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50 free Filipino Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Filipino food is the cooking of more than a hundred ethnolinguistic groups spread across 7,000 islands, layered with Chinese noodles, Spanish stews, Mexican galleon cargo and American Spam. It runs on rice, vinegar, coconut milk and the interplay of sweet, sour and salty, and it is finally getting its due: TasteAtlas ranks sisig and chicken inasal among the world's best dishes and the Michelin Guide arrived in Manila and Cebu in 2026. These 50 questions cover the classics and the stories behind them: adobo and sinigang's rivalry for national dish, lechon and its liver sauce, kare-kare's peanut stew, the silog breakfasts, merienda and pulutan, the Christmas table of ham and queso de bola, and regional specialities from Ilocano bagnet and Kapampangan sisig to Bicol express and Cebu lechon. There are questions on street food (balut, kwek-kwek, taho, the skewers nicknamed adidas and betamax), on drinks from tuba to lambanog and San Miguel, and on history, from 11,000-year-old ube in a Palawan cave to the Manila galleons and Tom's Dixie Kitchen. Easy questions stick to the famous dishes; the expert tier asks about rice cakes, coffee varieties and the only freshwater sardine. Every answer is cited and explained.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Adobo, often called the national dish, is a stew based on soy sauce and what?
Vinegar
It keeps for days without spoiling and improves with time.
Q 02What is the fiesta centrepiece known as lechon?
A whole roasted pig
It is the centrepiece of fiesta tables, served with a sauce made from the pig's liver.
Q 03Kare-kare is an oxtail stew cooked in which kind of sauce?
Peanut
It is served with bagoong, a fermented shrimp paste.
Q 04Sinigang is traditionally soured with which fruit?
Tamarind
Guava or miso are used in some seafood versions; it rivals adobo as the national dish.
Q 05What does the word pancit refer to?
Noodles
The Chinese introduced rice noodles to the islands.
Q 06Fresh lumpia, or lumpiang sariwa, derives from which Chinese dish?
Popiah
It is served with a sweet peanut and garlic sauce.
Q 07Pinakbet, the Ilocano vegetable stew, is flavoured with what?
Shrimp paste
Squash, eggplant, okra and bitter melon go into it.
Q 08Dinuguan is a savoury stew made from what?
Pig's blood
It is often paired with puto, a sweet steamed rice cake, for contrast.
Q 09Champorado, the sweet chocolate rice porridge, is traditionally eaten with what?
Salted dried fish
Sweet and salty pairings are a guiding principle of the cuisine.
Q 10Remains of which tuber, about 11,000 years old, were found in Palawan's Ille Cave?
Ube
The purple yam is native to Island Southeast Asia.
Q 11Which people built the Banaue Rice Terraces?
The Ifugao
They used only basic tools, stone and mud walls on the mountain slopes.
Q 12The Manila galleon trade linked the Philippines with which port?
Acapulco
It brought maize, chilli, tomatoes, chocolate and pineapples from the Americas.
Q 13How much did the United States pay Spain for the Philippines in 1898?
$20 million
The islands remained a colony until 1946.
Q 14Which Manila restaurant popularised American-style fried chicken?
Q 21Kapeng barako, a strong coffee variety, is grown in the mountains of which province?
Batangas
It is a breakfast staple alongside pandesal.
Q 22Kesong puti, the fresh white cheese, is traditionally made from the milk of which animal?
Carabao
Most commercial versions now use cow's milk.
Q 23Pulutan, the word for finger food eaten with drinks, comes from a word meaning what?
To pick up
It is roughly equivalent to tapas.
Q 24How many times is chicharon fried to get its crunch?
Tom's Dixie Kitchen
Americans also introduced Spam, corned beef and evaporated milk.
Q 15In 2022, TasteAtlas ranked Filipino cuisine where in the world?
23rd
Chicken inasal and sisig were singled out among the best dishes globally.
Q 16The Philippines is the only known exporter of edible varieties of which nut?
Pili
It melts in the mouth with a milky texture and goes into desserts.
Q 17What is kamayan?
Eating with the hands
Dry dishes like inihaw are eaten with rice pressed together in the fingers.
Q 18A "boodle fight" feast is served on what?
Banana leaves
The style was popularised by the Philippine Army.
Q 19Why did the spoon and fork, not the knife, become the standard Filipino utensils?
Spanish rulers banned Filipinos from owning knives
Diners cut food with the side of the spoon instead.
Q 20In breakfast names like tapsilog and longsilog, "si" stands for sinangag, which is what?
Garlic fried rice
Tapa, longganisa and tocino supply the tap-, long- and toci- parts.
Twice
The pork rinds are boiled first; the second frying gives the golden colour.
Q 25Sisig is made mainly from which parts of the pig?
Cheek skin, ears and liver
It is boiled, grilled, then minced with onions and chillies; a Kapampangan classic.
Q 26Sisig and kare-kare are signature dishes of which regional cuisine?
Kapampangan
It comes from Pampanga and parts of Tarlac in Central Luzon.
Q 27What cheese stars on the Noche Buena Christmas table alongside ham?
Edam
Queso de bola is a popular corporate giveaway in the season.
Q 28Puto bumbong, the purple Christmas rice cake, is steamed in what?
Bamboo tubes
It is sold outside churches along with bibingka.
Q 29Ukoy are fried patties of small shrimp and shredded what?
Papaya
They are dipped in garlic vinegar and often served with fresh lumpia at parties.
Q 30Bicol express is a spicy stew of pork, chilli and what?
Coconut milk
Bicol is the region with the hottest appetite for chilli.