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50 free Moroccan Food trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Moroccan food is Berber, Arab and Andalusi cooking layered over a coastline that has been making olive oil and fish sauce since the Phoenicians. It is the cuisine of the tagine and its cone lid, of couscous steamed on Fridays, of mint tea poured from a height until it foams, and of a spice blend whose name means 'head of the shop' because it holds the best of everything the merchant sells. These 50 questions cover the kitchen and the street: what a tagine actually is, where its cone-lidded pot came from, how mint tea is brewed and served, what goes into ras el hanout, harira and bissara, why pastilla is made with warqa, what preserved lemon and argan oil do, who gets served rfissa and why, how méchoui is roasted and how long it takes, and what the snail sellers and sandwich stalls of Jemaa el-Fnaa are selling. Easy questions cover couscous, tagine and tea; the expert tier asks about Tafraout, Taliouine, Igiliz, the hammam ashes of tanjia, the Roman garum factories and the Paris restaurant of Fatéma Hal. 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which steamed semolina dish is the one most people associate with Morocco?
Couscous
Steamers for it dating to the 12th century were dug up at Igiliz in the Sous valley.
Q 02A tagine is a stew and also what?
The clay pot it is cooked in
The Arabic word descends from the Ancient Greek tágēnon, a shallow clay frying pan.
Q 03The tagine's cone-lidded cooking pot is said to have originated in which Moroccan town?
Tafraout
The same Greek root gave Marrakesh its tangia jar and Tunisia its own tagine.
Q 04Moroccan mint tea is brewed from which type of tea?
Gunpowder green
Spearmint, not peppermint, is the traditional mint, and the sugar goes in generously.
Q 05Why is Moroccan tea poured from high above the glass?
To produce bubbles
Glasses are filled in two stages and the tea comes with hard sugar cones or lumps.
Q 06Tradition calls for serving a guest at least how many glasses of mint tea?
Three
The tea is drunk all day as a social act and is central to Tuareg life too.
Q 07Who traditionally prepares the mint tea offered to guests?
The head man of the family
Offering it is a sign of hospitality; in winter it may be warmed with sage, verbena or wormwood.
Q 08What does the name of the spice blend ras el hanout mean?
Head of the shop
It implies the best the seller has; every shop and family has its own mix.
Q 09By one count, as many as how many spices go into ras el hanout?
27
Cardamom, cumin, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and ginger are among the regulars.
Q 10Harira, the heavy soup, is typically eaten during Ramadan with plain bread or what?
Dates
It is also a winter dinner, and Moroccans happily eat sweet chebakia alongside it.
Q 11Bissara, the winter soup or dip, is made from which legume?
Broad beans
The name is thought to come from a Coptic word meaning 'cooked beans'.
Q 12Pastilla, the sweet-savoury pie, is made with which paper-thin dough?
Warqa
Tunisia's version is called malsouka; briwat turnovers use the same dough.
Q 13The name pastilla comes from a Spanish word meaning what?
Pill or small pastry
The p became a b in Arabic, giving bastilla.
Q 14Historian Anny Gaul traces pastilla-like recipes to 13th-century cookbooks cooking which bird?
Q 21Tanjia, the urn-cooked stew, was traditionally slow-cooked overnight in the ashes of what?
A hammam
Lamb shank, preserved lemon, cumin, garlic and saffron go into a parchment-sealed jar.
Q 22Méchoui is a whole lamb or sheep cooked how?
Spit-roasted over embers
The cavity is stitched up with ras el hanout inside and the spit turned slowly beside, not over, the coals.
Q 23Méchoui cooking time is reckoned at roughly how long per kilogram?
15 minutes
The meat is brushed with butter or oil as it cooks so the outside turns crisp and amber.
Pigeon
Cinnamon, almonds, saffron, onion and eggs, cooked in a pot and then finished in the oven.
Q 15In preserved lemons, which part is most valued?
The peel
Lemons ferment in salt brine for weeks or months; the rind ends up mildly tart and intensely lemony.
Q 16Argan oil comes from a tree native to Morocco and which neighbouring country?
Algeria
It is dipped with bread at breakfast or drizzled on couscous, and sold abroad for cosmetics.
Q 17Amlou, the breakfast spread, combines argan oil and honey with which toasted nut?
Almonds
In Shilha cooking argan oil plays the role olive oil has elsewhere in the Maghreb.
Q 18Chermoula is a marinade traditionally used on what?
Fish and seafood
Garlic, cumin, coriander, oil and lemon; it is often compared to chimichurri.
Q 19Rfissa is traditionally served to which people, because of its fenugreek?
New mothers
Fenugreek is held to help women recover from childbirth; the dish descends from the Arab tharid.
Q 20Rfissa is chicken and lentils served over which shredded flatbread?
Msemmen
It did not appear in Moroccan cookbooks until the 1990s, being a rural dish the Fessi elite ignored.
Q 24Khlea, sun-dried meat preserved in fat, keeps at room temperature for up to how long?
Two years
Strips are marinated in garlic, coriander and cumin, dried, cooked and submerged in fat.
Q 25Zaalouk is a cooked salad of tomatoes and which grilled vegetable?
Eggplant
Paula Wolfert called it one of the best of all cooked Moroccan salads.
Q 26Taktouka, typical of Taza and Fes, is a salad of tomatoes and which smoked vegetable?
Green peppers
Moroccan meals open with a run of such hot and cold salads before the tagine.
Q 27The salad bakoula, or khoubiza, is made from the braised leaves of which plant?
Mallow
Spinach or arugula can stand in, dressed with parsley, coriander, lemon, oil and olives.
Q 28The crescent pastry kaab el ghzal translates as what?
Gazelle ankles
It is stuffed with nut paste and topped with sugar; fresh fruit, not pastry, usually ends a meal.
Q 29Chebakia, the Ramadan pastry, is fried dough coated in honey and shaped like what?
A rose
It is made in big batches at the start of the month and sprinkled with sesame.
Q 30Sellou, also called sfouf, is a Ramadan sweet built on a base of what?
Roasted flour
Butter, honey, sesame and nuts are worked into it.