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50 free Unusual Foods trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Somewhere in the world right now, someone is eating a shark that had to cure for months to become safe, a pecorino whose larvae jump, or a coffee that passed through an animal first. Unusual foods are where taste, survival and showmanship meet, and almost every one of them has a better story than the dish it replaced on the table. These 50 questions travel from Iceland's fermented shark and Sweden's bulging herring tins to Korea's wriggling raw dishes, Mexico's insect caviar, the Inuit's buried and fermented meats, and fruits that are banned on trains or dangerous to pick too early. Expect how things are made and why they smell, plus the court cases, kings and legends that trail behind them. Play it straight through, use it as a pub-quiz round for strong stomachs, or print it for a food-themed party. Every answer comes with a one-line explanation that tells you what you would actually be eating.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rocky Mountain oysters, deep-fried at ranch festivals in the American West, are which part of a bull?
The testicles
The testicles are the whole dish: peeled, sliced, breaded and fried, and known in Spain, Argentina and much of Mexico as criadillas.
Q 02Century eggs, preserved in a paste of clay, ash, salt and quicklime, actually cure for roughly how long?
Weeks to months
Weeks to months is all it takes, and the best batches develop pine-branch patterns in the white, earning the name 'pine flower eggs' and a reputation for better quality.
Q 03Haggis, Scotland's pudding of sheep offal and oatmeal, is the butt of a running joke that claims it is what?
A small wild animal
A small wild animal with legs longer on one side, the joke goes, so it can run round steep Highland hills without falling over, while real haggis is sheep's heart, liver and lungs minced with oatmeal and suet.
Q 04Huitlacoche, the swollen corn galls that Mexican cooks prize and fold into quesadillas, is caused by what?
A fungus
A fungus, the corn smut Ustilago maydis, swells the kernels into galls that one promotional dinner tried to rebrand as the 'Mexican truffle' to win over American diners.
Q 05Sardinia's casu martzu, a pecorino eaten with its live cheese-fly larvae, is notorious because the maggots can do what?
Leap up to 15 cm
Leap up to 15 cm is what the larvae manage when disturbed, so diners hold a hand over the bread; Guinness World Records named casu martzu the world's 'most dangerous cheese' in 2009.
Q 06Balut, the Philippine street snack eaten from the shell with salt, is incubated for about how long?
Two to three weeks
Two to three weeks, 14 to 21 days depending on local taste, lets the embryo develop, and the longer it goes the more recognisable the bird's features become.
Q 07Which person in Japan is said never to have eaten fugu pufferfish, thanks to a centuries-old ban?
The Emperor
The Emperor is kept from fugu by a ban one Tokyo fugu chef could only call 'centuries old'; the Tokugawa shogunate outlawed the fish in Edo, and Meiji-era Japan banned it again in many areas.
Q 08Durian, the pungent fruit banned on Singapore's transport, is named after a Malay word for what?
Thorn
Thorn, 'duri' in Malay, describes the spiky rind, and of the many Durio species only one, Durio zibethinus, is sold on the international market.
Q 09Sannakji, a Korean raw dish whose freshly cut pieces keep wriggling, is made from which animal?
Octopus
Octopus arms keep moving because their neurons work after cutting, and the suction cups can grip the throat, which makes the dish a genuine choking hazard.
Q 10Witchetty grubs, an Aboriginal Australian bush food said to taste of almonds when raw, are the larvae of what?
A moth
A moth, the cossid Endoxyla leucomochla, lays the grub that feeds on witchetty-bush roots; cooked, its skin crisps like roast chicken and the inside turns egg-yellow.
Q 11Escamoles, eaten in Mexico since Aztec times and nicknamed 'insect caviar', are the larvae and pupae of what?
Ants
Ants of the genus Liometopum supply the egg-like larvae, and the Nahuatl name azcamolli joins azcatl, 'ant', with molli, 'puree'.
Q 12Nattō, Japan's sticky fermented-soybean breakfast, was traditionally made by wrapping the boiled beans in what?
Straw bags
Straw bags were the original starter: Taishō-era researchers only later isolated a culture that made straw unnecessary, and legend has Prince Shotoku wrapping leftover soybeans in straw for his horse.
Q 13Kopi luwak, coffee brewed from beans an animal has excreted, began on colonial plantations in which country?
Indonesia
Q 21Edible bird's nests, harvested from cave walls for Chinese soup, have fetched up to roughly what per kilogram?
$9,500
$9,500 a kilo, about $4,300 a pound, puts the nests among the priciest animal products people eat, graded on shape, colour and the bird species that built them.
Q 22Hasma, a Chinese dessert ingredient that swells up to 15 times when soaked, is dried tissue from which animal?
Frogs
Frogs, specifically the Asiatic grass frog, supply the tissue near the fallopian tubes that is dried into 'snow frog fat', once a dish of Chinese imperial cuisine.
Q 23Shirako, a creamy Japanese delicacy taken from cod, anglerfish and even fugu, is which part of the male fish?
The milt
Indonesia's coffee plantations on central Java, established under colonial rule, are where farmers first brewed coffee from excreted beans in the 19th century.
Q 14Fresh from its caustic soak, lutefisk is saturated and inedible at roughly what pH until days of rinsing?
11–12
11–12 is the pH of lye-saturated lutefisk, so the cod must sit in cold water for days before it is safe to cook into its gelatinous final state.
Q 15Stinky tofu, Taiwan's night-market favourite, traditionally gets its smell from months in a brine of what?
Vegetables and meat
Vegetables and meat ferment together in the brine for several months in the traditional method, whereas factory versions soak for just a day or two.
Q 16A 1984 eviction case was won by opening a can of surströmming in the courtroom of which German city?
Cologne
Cologne's regional court ruled the eviction justified once the can was opened in front of it; the tenant had spread surströmming brine in the stairwell at Christmas 1981.
Q 17Hákarl, Iceland's fermented shark, is cured and hung for months because the fresh meat is loaded with what?
Urea
Urea, the same waste compound found in urine, plus trimethylamine oxide make the fresh flesh poisonous, and the cured strips are served at Iceland's midwinter Þorrablót feasts.
Q 18Kiviak, a Greenlandic winter dish, packs up to 500 whole seabirds, feathers and all, into what to ferment?
A seal skin
A seal skin, sealed with seal fat to keep flies out and buried under stones for about three months, holds the little auks until they are eaten at winter birthdays and weddings.
Q 19Smalahove, western Norway's dish of half a sheep's head per diner, is traditionally eaten starting with what?
The ear and eye
The ear and eye go first because they are the fattiest parts and best while warm; since 1998 EU rules allow smalahove only from lambs, over scrapie fears.
Q 20Traditional chicha, the Andean corn beer, is started in some cultures by the brewer doing what to the grain?
Chewing it
Chewing it moistens the ground corn with saliva, whose ptyalin enzyme breaks the starch down into maltose; the balls are then flattened and dried before brewing.
The milt, literally 'white children' in Japanese, is the fish's sperm, and salmon and squid milt are eaten as well as cod's.
Q 24Jellied eels, sold with pie and mash since the 1700s, are a working-class classic of which part of London?
The East End
The East End's eel, pie and mash houses numbered about 100 at the end of the Second World War, and the oldest survivor, M. Manze, has traded since 1902.
Q 25Czernina, a Polish soup whose name comes from the word for 'black', is made from poultry broth and what?
Duck blood
Duck blood gives the colour, and the soup is balanced sweet-and-sharp with sugar and vinegar, plus dried pears, plums or cherries.
Q 26Scrapple, a fried slice of pork scraps bound with cornmeal, is a signature of which American community?
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch cooks call it Pannhaas, a mush of pork trimmings, cornmeal and often buckwheat flour, spiced and fried in slices.
Q 27Deep-fried tarantulas are a roadside speciality and tourist stop in the town of Skuon in which country?
Cambodia
Cambodia's taste for the spiders may date from the food shortages of the Khmer Rouge years, and Skuon now sells them as a snack to passing travellers.
Q 28Chapulines, toasted with garlic, lime and chilli and sold as snacks at Oaxaca's sports events, are which insect?
Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers of the genus Sphenarium, named from the Nahuatl chapolin, are eaten across Mexico and Central America and are enjoying a revival among foodies.
Q 29Beondegi, a Korean street snack served in paper cups and literally meaning 'pupa', is made from which insect?
Silkworms
Silkworms are boiled or steamed at the pupa stage and handed over with toothpick skewers, a street food that is also sold canned.
Q 30Milbenkäse, a German 'mite cheese', ripens for at least three months in a wooden box filled with what?
Rye flour
Rye flour feeds the Tyrophagus casei mites, whose digestive juices seep into balls of caraway-flavoured quark; the craft was nearly lost by 1970 before its revival in the village of Würchwitz.