World Foods for Kids Trivia Quiz

Answer: Italy

Italian cuisine is extremely popular around the world. It is known for its simplicity as Italian chefs use a minimum number of ingredients. Commonly used ingredients include olive oil, basil, oregano, pasta and tomatoes.

Did you know that the modern pizza originates from Naples, Italy?

Answer: Great Britain

British cuisine is well known for its stodginess and its combinations of "meat and two veg".

Did you know that British cuisine also incorporates Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish cuisine too? In Scotland, haggis served with potatoes ("tatties") and turnips ("neaps") is very popular, whilst in Wales, Welsh rarebit (cheese on toast with Worcestershire sauce) is popular.

Answer: Mexico

Some of the most important ingredients in Mexican cooking are tomatoes, corn, avacados and chilli peppers. Mexican food has become very popular across the world and especially in the USA, where a new fusion of American and Mexican food called Tex-Mex has sprung up.

Did you know that many homes in Mexico do not have ovens? As a result, many local dishes have been designed to be cooked over an open flame.

Answer: Japan

Traditional food in Japan often involves rice and/or miso soup. Ingredients such as soy sauce and wasabi (a spicy paste) are very popular, but it is fish that the Japanese eat in the largest quanity. As Japan is made up of a number of islands surrounded by seas full of wonderful fish, sushi has become a staple food which is now popular around the world.

Did you know that chopstick ettiquette is very important in Japan? Sticking your chopsticks into rice and leaving them sticking upwards is considered offensive by some traditional Japanese people who think it looks like their incense offerings to the dead.

Answer: Germany

Germany is particularly famous for its sausages. There are over 1500 different types of "wurst" sold in Germany, including bratwurst ("fried sausage"), currywurst ("curried sausage") and blutwurst ("blood sausage"). Potatoes are also extremely popular and come in a huge number of varieties.

Did you know that German cuisine takes many influences from Eastern Europe? This is because, prior to 1989, the country was divided into East Germany and West Germany. East Germany took a lot of cultural influence from the Eastern European countries around it, which was then merged with the West German culture following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Answer: India

Indian cuisine is known for its spices and in particular its curries. The majority of dishes are served with flat breads and/or rice, and important ingredients include chickpeas, lentils, chicken and vegetables.

Did you know that India is one of the only countries in the world where McDonalds restaurants do not serve Big Macs? In Hinduism, Indian's main religion, cows are considered to be sacred. As most of McDonalds' burgers contain beef, no-one in India would eat there if that was what they sold. McDonalds outlets in India serve only vegetarian, fish or chicken products.

Answer: China

China is a huge country and so its cuisine is very diverse. Cantonese cuisine is perhaps the most widely known because there have been so many immigrants from the Guangdong province of China to other countries. It is from Cantonese cooking that well-known flavours such as hoisin sauce, black bean sauce and sweet and sour sauce originate.

Did you know that a very popular street snack in China is called "stinky tofu"!? It is fermented tofu that has a very strong odour, but people love it anyway!

Answer: Sweden

Swedish cuisine is very much centred around fish. This is because Sweden has a long and diverse coastline. Throughout history, Swedish people have pickled and salted their fish to make it last longer (before refrigerators were available!) and, as a result, cured or salted fish has become a very popular and traditional dish in Swedish cuisine. It is Swedish tradition to eat as a large group from a "smörgåsbord" (a range of foods placed on a table and eaten buffet-style).

Did you know that on Thursdays, Swedish people traditionally eat soup? This is because, historically, maids and servants of the wealthy would have had a half day off work on Thursdays and soup was easy to prepare in advance, so that they didn't waste their half-day cooking!

Answer: Egypt

Egyptian cuisine takes much of its inspiration from general Arabic cuisine, which is eaten across the Middle East and North Africa. Koshari (a mixture of rice, lentils and macaroni) is generally seen as the national dish, but falafel (deep fried chickpea-paste balls) is also extremely popular.

Did you know that tea is so important in Egyptian culture, that is is known as "duty"? This is because serving tea to a guest is a duty of any host. Tea is so important that the celebratory toast at an Egyptian wedding is often made with herbal tea!

Answer: France

French cuisine probably the most famous in the world. It was in France that many basic techniques for cooking were perfected and exported to influence the Western world. Other very famous French dishes include bouillabaisse (a fish soup) and confit de canard (confit duck leg). France is also very famous for its diverse cheese and wine varieties.

Did you know that the method of making foie gras (goose or duck liver paté) is actually protected by French law? "Foie gras" is defined by French law as being the liver of a duck fattened by force feeding corn. Other countries prefer to make it through natural feeding methods, but this doesn't fit the French defintion, and so it has to be named something else before sale!