Mexican Food Trivia Questions and Answers

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The ability to cook well is called "sazón" in Mexico. What does the word literally mean?

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with any school, exam board or quiz show. Bank checked October 3, 2026.

How it works

Which mole is named for staining the tablecloth, and what did Moctezuma's envoys think of wheat bread? These trivia questions about Mexican food fill four rounds, from the first corn to the giant tamale of the Huasteca.

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Mexican food trivia questions in four rounds

Corn, chiles and the daily table asks what makes a pozole red. Before and after the Spanish counts the bakers of pan francés. From Oaxaca to Yucatán and the north digs up the pit oven behind cochinita pibil. Tortillas and tamales through time settles which of the two is older.

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Under each question are four answers. Choose one and the card shows which is right, with a short reason and the article it was read in. A set is ten questions, and the next set follows on.

Questions and answers

What are the staples of Mexican food?

Corn, beans and chili peppers. Maize is the most commonly eaten grain in almost all of Mexico, most often as tortillas, and the chile pepper is the other basic ingredient in every part of the country.

What did the Spanish bring to Mexican cooking?

Meats from domesticated animals, dairy products, especially cheese, and rice, sugar, wheat, olive oil, onions, garlic and limes. They also introduced the technique of frying in pork fat.

What is the difference between Mexican food and Tex-Mex?

Tex-Mex developed from Mexican and Anglo influences and is traced to Texas in the late 19th century. Mexican regional home cooking is completely different from the food in most Mexican restaurants outside Mexico, which is usually some variety of Tex-Mex.

How were the answers checked?

Each was read on October 3, 2026 in the English Wikipedia article linked under it: Mexican cuisine, Tortilla or Tamale. Drinks with alcohol, restaurants and chefs by name, religious rites and nutrition claims are left out.

All 48 questions with answers

Corn, chiles and the daily table 12

  • A Mexican comida sometimes begins with a "dry soup". What is that? Answer: Pasta or rice flavored with onions, garlic or vegetables. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • The ability to cook well is called "sazón" in Mexico. What does the word literally mean? Answer: Seasoning. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Edible insects have been eaten in Mexico for millennia. What are chapulines? Answer: Grasshoppers or crickets. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Huitlacoche is a traditional ingredient in Mexico. What is it? Answer: A corn fungus. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In a typical Mexican household, which meal is usually the heaviest of the day? Answer: The comida, between noon and 2 p.m. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In Mexican cooking, what are nopales? Answer: Cactus pads. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In Mexico, the drink called horchata is made from what? Answer: Rice. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In the 16th century, who wrote that without chiles the indigenous people did not think they were eating? Answer: Bartolomé de las Casas. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Pozole, a hominy soup, is called white, green or red. What decides which? Answer: The chile sauce used or left out. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Small criollo avocados are an ingredient seldom used outside Mexican cooking. What is unusual about them? Answer: Their skin is edible. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • What is the most common way to eat maize in Mexico? Answer: As tortillas. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Which two kinds of common bean are named as typical of Mexican cooking? Answer: The pinto bean and the black turtle bean. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine

Before and after the Spanish 12

  • After the Spanish brought pigs, cows, goats and sheep, which became the most important dairy product? Answer: Cheese. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • An Italian friar who traveled in Mexico in the eighteenth century noted that tortillas were eaten by the poor and by whom else? Answer: The upper class. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Around 7000 BCE, before corn was cultivated, what did the peoples of Mexico roast as one of their main foods? Answer: Agave hearts. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Before Europeans arrived, chocolate was drunk warm and syrupy. What was mixed in to make it pleasant? Answer: Honey. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In 18th-century Mexico City, how many bakers were allowed to bake the rolls called pan francés? Answer: Two. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Moctezuma's emissaries are reported to have said that European wheat bread tasted of what? Answer: Dried maize stalks. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • One of the main places where Spanish and native cooking were mixed was which kind of house? Answer: Convents. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • The torta, a filled roll, goes back to the 19th century. Who introduced the new kinds of bread behind it? Answer: The French. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • What is the most common roll for tortas in Mexico City called? Answer: A telera. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Which bird did the peoples of Mesoamerica domesticate as a source of protein? Answer: The turkey. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Which cooking technique did the Spanish bring to Mexico, using pork fat? Answer: Frying. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Who brought rice and sugar cane to Mexico? Answer: The Spanish. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine

From Oaxaca to Yucatán and the north 12

  • A torta ahogada is an important street food near Guadalajara. What happens to the sandwich? Answer: It is drowned in a chile sauce. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Cabrito is the typical food of Monterrey and the state of Nuevo León. What is it? Answer: Baby goat. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • The cooking of Michoacán is based on which culture, which still dominates most of the state? Answer: The Purépecha. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • How many mole varieties is the cooking of Oaxaca known for? Answer: Seven. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Huachinango a la veracruzana is the best-known dish of Veracruz. Which fish is it made with? Answer: Red snapper. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • In cochinita pibil, the best-known dish of Yucatán, pibil comes from a Mayan word. What does it mean? Answer: Buried. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • One of the moles of Oaxaca is called mancha manteles. What does the name mean? Answer: Tablecloth stainer. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Papadzules, a dish of Yucatán, are egg tacos seasoned with a gravy made from what? Answer: Pumpkin seeds. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Recado rojo, the seasoning paste of Yucatán, is based on which seed? Answer: Achiote. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • What are tortillas called in Oaxaca, where they are part of every meal? Answer: Blandas. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • What is the distinctive cooking technique of northern Mexico, where ranch culture took hold? Answer: Grilling. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine
  • Which fruit gives the food of Yucatán its tangy element? Answer: Bitter oranges. Source: Wikipedia: Mexican cuisine

Tortillas and tamales through time 12

  • A mission led by which Jesuit introduced wheat to Sonora after 1687? Answer: Eusebio Kino. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
  • The Aztec emperor Moctezuma II ate tortillas made in special shapes. Which shapes? Answer: Butterflies or leaves. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
  • Aztec rules set a child's serving of tortillas by age. From half a tortilla at ages 3 to 6, how many did a child get from age 13? Answer: Two. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
  • In which part of the United States did cooks develop the hot tamale, made from cornmeal and boiled in corn husks? Answer: The Mississippi Delta. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • The nacatamal, large enough to be a whole meal, is the most popular tamale of which country? Answer: Nicaragua. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • Settlers of Mexico's northern frontier created the flour tortilla. Which ingredient did they introduce to the recipe? Answer: Lard. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
  • The Spanish word tamal comes from tamalli. Which language is tamalli? Answer: Nahuatl. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • Tamales originated in Mesoamerica as early as when? Answer: 8000 to 5000 BC. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • What did Hernán Cortés think of the tortillas he tried? Answer: That they were inferior to European loaf bread. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
  • Which is thought to be older, the tamale or the tortilla, and why? Answer: The tamale, which needs no ceramic griddle. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • The zacahuil is a very large tamale of the Huasteca region. How many people can one feed? Answer: Between 50 and 200. Source: Wikipedia: Tamale
  • The Zócalo, a large plaza in Mexico City, has a nickname taken from a food. What is it? Answer: The Gran Tortilla. Source: Wikipedia: Tortilla
How this list was compiled

Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. The questions and the wrong choices are our own. Every answer was read on October 3, 2026 in one of three English Wikipedia articles, Mexican cuisine, Tortilla or Tamale (en.wikipedia.org, text under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license); each question links the article that states its fact, and each explanation restates that article in our own sentence. Left out on purpose: every drink with alcohol, restaurants, chefs and food companies by name, food as part of religious rites and festivals of the dead, and nutrition claims. Where the two articles disagree about where the burrito began, nothing is asked. Facts that other packs on this site already ask (limewater in nixtamalization, the meaning of burrito and of aguas frescas, atole, where birria comes from, the words for the tortilla's griddle and grinding stone) are not asked again. Levels are our estimate: easy is fair for any table, hard will stump most. Licence: own work