Italian Food Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Italian food trivia quiz with answers about food from Italy.

Italian Food Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What is Italian cuisine?
A: Italian cuisine is food typical of Italy.

Significant changes occurred with the discovery of the what?
A: The New World and the introduction of potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, maize and sugar beet.

Italian cuisine is known for its regional what?
A: Diversity, especially between the north and the south of the Italian peninsula.

It offers an abundance of taste, and is one of the most popular and what?
A: Copied in the world.

It influenced several cuisines around the world, chiefly that of what country?
A: The United States.

Italian cuisine is generally characterized by its what?
A: Its simplicity, with many dishes having only two to four main ingredients.

Italian cooks rely chiefly on what?
A: The quality of the ingredients rather than on elaborate preparation.

Many dishes that were once regional have done what?
A: Proliferated with variations throughout the country.

Although the country known as Italy did not unite until the 19th century, the cuisine can claim traceable roots how far back?
A: The 4th century BCE.

Food and culture were very important at that time as we can see from the cookbook (Apicius) which dates back to when?
A: First century BC.

Italian food started to form after the fall of what?
A: The Roman Empire, when different cities began to separate and form their own traditions.

Many different types of bread and pasta were made, and there was a variation in what?
A: Cooking techniques and preparation.

Milan (north of Italy) is known for it’s what?
A: Its risottos.

Bologna (the central/middle of the country) is known for it’s what?
A: Tortellini.

Naples (the south) is famous for it’s what?
A: Pizzas and spaghettis.

Who was the first known Italian food writer?
A: A Greek Sicilian named Archestratus from Syracuse in the 4th century BCE.

He wrote a poem that spoke of using what?
A: "top quality and seasonal" ingredients.

He said that flavors should not be masked by what?
A: Spices, herbs or other seasonings.

He placed importance on simple preparation of what?
A: Fish.

Simplicity was abandoned and replaced by a culture of gastronomy as what developed?
A: The Roman Empire.

By the time De re coquinaria was published in the 1st century CE, it contained how many recipes calling for heavy use of spices and herbs?
A: 470.

The Romans employed Greek bakers to produce what?
A: Breads.

Where did they import cheeses from?
A: Sicily as the Sicilians had a reputation as the best cheese makers.

The Romans reared goats for butchering, and grew what?
A: Artichokes and leeks.

With culinary traditions from Rome and Athens, a cuisine developed in Sicily that some consider what?
A: The first real Italian cuisine.

Arabs invaded Sicily in the 9th century, introducing what?
A: Spinach, almonds, and rice.

During the 12th century, a Norman king surveyed Sicily and saw people making what?
A: Long strings made from flour and water called atriya, which eventually became trii, a term still used for spaghetti in southern Italy.

How were meats and fish preserved?
A: They were smoked, dried, or kept on ice.

Brine and salt were used to pickle items such as what?
A: Herring, and to cure pork.

Root vegetables were preserved in what?
A: Brine after they had been parboiled.

Other means of preservation included oil, vinegar, or immersing meat in what?
A: Congealed, rendered fat.

What was used for preserving fruits?
A: Liquor, honey, and sugar.

What is the oldest Italian book on cuisine?
A: It is the 13th century Liber de coquina written in Naples.

In the 15th century, Maestro Martino was chef to whom?
A: The Patriarch of Aquileia at the Vatican.

His Libro de arte coquinaria describes a what?
A: A more refined and elegant cuisine.

His book contains a recipe for Maccaroni Siciliani, made by doing what?
A: By wrapping dough around a thin iron rod to dry in the sun.

The macaroni was cooked in capon stock flavored with what?
A: Saffron, displaying Persian influences.

Of particular note is Martino's avoidance of excessive spices in favor of what?
A: Fresh herbs.

In 1570, Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to Pope Pius V, wrote his Opera in five volumes, giving a comprehensive view of what?
A: Italian cooking of that period.

It contains how many recipes?
A: Oover 1,000.

It has information on banquets including displays and menus as well as illustrations of what?
A: Kitchen and table utensils.

This book differs from most books written for the royal courts in its preference for what?
A: For domestic animals and courtyard birds rather than game.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Italian culinary books began to emphasize what?
A: The regionalism of Italian cuisine rather than French cuisine.

Books written then were no longer addressed to professional chefs but to whom?
A: Bourgeois housewives.

In the 18th century, medical texts warned peasants against eating refined foods as it was believed what?
A: That these were poor for their digestion and their bodies required heavy meals.

It was believed by some that peasants ate poorly because they preferred what?
A: Eating poorly.

Why did many peasants have to eat rotten food and moldy bread?
A: Because that was all they could afford.

Tomatoes are a typical part of Italian cuisine, but only entered common usage when?
A: In the late 18th century.

In 1790, Francesco Leonardi in his book L'Apicio moderno ("Modern Apicius") sketches a history of the Italian Cuisine from the Roman Age and gives as first a recipe of a tomato-based sauce.

La Cucina Teorico-Pratica written by Ippolito Cavalcanti described the first recipe for what?
A: Pasta with tomatoes.

La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well), by Pellegrino Artusi, first published in 1891, is widely regarded as what?
A: The canon of classic modern Italian cuisine, and it is still in print.

Its recipes predominantly originate from where?
A: Romagna and Tuscany.

In the North of Italy, fish (such as cod, or baccalà), potatoes, rice, corn (maize), sausages, pork, and different types of cheeses are what?
A: The most common ingredients.

What is the most commonly used vegetable fat in Italian cooking?
A: Olive oil.

As the basis for sauces, it often replaces what?
A: animal fats of butter or lard.

Traditional Central Italian cuisine uses ingredients such as what?
A: Tomatoes, all kinds of meat, fish, and pecorino cheese.

In Tuscany, pasta (especially pappardelle) is traditionally served with what?
A: Meat sauce (including game meat).

Italian cuisine is also well known (and well regarded) for its use of a diverse variety of what?
A: Pasta.

Most pastas may be distinguished by what?
A: The shapes for which they are named—penne, maccheroni, spaghetti, linguine, fusilli, lasagne, and many more varieties that are filled with other ingredients like ravioli and tortellini.

The word pasta is also used to refer to what?
A: Dishes in which pasta products are a primary ingredient.

Pasta is categorized in what two basic styles?
A: Dried and fresh.

Dried pasta made without eggs can be stored for up to how long?
A: Two years under ideal conditions.

Fresh pasta will keep for how long?
A: A couple of days in the refrigerator.

How is pasta generally cooked?
A: By boiling.