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40 free European Food trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Europe's food is a map of its history: a pastry that crossed a border with strike-breaking bakers, a sauce law that decides which countries may use a name, a soup that became heritage in the middle of a war, and a national dish invented by a cheese cartel with a marketing budget. These 40 questions deliberately look past the usual headline dishes of Italy, Spain and Germany and spread across more than 30 countries: the Nordics and Baltics, the Low Countries and the Alps, the Balkans, the Caucasus and the microstates. Expect dumplings and spit-baked pastries, cured fish and smoked cheeses, herbal liqueurs, royal deaths blamed on dessert, and the protected names that say exactly where a food must be made. It suits a pub quiz round, a classroom geography lesson with a food angle, or anyone who has eaten their way around a few European cities and wants to see how much stuck. Every answer comes with a short explanation and a source.
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Q 01The pH scale for acidity was introduced in 1909 by chemist Søren Sørensen at the laboratory of which Danish brewer?
Carlsberg
Carlsberg ran the research laboratory where Sørensen devised pH; what the p stands for is disputed, though 'power' begins with p in the Danish, German and French of his papers.
Q 02Danes name their flaky pastry after which city, whose bakers brought the recipe during an 1850 Danish bakers' strike?
Vienna
Vienna gives the pastry its Danish name, wienerbrød, because the owners hired Austrian bakers to break the strike and those bakers brought their laminated dough with them.
Q 03Under EU rules, a wine punch may be labelled 'Sangria' only if it was made in which two countries?
Spain and Portugal
Spain and Portugal alone may sell the red-wine-and-fruit punch under that name inside the EU; bottlers elsewhere must call theirs something else.
Q 04Austrian law requires that anything sold as Wiener schnitzel, a national dish, be made from which meat?
Veal
Veal cutlets, pounded thin and breaded, are the only legal version, and the crumbs must never be pressed in so they stay dry and puff away from the meat.
Q 05Which dish did the Swiss Cheese Union push as a national dish in the 1930s, mainly to get people eating more cheese?
Fondue
Fondue was a marketing triumph for a cartel: the Union even invented pseudo-regional recipes and took the pot to the 1939 New York World's Fair.
Q 06Haribo, maker of the first gummy bears in 1922, is a syllabic abbreviation of founder Hans Riegel's name and which city?
Bonn
Bonn supplies the last syllable of HA-RI-BO, for Hans Riegel Bonn, and the firm began in the city's Kessenich district in 1920.
Q 07Which pale, bitter vegetable was found by accident in the 1850s when chicory roots sprouted in the dark in Brussels?
Belgian endive
Belgian endive, witloof or 'white leaf' in Dutch, is still grown by forcing chicory roots in darkness, which keeps the tight heads pale and mild.
Q 08In 2022 UNESCO put the cooking culture of which Ukrainian beetroot soup on its urgent-safeguarding heritage list?
Borscht
Borscht was inscribed months after Russia's invasion, though UNESCO stressed that neighbouring countries cook it too and that no nation owns the soup.
Q 09Hagelslag, which the Dutch shake onto buttered bread at breakfast, is what?
Chocolate sprinkles
Chocolate sprinkles are a national breakfast: the name means 'hailstorm', and the Dutch also top bread with chocolate vlokken flakes and aniseed muisjes.
Q 10Bacalhau, which the Portuguese claim to cook more than 365 ways, one for each day, is which dried and salted fish?
Cod
Cod cured in salt had become a staple for ordinary Portuguese by the 1700s, shipped in from North America and later from Iceland and Norway; some say there are 1,001 recipes.
Q 11Salmiakki, Finland's beloved salty liquorice, owes its sharp kick to which compound rather than table salt?
Ammonium chloride
Ammonium chloride, or sal ammoniac, doubles as an old cough medicine, an expectorant, which is one reason the sweets taste faintly medicinal to newcomers.
Q 12Which Polish dumplings' classic 'ruskie' filling of potato and curd cheese takes its name from Ruthenia, not Russia?
Pierogi
Pierogi ruskie means 'Ruthenian pierogi', after the historic lands on Poland's old eastern borders, and foreigners routinely mistranslate the name as Russian.
Q 13Haggis, sheep's heart, liver and lungs minced with oatmeal, is traditionally cooked inside which part of the animal?
The stomach
Q 21Which Viennese cake was fought over in court until 1963 by the hotel that created it and the Demel patisserie?
Sachertorte
Sachertorte's verdict split the difference: the hotel won the word 'Original', while Demel was upheld on the number of sponge layers, making its version with one.
Q 22Pastel de nata tarts were first baked by monks in which Lisbon parish, whose name still brands the originals?
Belém
Belém's Jerónimos monks baked them, and the pastéis de Belém sold beside their old cloister today still claim that original recipe.
Q 23The Röstigraben, a 'ditch' named after a potato dish, divides German-speaking Swiss from speakers of which language?
French
The stomach made a handy pot: offal spoils fast, so hunters could cook it in the animal's own paunch, though modern haggis usually goes into an artificial casing.
Q 14Chef Joe Sheridan devised Irish coffee in the 1940s to warm passengers at which Irish flying-boat terminal near Shannon?
Foynes
Foynes sat about 15 kilometres from today's Shannon Airport, and Sheridan later emigrated to serve his whiskey-laced coffee at the Buena Vista Cafe.
Q 15Which Irish potato griddle cake stars in a rhyme warning that a woman who cannot make it 'will never get a man'?
Boxty
Boxty is built on finely grated raw potato, and the verse runs in full: 'Boxty on the griddle, boxty on the pan; if you can't make boxty, you'll never get a man.'
Q 16Which cream-filled Swedish bun does popular myth blame for King Adolf Frederick's death after a huge 1771 meal?
Semla
Semla was the king's favourite dessert, and legend says he ate it after sauerkraut, turnips, caviar, smoked herring and champagne before dying of digestion problems.
Q 17Which Swedish coffee-and-pastry break is so much an institution that some employment contracts explicitly include it?
Fika
Fika traditionally falls at set times, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and helps keep Sweden among the world's heaviest coffee drinkers per head.
Q 18Which Dutch treat, two thin discs glued with caramel syrup, was first made in Gouda by bakers sweetening their crumbs?
Stroopwafel
Stroopwafels emerged in Gouda in the late 18th or early 19th century, and by 1960 that one town had 17 factories turning them out.
Q 19Dutch bitterballen, crisp-coated balls of meat ragout served in bars with toothpicks, are dipped in what?
Mustard
Mustard arrives in a small ramekin alongside, and the balls hide a soft roux-thickened filling that scalds anyone who bites too soon.
Q 20The Liège waffle differs from the lighter, rectangular Brussels waffle by having what caramelise inside its dough?
Pearl sugar
Pearl sugar nuggets caramelise on the iron, giving the Liège waffle a chewier, stickier bite that locals eat plain rather than under toppings.
French-speaking Romandy sits across the 'Rösti ditch', a term coined during World War I, while the Italian-speaking line to Ticino is the Polentagraben.
Q 24Which Hungarian deep-fried flatbread is named for 'flame', having once been baked while the oven was still heating up?
Lángos
Lángos comes from láng, the Hungarian for flame; today it is fried in oil rather than baked and piled with sour cream, grated cheese and garlic.
Q 25Adjarian khachapuri, Georgia's boat-shaped cheese bread, is served with a knob of butter and what in the middle?
An egg yolk
An egg yolk sits in the molten cheese, and the boat shape is said to stand for Adjara's Black Sea coast, with the yolk playing the sun.
Q 26Which Russian pancakes were traditionally eaten twice a day during Maslenitsa, the 'butter week' that precedes Lent?
Blini
Blini marked the end of winter: served with salt herring, caviar or smoked salmon, sour cream and melted butter, they were the last indulgence before the fast.
Q 27Lithuania's national dish, oval potato dumplings stuffed with meat, was renamed in 1900 in honour of a pioneer of what?
Zeppelin airships
Zeppelin airships gave cepelinai their modish name; before Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's fame they were didžkukuliai, or 'dumb-bells'.
Q 28Riga Black Balsam, Latvia's bitter herbal liqueur, was first mixed in 1752 by Abraham Kunze, a man of which trade?
Apothecary
An apothecary's tonic it remained for years: Kunze advertised its 'healing properties' in a 1762 newspaper and sold it in wax-sealed flasks stamped with his initials.
Q 29Iceland's caraway schnapps brennivín earned which grim nickname, helped by the skull once printed on its state label?
Black Death
Black Death, svarti dauði in Icelandic, stuck after the state demanded a stark black-and-white label to discourage drinking when spirits were re-legalised.
Q 30Laverbread, which the actor Richard Burton called 'Welshman's caviar', is a purée of what?
Seaweed
Seaweed called laver is boiled for hours into a dark paste, then rolled in oatmeal and fried with bacon and cockles for a Welsh breakfast.