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50 free Tex-Mex trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Tex-Mex is the cooking of the Tejano people of South Texas, built on Mexican traditions and reshaped by ranch beef, flour tortillas, yellow cheese and cumin brought by Canary Islanders. For a century it was simply what people ate on both sides of the Rio Grande; the hyphenated name did not reach print as a food label until 1960, and it took Diana Kennedy's 1972 cookbook to draw a line between it and the cuisines of Mexico. These 50 questions cover the dishes and where they came from: the nachos Ignacio Anaya improvised for officers' wives in Piedras Negras, the skirt-steak fajitas that went sizzling at the Round-Up Restaurant in Pharr, the chimichanga a Tucson cook swore at, chile con queso, Frito pie in the bag, breakfast burritos and the San Antonio chili queens whose stew became the state dish of Texas. There are questions on the margarita's rival origin stories, the railway that first used the word TexMex, and the film that made Paris crave tequila and chili. Every answer is cited to the page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word Tex-Mex is derived from the names of which two places?
Texas and Mexico
It is also called Tejano cuisine after the people who created it.
Q 02Which people's cooking is Tex-Mex cuisine built on?
Tejanos
Tejanos are Texans of Mexican descent; the food is a subtype of Southwestern cuisine.
Q 03Which spice, rare in Mexico, did Canary Island settlers bring to Texas cooking?
Cumin
It is used in only a few central Mexican recipes but is everywhere in Tex-Mex.
Q 04Which tortilla type is characteristic of Tex-Mex rather than most Mexican cooking?
Flour
Shredded cheese, beans and chili peppers are the other hallmarks.
Q 05A fajita served without a tortilla is called a fajita what?
Bowl
Tex-Mex dishes are sometimes made tortilla-free.
Q 06In which Mexican border town were nachos invented?
Piedras Negras
It lies across the river from Eagle Pass, Texas.
Q 07What was the nickname of Ignacio Anaya, who invented nachos?
Nacho
He improvised the dish in 1943 at the Victory Club when the cook could not be found.
Q 08In what year did Anaya create nachos at the Victory Club?
1943
His original recipe was printed in the 1954 St. Anne's Cookbook.
Q 09Which cheese did Anaya use on the first nachos?
Colby
He added sliced pickled jalapenos and heated the lot for a group of US officers' wives.
Q 10At which ballpark were 'ballpark nachos' with cheese sauce launched in 1976?
Arlington Stadium
Frank Liberto of Ricos Products sold them at Texas Rangers games.
Q 11Which sportscaster's on-air enthusiasm for nachos in 1978 spread the dish nationwide?
Howard Cosell
He kept mentioning them for weeks after a Colts-Cowboys Monday Night Football game.
Q 12On what date is the International Day of the Nacho?
October 21
A bronze plaque honouring Anaya stands in Piedras Negras.
Q 13Which cut of beef is the classic fajita meat?
Skirt steak
The word is a diminutive for the little strips cut from the beef skirt.
Q 14The Spanish word faja, root of fajita, means what?
Q 21Which processed cheese is often the base of restaurant queso?
Velveeta
Unlike chips and salsa, queso usually costs extra.
Q 22What is a chimichanga?
A deep-fried burrito
Most researchers think it was invented by accident in an Arizona restaurant.
Q 23In which Arizona city is the chimichanga's US birthplace usually placed?
Tucson
El Charro Cafe founder Monica Flin supposedly dropped a burrito in the fryer in the early 1950s.
Q 24The El Charro legend says Monica Flin shouted 'chimichanga' instead of what?
Strip or belt
It descends from the Latin fascia, meaning band.
Q 15Who ran the first commercial fajita taco stand, in Kyle, Texas, in 1969?
Sonny Falcon
He was an Austin meat market manager; the stand appeared at a 16 de septiembre celebration.
Q 16Otilia Garza is credited with adding which signature touch to fajitas?
The sizzling plate
She got the idea from queso flameado served on cast iron in Acapulco, at her Round-Up Restaurant in Pharr.
Q 17Which Houston restaurant popularised the fajita from 1973?
Ninfa's
The Hyatt Regency in Austin and San Antonio restaurants followed.
Q 18Fajitas mixing steak, chicken and shrimp are usually labelled with which word?
Texas
The original Tex-Mex dish used steak only.
Q 19In what year did the word fajita first appear in print, per the OED?
1971
The dish itself dates to 1930s ranch cooking in South and West Texas.
Q 20Tex-Mex cheese dip is thought to derive from which Chihuahuan dish?
Queso flameado
That dish comes from the state of Chihuahua.
A Spanish profanity
The word is a Spanish equivalent of 'thingamajig'.
Q 25Frito pie is traditionally served in what?
The chip bag
The bag is split down the middle and chili, cheese and onion are piled in.
Q 26Which Santa Fe lunch counter is sometimes credited with the 'true' 1960s Frito pie?
Woolworth's
Teresa Hernandez served it there with homemade red chili con carne.
Q 27What is the Midwestern name for a Frito pie made in a single-serve bag?
Walking taco
In the Ohio Valley it is 'taco-in-a-bag'; in Southern California, 'pepper bellies'.
Q 28Which restaurant opened at Disneyland in 1955 with Frito Chili Pie on the menu?
Casa de Fritos
Frito founder Charles Doolin was an early Disneyland investor.
Q 29Chili con carne became the official state dish of Texas in which year?
1977
The 65th Legislature passed House Concurrent Resolution 18.
Q 30The 'chili queens' who sold chili from casual stands were famous in which city?
San Antonio
Chili largely originated with working-class Tejana and Mexican women.