Snacks Around the Globe Trivia Quiz

Answer: Australia

Tim Tam biscuits are the most popular cookie in Australia. Children and adults love the cookie that has two graham cracker type biscuits in between a creamy chocolate filling and then covered in a chocolate coating for good measure. Even though the cookie is an Australian favorite, the name "Tim Tam" comes from America.

The owner of Arnott's Biscuits was looking for a name for his new cookie. He attended the 1958 Kentucky Derby horse race in the US. The winner of the race was a horse named Tim Tam. Mr. Arnott thought that was a perfect name for his new cookie and it seems he was right.

Answer: England

Cadbury was started in 1824 as a small tea and chocolate shop by brothers John and Benjamin Cadbury in Birmingham, England. The brothers and their family eventually made Cadbury one of the largest candy companies in the world. A Cadbury Creme Egg is a milk chocolate "eggshell" with a white and yellow creamy filling that looks like the albumen (white) and yolk (yellow) of a real egg. Cadbury creme eggs are only made each year from New Years Day until Easter; but during that time are so popular that Cadbury's English plant makes over 1.5 million eggs a day.

Answer: Israel

Bamba is so popular in Israel that it makes up almost one quarter of all the country's snack food sales. To be certified "kosher" means a Jewish rabbi has inspected the place where Bamba is made and determined that the ingredients and manufacturing process meet the standards of Jewish dietary laws. According to a recent study in the UK, Israeli children have fewer reported cases of peanut allergies. Part of the reason the doctors say is that children are as young as four months old when they start eating Bamba creating a tolerance to the peanut.

Answer: Japan

Sardines in a candy snack? Yes believe it, iwashi (sardine) senbei (rice crackers) are a huge favorite in Japan. The fish crackers are a high protein and lower fat snack that Japanese families often eat at the movie theatre in the same way that American or British families eat popcorn. If sardines are not to your liking you can get different varieties of fish based senbei such as dried horse mackerel (aji hone senbei) or tonguefish (geta karei).

The Japanese are not the only culture that use dried fish as a snack. In Korea, for example, a popular snack food is a roll of dried cuttlefish (tastes like squid) and is mixed with corn or rice cakes.

Answer: Italy

Many people think the Kinder Surprise comes from Germany because "kinder" means child in German; but the chocolate snack is produced by the Italian company Ferrero Spa. Ferrero also makes the hazelnut chocolate spread food Nutella and the popular Ferrero Rocher candies. First made in 1974, the Kinder Surprise is a hollow milk chocolate egg with a plastic capsule that has a small toy inside.

The toys often require some assembly and are collected and traded by children and adults alike. Despite its popularity the Kinder Surprise is not legal for sale in the US because of a concern that the toys are too small and could be swallowed by smaller children.

Answer: India

Gulab jamun is a sweet dessert that is popular world-wide but particularly in India. The gulab jamun is a fried dough that is then soaked in a sweet syrup often scented with rose water. The dessert became popular in India during the Mughal rule of much of the subcontinent in the 15th-18th centuries.

Many cultures have some variation of the round dough and sweet syrup snack. Doughnut holes sprinkled with sugar are popular in the US; while people in Greece enjoy "loukoumas" which is a round dough fried and covered in honey mixed with cloves and cinnamon.

Answer: United States

Potato chips were invented because a chef got mad at a customer who kept returning his food. In 1853 George Crum was a chef in a hotel in Saratoga Springs, New York. The story goes that a customer ordered French fried potatoes thinly sliced. Mr. Crum prepared the potatoes, but the customer returned them for being too thick.

After cutting the potatoes thinner, the customer returned the fries again. Mr. Crum then cut the potatoes so thin you could see through them. Rather than be upset the customer loved the new creation and when other patrons of the hotel started to ask for the thin sliced treat the "potato chip" was here to stay. Americans love potato chips so much they eat over 1.5 billion pounds of the snack each year.

Answer: Germany

Marzipan is often associated with Germany but was likely invented in China or Persia and brought to Europe during the Middle Ages by returning Crusaders. The sweet treat is made from ground almonds and sugar mixed to form a paste, and the paste is then formed into shapes.

A popular way to serve marzipan is to shape the paste to look like small fruits. The northern German city Lubeck is a center for marzipan production, and has been famous for the snack since Johan Niederegger began selling the product in 1806 setting a high standard for its taste. Today certified "Lubecker marzipan" is a symbol of high quality and can only come from marzipan made in this area of Germany.

Answer: Austria

Yes it is true the danish pastry was not created in Denmark but rather in Austria. However we can thank the Danes for the popularity of the sweet treat. In 1850 bakers in Copenhagen, Denmark's capital, went on strike. In order to get baked goods the Danes had to rely on bakers from other countries. Austrian bakers started to sell a sweet bread popular in their country that soon became all the rage in Denmark.

When the strike was settled Danish bakers continued to sell the treat with great success. "Danish" style pastry became even more popular in the early 20th century when the Danish baker Lauritz Klitteng prepared the treat at the wedding of US President Woodrow Wilson.

As a tribute to the origins of the danish pastry in Denmark the treat is called "wienerbrød," or "Viennese Bread."

Answer: Canada

Poutine is a French-Canadian snack first invented during the 1950s in the province of Quebec. Exactly who created poutine is a matter of debate. Some Canadians claim poutine was invented in 1957 in Warwick, Quebec at a small restaurant in Drummondville Quebec in 1964. Either way, by the 1970s poutine was served throughout Canada and the eastern US. Poutine has three basic elements: French fried potatoes, a sauce and white cheddar cheese curls which are small chunks of cheese with a taste like cottage or farmers' cheese.