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40 free Scottish Food trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Scotland eats like nowhere else: a pudding addressed in verse, a soft drink that outsells Coca-Cola at home, a chocolate bar dropped in the chip-shop fryer, and a dozen foods with legal protection for their names. The stories behind them are as good as the dishes. These 40 questions cover the classics and the next layer down: what goes into the soups, pies and puddings, where the protected products must be made, how the sweets got their names, and what really happened at the Burns supper, the porridge championship and the V-bomber base. Play it solo, set it for a Burns Night or Hogmanay crowd, or print it for a pub round. No recipes required, and every answer comes with an explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which London store claims to have invented the Scotch egg, a snack with no proven Scottish origin, in 1738?
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason claims to have invented the Scotch egg at Piccadilly in 1738. A Yorkshire account instead says it began in Whitby, covered in fish paste rather than sausage meat.
Q 02Haggis hurling, a Highland games event whose record throw was 66 metres in 2011, began in 1977 as what?
A practical joke
Haggis hurling was a practical joke: publicist Robin Dunseath admitted in 2004 that he invented it for the 1977 Gathering of the Clans in Edinburgh. Lorne Coltart set the 217-foot record at Milngavie in 2011.
Q 03Which dish did a 2009 Scottish Daily Express survey find a third of Scots eat every week?
Mince and tatties
Mince and tatties beat smoked salmon, haggis and Scotch pies to the top of the poll, a legacy of its years as a school-canteen staple. Cooks thicken it with flour, oatmeal or cornflour.
Q 04Buckfast, the caffeinated tonic wine notorious in Scotland, was first made by monks in which English county?
Devon
Devon's Buckfast Abbey monks first made the tonic wine in the 1890s, selling it as a medicine with the slogan 'Three small glasses a day, for good health and lively blood'. The green UK bottle is 15% alcohol.
Q 05Why did A.G. Barr have to rename its Iron Brew drink as Irn-Bru in 1946?
Labels had to be literally true
Labels had to be literally true under a 1946 law, and Iron Brew contained little iron and was not brewed. Rivals still sell generic 'Iron Brew', while only Barr can use the trademark spelling.
Q 06Which north-east harbour town's Haven Chip Bar claims it served the first deep-fried Mars bar in 1992?
Stonehaven
Stonehaven's John Davie claims he invented the deep-fried Mars bar in 1992 at the Haven, now the Carron Fish Bar, which hangs a banner calling itself its birthplace. Mars said only that it was the most unusual way of enjoying the bar.
Q 07A decorated shortbread called 'dreaming bread' was traditionally broken over whose head at a doorway?
A new bride
A new bride had the infar-cake, or dreaming bread, broken over her head on entering her new home. Shortbread was a luxury kept for weddings, Christmas and Hogmanay.
Q 08Scottish tablet is boiled from butter and condensed milk like fudge; how does the finished sweet differ?
It is harder and grainier
It is harder and grainier: tablet is boiled to the soft-ball stage and allowed to crystallise, where fudge stays soft. F. Marian McNeill traced tablet to Lady Grisell Baillie's household book of the early 1700s.
Q 09Lees' macaroon bar was born in 1931 when John Lees rolled a failed fondant bar in what?
Coconut
Coconut rescued the bar: Lees had failed to make a smooth chocolate fondant above his family's Coatbridge shop, so he coated it in coconut as an experiment. Scottish macaroon fondant is traditionally a potato paste, not almonds.
Q 10Which Scottish snack, a favourite of RAF V-bomber crews, was banned in 1965 after one exploded in a cockpit?
Tunnock's Teacake
Tunnock's Teacake marshmallow domes expanded at altitude, and an unwrapped one burst over the instrument panel, prompting the ban. Dancers dressed as teacakes opened the 2014 Commonwealth Games; the RAF cleared them to fly in 2025.
Q 11Which prime minister sent a rumbledethumps recipe, calling it his favourite food, to a school cookbook?
Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown sent his recipe to Donaldson's School for the Deaf in January 2009, championing the Borders dish of potato and cabbage. It is Scotland's cousin of Irish colcannon and English bubble and squeak.
Q 12Lorne sausage, the square slice of a full Scottish breakfast, differs from ordinary sausages in lacking what?
A casing
A casing is absent: the meat, rusk and spices are packed into a rectangular tin and sliced, so the 'sausage' holds its shape only by being tightly packed. It was advertised in 1892, before the comedian Tommy Lorne was famous.
Q 13Why is the soft top crust of a Scotch pie set about a centimetre below the pastry rim?
Q 21Partan bree, a north-east fishing-port soup, takes its name from the Scots and Gaelic word for which shellfish?
Crab
Crab is 'partan', and 'bree' is Scots for a brew or soup; rice thickens the dish. It is traditionally enriched with milk or cream.
Q 22Legend says the 1st Earl of Atholl ended a 1475 Highland rebellion by spiking what with Atholl brose?
The rebel leader's well
The rebel leader's well was laced with the whisky, honey and oatmeal drink, and the inebriated enemy was captured. Atholl brose is also an alternative name for the dessert cranachan.
Q 23Which soft Highland cheese is recommended before a ceilidh because it supposedly softens the effects of whisky?
Crowdie
To hold beans, mash or gravy
To hold beans, mash or gravy: the sunken lid makes a well for toppings, traditionally eaten with a cup of Bovril at football grounds. Scottish Bakers have crowned a World Champion Scotch pie every year since 1999.
Q 14Which dried fruit did the original cock-a-leekie recipe add, and traditionalists still julienne as a garnish?
Prunes
Prunes went into the original cock-a-leekie, a leek-and-chicken soup that probably began in France before Scots swapped in leeks. Its first recipe was printed in 1598, though the name took until the 18th century to appear.
Q 15Scotch broth, built on mutton or beef, root vegetables and split peas, takes its body from which grain?
Barley
Barley is the backbone, earning the soup its other name of barley broth. Maria Rundell's early-19th-century 'Scotch Mutton Broth' simmered mutton neck for hours before adding pre-soaked Scotch barley.
Q 16Which Moray fishing village names Scotland's smoked-haddock soup and hosts its World Championships?
Cullen
Cullen skink is a soup of smoked haddock, milk and potato, and the village stages the Cullen Skink World Championships each year. Old recipe books specify Finnan haddie, the cold-smoked haddock of Findon, as the fish to use.
Q 17The Arbroath smokie, a PGI-protected smoked haddock, is said to have originated in which nearby fishing village?
Auchmithie
Auchmithie, three miles north-east of Arbroath, claims the smokie via a legend of a store fire that cooked barrels of salted haddock. Its fisherfolk brought the recipe to Arbroath when the council offered them land in the late 1800s.
Q 18Stornoway black pudding, PGI-protected since 2013 against 'impostor puddings', comes from which island group?
The Western Isles
The Western Isles won protection in May 2013 after puddings labelled Stornoway were being made elsewhere. The recipe uses beef suet, oatmeal and blood, with the Scottish oatmeal giving its rough texture.
Q 19Legend says Dundee cake was first made for Mary, Queen of Scots because she disliked which cake ingredient?
Glacé cherries
Glacé cherries were what Mary supposedly refused, so the cake was topped with blanched almonds instead. Keiller's marmalade firm mass-produced it in Dundee and is credited with coining the name.
Q 20Janet Keiller's 1797 refinement of Dundee marmalade, thought to aid digestion, is credited with adding what?
Thin strips of peel
Thin strips of peel made Keiller's the 'chip' marmalade, and the peel was believed to help digestion. Legend starts it with a storm-bound Spanish ship's cheap cargo of bitter Seville oranges, bought on a whim by her son James.
Crowdie, a crofters' cheese of soured skimmed milk with roots in Viking or even Pictish times, is eaten with oatcakes before the dancing. Mixed with cream and toasted oats it became the dessert cranachan.
Q 24An apocryphal tale says 'Sweetie Sandy' Ferguson discovered Edinburgh rock, the soft crumbly sweet, how?
Tasting a long-forgotten tray
Tasting a long-forgotten tray of desiccated sweets, by the story, revealed the crumbly texture that made his fortune. Alexander Ferguson learned the trade in Glasgow and retired rich to his native Doune.
Q 25Reestit mutton, salted meat served with bannocks, is regarded as the national dish of which island group?
Shetland
Shetland claims reestit mutton, brined with salt and sometimes saltpetre, as its 'national dish'. It is usually boiled into a soup with tatties and served with bannocks, a fixture of the Up Helly Aa fire festival.
Q 26Black bun, the pastry-wrapped fruit cake now eaten at Hogmanay, was originally tied to which festival?
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night was its original occasion, a custom brought back by Mary, Queen of Scots from France and ended by the Reformation. It has been called a much bigger Garibaldi biscuit.
Q 27A clootie dumpling is simmered for hours wrapped in a 'cloot'; what is a cloot?
A floured cloth
A floured cloth holds the suet, dried-fruit and spice dough while it simmers in a big pan of water. 'Clootie dumpling' is also a nickname for the Scottish National Party's logo.
Q 28Scotland's black Angus cattle were once nicknamed 'doddies' and 'humlies', Scots words meaning what?
Hornless
Hornless is what both words mean: the breed is naturally polled, and William McCombie of Tillyfour shaped it from the 1820s. Overseas it split into the American Angus and the Red Angus.
Q 29The rowie, a salty, lard-rich roll made so fishermen's bread would last a fortnight at sea, comes from which city?
Aberdeen
Aberdeen harbour's fishermen, by legend, needed bread that stayed fresh for two weeks, and the fat gave quick energy. Purists object to commercial bakers swapping the butter-and-lard mix for palm oil.
Q 30The Golden Spurtle, top prize at the World Porridge Making Championship in Carrbridge, is modelled on what?
A wooden stirring rod
A wooden stirring rod dating from the 15th century, the spurtle stirs porridge without the dragging effect of a spoon, so it stays lump-free. Championship entries may contain only oatmeal, water and salt.