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98 free Forbidden Foods trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
14 free Forbidden Foods trivia questions with answers. Challenge yourself with our Forbidden Foods trivia quiz featuring 14 intriguing questions about foods banned across different cultures and countries. From religious restrictions to government prohibitions, discover fascinating facts about the world's most forbidden delicacies. See how many questions you can answer correctly!
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Q 01Which of these fish fails the kosher test for want of scales?
Catfish
Kashrut demands both fins and easily removable scales; catfish have no scales at all.
Q 02Which two major religions forbid eating pork outright?
Judaism and Islam
Judaism and Islam both forbid pork: Leviticus 11 bars the pig because it does not chew the cud, and the Quran (2:173) names swine flesh among the prohibited foods.
Q 03Why do many Jains avoid root vegetables such as potatoes, onions and garlic?
Harvesting them harms tiny organisms.
Root vegetables are classed as anant-kay, 'infinite-bodied' plants, so eating a single potato is held to destroy an infinite number of souls.
Q 04What common food combination is strictly prohibited in Jewish dietary laws (Kashrut)?
Meat and dairy products
Observant Jews keep separate sets of dishes for the two, and the Shulchan Aruch recommends waiting six hours after meat before eating dairy.
Q 05What kind of bread does the Jewish festival of Passover ban from the table?
Leavened bread
Chametz, leavened grain, is off-limits in memory of the Israelites fleeing Egypt too fast for their dough to rise.
Q 06Which roe-prized fish is non-kosher for most Orthodox authorities because its scales can't be removed cleanly?
Sturgeon
Sturgeon carry bony scutes rather than scales that lift off without tearing the skin, so most Orthodox authorities rule the fish, and its caviar, non-kosher.
Q 07What are foods with neither meat nor dairy, edible with either under Jewish dietary law, called?
Pareve
In kashrut, 'pareve' refers to neutral foods that contain neither meat nor dairy ingredients, such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, and fish, and can therefore be eaten with either meat or dairy meals.
Q 08In Islam, what is the term for foods that are permissible to eat?
Halal
Halal means 'permissible' in Arabic; the Quran contrasts it with haram, the forbidden or unlawful, and both terms cover far more than food.
Q 09What process does kosher butchery use to remove the blood from meat?
Salting
Salting, or melicha: after a half-hour soak the meat is covered in coarse salt for about an hour to draw out the blood, then rinsed.
Q 10A 2008 rabbinical ruling found which long-necked animal, and its milk, eligible to be considered kosher?
The giraffe
The giraffe: in 2008 Israeli veterinarians and rabbis examined a Safari Ramat Gan giraffe and found its milk curdles, the rabbinic test that confirmed the animal's kosher status.
Q 11In Jewish dietary law, what two features must a land mammal have to count as kosher, as cows and sheep do?
It must chew cud and have split hooves.
It must chew cud and have split hooves: Leviticus 11 requires both signs, which is why the pig, with split hooves but no cud, fails.
Q 12Alongside meat, fish, eggs and alcohol, which sweet food is strictly prohibited in the Jain diet?
Honey
Honey is forbidden because gathering it is seen as violence against bees and their larvae; mushrooms and other fungi are likewise off the Jain menu.
Q 13Which of these animals' milk is forbidden under Jewish kosher law, because the animal itself fails one of the two signs?
The camel
Q 21French gourmands traditionally eat the ortolan bunting with what over their heads?
A napkin
A napkin: diners drape a large napkin over their heads, a ritual said either to hide the shame from God or to trap the bird's aroma.
Q 22Before cooking, ortolans are traditionally drowned in which spirit?
Armagnac
Armagnac: the fattened birds are traditionally drowned in the Gascon brandy and roasted whole; France outlawed ortolan hunting in 1999, though poaching continued for years.
Q 23Which French president's last New Year's Eve meal in 1995 famously included ortolan?
François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand ate ortolan at his last New Year's Eve feast on 31 December 1995 and died of cancer eight days later, on 8 January 1996.
The camel chews its cud but has no cloven hooves, so the Torah names it alongside the hyrax, the hare and the pig as animals with only one of the two required signs.
Q 14What was the main point of contention in the historical debate over whether swordfish is kosher?
Whether it keeps its scales as an adult
Whether it keeps its scales as an adult: young swordfish carry scales, but adults shed them, which is why most Orthodox authorities rule the fish non-kosher.
Q 15Kinder Surprise eggs are barred from the US under a law from which year banning objects embedded in confectionery?
1938
The 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act bans confectionery with a non-nutritive object embedded in it, which keeps the toy-in-the-middle Kinder Surprise out of the US.
Q 16In 2011, US border agents threatened a Canadian with what fine for one Kinder Surprise egg?
C$300
The FDA's import alert warns that consumers 'may unknowingly choke' on the toy.
Q 17Casu martzu, a Sardinian cheese banned across the EU, contains what?
Live fly maggots
Larvae of the cheese fly are introduced on purpose to ferment the pecorino from within.
Q 18French law defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by what process?
Gavage
Gavage, force-feeding by tube, is written into the French rural code's definition of foie gras; it swells the liver to as much as ten times its normal size.
Q 19The toxin in unripe ackee fruit, which is behind Jamaican vomiting sickness, is called what?
Hypoglycin
Hypoglycin A, concentrated in the unripe aril, blocks fatty-acid metabolism and causes the severe hypoglycaemia of Jamaican vomiting sickness; only ripe, naturally opened fruit is safe.
Q 20The ackee's scientific name honours which naval captain who took the fruit from Jamaica to Kew in 1793?
William Bligh
The same Bligh whose crew mutinied on HMS Bounty four years earlier.
Q 24The FDA banned sassafras oil from mass-produced foods in 1960, killing off its use in which drink?
Root beer
Root beer had been flavoured with sassafras root since the 19th century; its main constituent, safrole, proved carcinogenic in rats, so makers switched to safrole-free extracts or artificial flavour.
Q 25In 2012, China's government pledged to ban shark fin soup from what?
Official banquets
Official banquets: in July 2012 China's State Council said shark fin would be dropped from government receptions within three years, part of an austerity drive aimed at officials.
Q 26The sale of chewing gum has been illegal in which country since 1992?
Singapore
Singapore banned the sale of chewing gum in January 1992 after vandals jammed MRT train door sensors with it; medicinal gum was allowed again from 2004.
Q 27The EU banned jelly mini-cups after choking deaths linked to which gelling agent?
Konjac
Konjac, a glucomannan gel that does not dissolve in the mouth, was blamed for children's choking deaths; the EU banned it from jelly mini-cups in 2003, after US FDA warnings in 2001.
Q 28Which luxury food did the US ban importing in 2005 because its source is critically endangered?
Beluga caviar
Beluga caviar: in 2005 the US Fish and Wildlife Service banned imports of beluga sturgeon meat and roe from the Caspian Sea, and CITES halted Caspian caviar exports in 2006.
Q 29Iceland's fermented delicacy hákarl is made from which species, whose fresh flesh is poisonous?
The Greenland shark
The Greenland shark: its fresh flesh is laced with urea and trimethylamine oxide, so the meat is buried to ferment for six to twelve weeks, then hung to dry for months.
Q 30Which celebrity chef called fermented shark 'the single worst, most disgusting' thing he'd eaten?
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Bourdain, after tasting hákarl in Iceland for No Reservations, called it 'the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing' he had ever eaten.