Pre-reading tasks

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 548.

Task 1. Work in pairs. Do you know any typical meals from the following countries?

What do you think influences a country's food? What influences the food in your country?

Read these quotations about English food. Do all the people have the same opinion about English food?

“It takes some skill to spoil a breakfast — even the English can't do it!”

J K Galbraith, economist

“On the Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.”

George Mikes, writer and humorist

“If the English can survive their food, they can survive anything!”

George Bernard Shaw, writer

“Even today, well-brought up English girls are taught to boil all vegetables for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests comes without his teeth!”

Calvin Trillin, American writer

“English cooking? You just put things into boiling water and then take them out again after a long while!”

An anonymous French chef

9LISTENING

Task 2. You will hear an interview with Dr Cooper, a prominent dietician, talking about the British diet. Listen and choose the best answer A, B, C or D for these questions.

1. The British have an unhealthy diet because they

A) don't know how to prepare simple foods.

B) eat their meals in front of the television.

C) don't know much about what a healthy diet is.

D) don't have much time to cook proper meals.

2. How does the food industry defend junk food?

A) They say it is high in vitamins and minerals.

B) They say nobody eats very much of it.

C) They say it's only one part of people's diet.

D) They say it's made from healthy ingredients.

3. What did the Glasgow research show?

A) People rarely eat processed foods.

B) Most people never eat fruit and vegetables.

C) Many people eat very little fresh food.

D) People don't eat at regular times.

4. Why is junk food bad for your health?

A) It isn't made from fruit and vegetables.

B) It doesn't contain important vitamins and fibre.

C) It doesn't provide enough sugar or fat.

D) It's much more expensive than simple food.

5. What does Dr Cooper advise?

A) Watch less television.

B) Give up eating junk food.

C) Avoid food which is advertised.

D) Eat a variety of different foods.

Task 3. Read the text quickly and find the words or phrases which mean the same:

1) adj. strange and difficult to explain;

2) v. is becoming very popular;

3) adj. complete;

4) v. to allow ideas, methods etc. to become part of your own way of thinking or culture;

5) inf phr why or how sth happened;

6) v. to make sth look, sound or seem like sth else;

7) adj. (superlative) of very good quality;

8) v. to add or include sth as a part of sth else;

9) v. to be all over a surface or object;

10) adv. More and more over a period of time;

11) n. a chance that sth good will happen;

12) v. to stop being affected by an unpleasant experience;

13) v. to provide food and drink for sb to eat at a meal;

14) adj. complicated and advanced in design;

15) v. to control the supply of sth.

Task 4. Match paragraphs 1-5 with a summary below.

A) Historical and climatic influences on British cooking

B) There's everything except an English restaurant.

C) The legacy of World War II

D) Where there is hope for the future

E) The British love affair with international cooking

IN SEARCH OF GOOD ENGLISH FOOD

1. How come it is so difficult to find English food in England? In Greece you eat Greek food, in France French food, in Italy Italian food, but in England, in any High Street in the land, it is easier to find Indian and Chinese restaurants than English ones. In London you can eat Thai, Portuguese, Turkish, Lebanese, Japanese, Russian, Polish, Swiss, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian — but where are the English restaurants?

2. It is not only in restaurants that foreign dishes are replacing traditional British food. In every supermarket, sales ofpasta, pizza and poppadomsare booming. Why has this happened? What is wrong with the cooks of Britain that they prefer cooking pasta to potatoes? Why do the British choose to eat lasagna instead of shepherd's pie? Why do they now like cooking in wine and olive oil? But perhaps it is a good thing. After all, this is the end of the 20th century and we can get ingredients from all over the world in just a few hours. Anyway, wasn't English food always disgusting and tasteless? Wasn't it always boiled to death and swimming in fat? The answer to these questions is a resounding ‘No', but to understand this, we have to go back to before World War II.

3. The British have in fact always imported food from abroad. From the time of the Roman invasion foreign trade was a major influence on British cooking. English kitchens, like the English language, absorbed ingredients from all over the world — chickens, rabbits, apples, and tea. All of these and more were successfully incorporated into British dishes. Another important influence on British cooking was of course the weather. The good old British rain gives us rich soil and green grass, and means that we are able to produce some of the finest varieties of meat, fruit and vegetables, which don't need fancy sauces or complicated recipes to disguise their taste.

4. However, World War II changed everything. Wartime women had to forget 600 years of British cooking,learn to do without foreign imports, and ration their use of home-grown food. The Ministry of Food published cheap, boring recipes. The joke of the war was a dish called Woolton Pie (named after the Minister for Food!). This consisted of a mixture of boiled vegetables covered in white sauce with mashed potato on the top. Britain never managed to recover from the wartime attitude to food. We were left with a loss of confidence in our cooking skills and after years of Ministry recipes we began to believe that British food was boring, and we searched the world for sophisticated, new dishes which gave hope of a better future. The British people became tourists at their own dining tables and in the restaurants of their land! This is a tragedy! Surely food is as much a part of our culture as our landscape, our language, and our literature. Nowadays, cooking British food is like speaking a dead language. It is almost as bizarre as having a conversation in Anglo-Saxon English!

5. However, there is still one small ray of hope. British pubs are often the best places to eat well and cheaply in Britain, and they also increasingly try to serve tasty British food. Can we recommend to you our two favourite places to eat in Britain? The Shepherd's Inn in Melmerby, Cumbria, and the Dolphin Inn in Kingston, Devon. Their steak and mushroom pie, Lancashire hotpot, and bread and butter pudding are three of the gastronomic wonders of the world!

(by Verona Paul and Jason Winner)