q 11What is the sandwich press used to toast a Cuban sandwich called?
Plancha
It is like a panini press but with no grooves, so the bread comes out flat and crisp.
Q 12Which historian said the Cuban sandwich was "born in Cuba and educated in Key West"?
Loy Glenn Westfall
Researcher Andrew Huse, by contrast, calls the modern version "an original Tampa creation".
Q 13Which cigar manufacturer founded Tampa's immigrant quarter in the mid-1880s?
Vicente Martinez-Ybor
Tens of thousands of Cuban, Spanish and Italian workers followed, turning Tampa into a city.
Q 21What are tostones?
Twice-fried plantain slices
Green plantains are fried, flattened in a tostonera, then fried again until crisp.
Q 22By what local names are tostones also known in Cuba?
Tachinos or chatinos
Patacones is the word in Ecuador, Panama and Colombia; bannann peze in Haiti.
Q 23What citrus traditionally goes into Cuban mojo sauce?
Bitter orange
Mojo marinates roast pork and is a dip for plantain chips and fried yuca.
Where did mojo sauce originally come from?
Q 14What fat does Cuban bread contain that sets it apart from French bread?
Lard or shortening
The loaves are long and somewhat rectangular, with a thin papery crust and flaky centre.
Q 15What do traditional bakers lay on Cuban bread loaves before baking to score the crust?
A palmetto frond
The moist frond leaves a shallow trench in the top crust and is removed before eating.
Q 16Which 1896 Ybor City bakery was probably the first in the U.S. to sell Cuban bread?
La Joven Francesca
Customers drove a nail into the door frame so the delivery man could hang the morning loaf on the porch.
Q 17What is a medianoche sandwich made on instead of the usual long Cuban loaf?
Sweet egg bread
The name means "midnight", after its popularity in Havana night clubs in the small hours.
Q 18The Elena Ruz sandwich pairs turkey and cream cheese with what?
Strawberry jam
It is named for the Havana socialite who talked the El Carmelo restaurant into putting it on the menu around 1930.
Q 19What does the name picadillo come from?
Picar, to mince
Cuban picadillo adds olives, capers and often raisins to the ground beef.
Q 20Which two briny ingredients are typical of Cuban picadillo?
Olives and capers
It is often served over white rice or used to stuff papa rellena and empanadas.
The Canaries
Heavy Canarian emigration carried it across the Caribbean and to Mexico.
Q 25What does "vaca frita" literally mean?
Fried cow
It is fried, shredded skirt or flank steak topped with sautéed onions and lime.
Q 26What is a frita?
A Cuban-style hamburger
Topped with shoestring fries on Cuban bread, it survives mainly in South Florida and is reportedly forgotten in Cuba itself.
Q 27Cuban ajiaco is a hearty stew built on what?
Starchy roots called viandas
Ethnologist Fernando Ortiz used the stew as a metaphor for Cuba as a melting pot.
Q 28Former Cuban president Alfredo Zayas said "ajiaco" derives from which Taíno word?
Aji, hot pepper
In Camagüey the San Juan festival opens with the making and serving of ajiaco.
Q 29Which five ingredients make up a classic mojito?
White rum, sugar, lime, soda water, mint
The mint should be bruised with a muddler to release its oils, never shredded.
Q 30Which mint is most commonly used for mojitos in Cuba?
Yerba buena
Mentha × villosa has a light minty-citrus aroma; outside Cuba stronger spearmint usually stands in.