The baby is the apple of her grandfather’s eye.
2. His speech about the importance of helping the poor is baloney. He wouldn’t even give his best friend a dime.
3. Our basketball team really creamedits opponent. Our team won by a score of 120 to 60.
4. On our return home, we found the front door open, and we suspected that something fishy was going on.
5. She went bananas when she heard she had won first prize in the talent contest.
6. Bill was in a pickle. After filling his car with gas, he couldn’t find the money to pay.
7. The new tape player I bought was a lemon, and I’m going to take it back to the store to exchange for a new one.
8. Tony must be nuts to pay a hundred dollars for a shirt.
9. When I was sick last week, Susan visited me and bought groceries for me. She’s a peach.
10. Rose buys used clothes at second hand stores, and she gets nice-looking clothes for peanuts.
11. The math test was a piece of cake for Erik. He is very good at doing math problems.
a. ___ in trouble
b. ___ something that is very easy to do
c. ___ something that doesn’t work, usually an electrical appliance or mechanical item
d. ___ to totally beat someone in a game
e. ___ something that one loves and cherishes
f. ___ a very small amount of money
g. ___ nonsense
h. ___ suspicious, not right or honest
i. ___ to go crazy
j. ___ very crazy
k.___ very sweet, kind (of a person)
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1. I have a sweet tooth and can never say ‘no’ to cakes and biscuits.
2. I won’t have dessert, thanks. You’re lucky being so slim; but I’m afraid I have to count the calories. I have to be a bit calorie-conscious these days.
3. I like to eat the meal with something savoury, like cheese.
4. Ben’s a bit of fussy eater.
5. No, thanks, I won’t have wine. I’m teetotal.
6. Before I book the restaurant, do you have any particular dietary requirements? (quite a formal language)
7. I won’t have any more wine, thanks. I don’t want to overdoit.
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The salt of the earth cup of tea peanuts no picnic
A butter-fingers a vegetable the cream nuts
A piece of cake full of beans in a jam sour grapes
(a) Throw it to me! Oh no, I’ve dropped it! I am ______.
(b) I said I’d pay him today, but my money’s in the bank and it’s just closed. Now I’m ______.
(c) You’ll have to offer her a high salary for an easy job. An experienced editor like her wouldn’t do the job for______.
(d) He never wants to do anything interesting. He just sits around all day. He’s a bit of ______.
(e) It’ll be cold and wet in the mountains. And we’ll have heavy rucksacks to carry. It’ll be ______.
(f) That firm only employs the very best graduates. They only take ______.
(g) I think people who help the old, sick and homeless are ______.
(h) He’s a bit tired and lifeless now, but after a nap he’ll be ______.
(i) She now says she didn’t really want the job that she failed to get, but I think it’s just ______.
(j) That’s a crazy idea of hers. She must be ______.
(k) She likes literature and classical music. Discotheques are not her ______.
(l) The exam was very easy. It was ______.
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Hot potato cucumber hot cakes
Two peas in a pod water beetroot
Toast sardines pancake
(a) He never panics in a difficult situation. He stays as cool as a ______.
(b) She was very embarrassed. She went as red as a ______.
(c) No, we aren’t cold. Your flat’s very warm. We’re as warm as ______.
(d) There are no hills or slopes for miles around. It’s as flat as a ______.
(e) They're identical twins, as like as ______.
(f) As soon as his future employers heard he had a criminal record, they dropped him like a ______.
(g) That singer's new record is in great demand. It's selling like ______.
(h) In the rush-hour buses, people are packed like ______.
(i) She's very extravagant. She spends money like ______.
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1. Units of measurement of energy in food.
Example: She's counting ____________ to try and lose weight.
2. A compound which is an essential part of living cells, one of the elements
in food which you need to keep the human body working properly.
Example: Eggs are a rich source of__________ .
3. A chemical substance containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
Example: Bread, potatoes and rice are good sources of______ .
4. A liquid substance from plants or animals which can be used for cooking.
Example: Fry the meat and drain off the_________ .
5. Matter in food which cannot be digested and passes out of the body.
Example: A diet that doesn't contain enough______ can cause intestinal problems.
6. A fatty substance found in fats and oils, also produced by the liver and forming an essential part of all cells.
Example: If you eat too much____________ , it can be deposited on the walls of
arteries, causing them to become blocked.
7. Essential substance which is not synthesized by the body but is found in food and is needed for health and growth.
Example: He doesn't eat enough fruit and suffers from_______ C deficiency.
8. Substance which is found in food, but which can also be dug out of the earth.
Example: What is the______________ content of spinach?
9. Too heavy, often as a result of eating too much.
Example: The doctor says I'm____________ and must go on a diet.
10. The result of not having enough to eat, or the result of eating too much of
the wrong sort of food.
Example: Many of the children in the refugee camp were______ .
11. Receiving food.
(Example: We are developing a scheme to improve_______ in the poorer areas.)
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1. A lot of people are allergic to nuts.
2. Many people do not trust genetically modified foods.
3. Organic vegetables are more expensive but are better for you.
4. We refuse to eat battery chickens.
5. We prefer to eat free rangemeats.
6. Theharvest has been very bad this year.
7. Following the floods in Mozambique, there was a terriblescarcityof food.
8. There has been an outbreak of salmonella and other food poisoning in Perth.
9. Too many people don’t eat a balanced diet.
10. Fast food is very popular.
a. This is because they are cultivated naturally, without using any chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
b. There wasn’t enough food to feed everyone affected by the disaster.
c. They are not sure that altering the composition of cells to change certain characteristics is safe.
d. It’s good to know that the animals were given enough space to express their natural behaviour.
e. Terrible weather conditions have prevented the crops from ripening and reduced the yield.
f. A lot of people are in hospital as a result.
g. Unfortunately, a diet of burgers, pizzas and fried chicken is not very healthy.
h. They physically react very badly.
i. This is because they spend their life confined in a small cage.
j. They don’t consume sufficient quantities of the different food groups.
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Most children enjoy eating (1)________, but scientific tests have shown us that burgers and pizzas can lack some (2) __________ and (3) ___________, which are essential for health and growth, while simultaneously containing large amounts of (4) __________and (5) __________which can result in obesity and heart problems. Many children end up suffering from (6) ________, since they eat too much of the wrong sort of food. In fact, in many areas of the developed world, a lot of children show similar symptoms to those in poorer developing countries, where (7) _________ of food causes thousands of deaths from starvation, especially in the wake of natural disasters which ruin crops and in some cases totally destroy the annual (8) __________.
Dieticians tell us that we must eat a (9) ________, as it is essential we consume sufficient quantities of the different food groups. They tell us that we should all eat more (10) __________, which cannot be digested by the body, and fewer foods which are high in (11)__________, as this can block the walls of arteries and lead to heart problems. This is good advice, of course, but our lifestyles often make this difficult. Many of the ready-prepared foods we buy from supermarkets are high in (12) _________, giving us more energy than we actually need. (13)__________foods are appearing on our supermarket shelves, even though nobody is really sure if altering the composition of food cells is safe. We have the option, of course, of buying (14) __________ foods, but naturally-cultivated fruits and vegetables are expensive. And to make matters worse, we are continually hearing about outbreaks of (15) __________ and (16) _________ which put us off eating certain foods, as nobody wants to spend time in hospital suffering from (17)___________.
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(a) pork (c) veal (e) beef
(b) mutton (d) bacon (f) ham (g) venison
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1) (a) to pluck cheese
(b) to crack an orange
(c) to grate a chicken
(d) to knead a nut
(e) to peel a rabbit
(f) to skin a joint of meat
(g) to slice dough
(h) to carve a loaf
2) (a) to mince cream
(b) to shell meat
(c) to toss a hard-boiled egg
(d) to whip eggs
(e) to stuff a cake
(f) to mash a chicken
(g) to beat a pancake
(h) to ice potatoes
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(a) starving and parched (g) uneatable and inedible
(b) a snack and a square meal (h) a beer-bottle and a bottle of beer
(c) stale and mouldy (i) a starter and a dessert
(d) peckish and ravenous (j) a restaurant and a café
(e) a buffet and a banquet (k) a chef and a caterer
(f) overcooked, undercooked and raw (l) a café and a canteen
ACQUIRING COMMUNICATION SKILLS
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Meals in England
The English are very particular about their meals and strictly keep to their meal times.Breakfast is from any time until 8 o’clock in the morning, lunch is between 12 and 2 p.m., afternoon tea is between 4 and 5 p.m., and dinner is between 7 and 9 p.m.
The first meal of the day is breakfast. It’s often a quick meal, because the parents have to get away to their work, and the children have to go to school.
The breakfast dishes are cornflakes or porridge with milk or cream and sugar, or with milk and salt. For a change,you can have fried eggs, bacon, fried sausages, boiled eggs or fish. For breakfast, English people also have marmalade with buttered toasts, rolls, tea or coffee, which they drink hot, usually with sugar and with some milk. English tea is so strong that pouring it out into a cup together with a little milk you get a brownish liquid looking like weak coffee with milk. Most English put milk in their coffee, too – this is known as “white coffee”. When dining out, waiters will ask you if you want your coffee “black or white” rather than “with or without milk”.
At lunch time, the Englishmen usually have cold meat and salad or fish often with potatoes or other vegetables, fish and chips, sausages and a sweet dish (an apple pie, a hot milk pudding, cold fruit salad, or ice-cream).
Those who work have their lunch in a café or a restaurant, a cafeteria or a factory canteen. It never happens that they miss a meal or put it off until a more convenient time.
From four to five, they have a very light meal called afternoon tea. You can hardly call it a meal. It’s rather an occasion in the late afternoon at which they have a cup of tea and a cake or a biscuit. Or it may be a light meal of bread, butter and jam, cakes and tea; or it may be a heavier meal of those things with a dish of meat or eggs. In this case it is said that they have the so-called“high tea”. It’s a meal taken between 5 and 6 p.m. if a dinner is not taken in the evening. Usually it’s a more substantial meal than afternoon tea.
The most important meal of the day is dinner. Dinner is eaten in the middle of the day or in the evening. If it’s eaten in the evening, the second meal of the day is lunch. If dinner is taken in the middle of the day, supper is the evening meal. Usually dinner is much like lunch. But sometimes when the English have guests, dinner is the biggest meal and they may have some roast beef, roast chicken, boiled or roast potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Soup is a side dish. At the end of the dinner a sweet pudding may come.
At dinner, as well as at lunch and supper, Englishmen drink plenty of water. After dinner many people drink a cup of coffee. They pour the coffee out of a coffee-pot into small coffee-cups. (To say the truth, almost every meal in England finishes with coffee, cheese and butter.)
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Britain and good food are two things which are not commonly associated. Visitors to Britain have widely varying opinions about all sorts of aspects of the country, but most of them seem to agree that the food is terrible. Why? One reason could simply be that British tastes are different from everybody else’s. However, the most common complaint is not so much that British food has a strange, unpleasant taste, but rather that it has very little taste at all. The vegetables, for example, are overcooked, to put it mildly.
Another explanation may be that most visitors to Britain do not get the opportunity to sample home cooking. They either еat the food cooked in an institution, such as a university canteen, or they eat out a lot, usually in rather cheap restaurants and cafés. These places are definitely not where to find good British food. Typical British cooking, which involves a lot of roasting, does not suit the larger scale production or the quick preparation which is required in such places. For one thing, food should, according tо British people, be eaten hot, which is difficult to arrange when feeding large numbers of people. In addition, the British have not got into the habit of preparing sauces with grilled food in order to make it tastier.
The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British cuisine. Even in fast food restaurants and everyday cafés, the quality seems to be lower than it is in similar places in other countries. It seems that British people simply don’t care enough tо bother.
The country has neither a widespread “restaurant culture”, nor a café society. In the middle of the day, people just want to eat up quickly and are not interested much in quality (the lunch break is an hour at most). Young people and families with children who eat at fast food places are similarly not interested in quality. Little effort is made to make the hamburgers tasty because nobody expects them to be. The coffee is horrible not because British people prefer it that way but because they don’t go to a café for a delicious, slow cup of coffee - they go there because they need the caffeine.
Even at home, food and drink is given relatively little attention. The coffee is often just as bad as it is in the cafés. British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what a few people who drink it often call “real” coffee. Instant coffee is less trouble. Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table cleared. Parties and celebrations are not normally centred around food. For example, if a British person expresses a liking for barbecues, this does not necessarily mean that he or she likes barbecued food - it is understood to mean that he or she enjoys the typical barbecue atmosphere.
When the British do pay attention to food, it is most frequently not tо appreciate it but to notice what they don’t like about it. Food hits the headlines only in the context of its dangers: for example when a government minister announced that the country's eggs were infected with salmonella. In the early 1990, everybody in the country knew about “mad cow disease” (= a disease affecting the brains of infected cattle). There are quite a large number of vegetarians in Britain and an even larger number of those who are aware of the implications for their health of what they eat. “Health food shops” are as abundant in the country’s high streets as delicatessens.
British people have been mostly urban, having little contact with “the land'” for longer than the people of other countries. Perhaps this is why the range of plants and animals, which they will eat is rather narrow. To most people, the idea of going out to pick wild plants for the table is exotic. It is perhaps significant that when the British want to refer to the people of another country insultingly, they often allude to their eating habits. Because of the strange things they do with cabbage, for example, the Germans are “krauts”. Because of their outrageous taste for frog legs, the French are “frogs”.
However, the picture is not entirely negative. While the British are conservative about ingredients, they are no longer conservative about the way they are served. In the 1960s, it was reported that the first British package tourists in Spain not only insisted on eating traditionally British fish and chips all the time but also on having them, as was traditional, wrapped up in specially imported British newspapers! By now, however, the British are extremely open to the cuisine of other countries. The country’s supermarket shelves are full of the spices and sauces needed for cooking dishes from all over the world. The increasingly multicultural nature of the population has helped in this respect. In addition, there is increasing interest in the pure enjoyment of eating and drinking.
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1. Do you have guests to dinner very often? Is it more common for people to have friends come to dinner at home or to meet them in restaurants?
2. If you are invited to someone’s house for dinner, do you take a gift? Do you send something before dinner? What is appropriate to give as a gift?
3. What time do you usually eat dinner?
4. Do people talk while eating or wait until they have finished eating to have a conversation?
5. Where would a special guest sit at the table? Facing the door? At the head of the table? On the right of the host? On the left? In the middle position at the side of the table?
6. At a restaurant, which of these methods would you use to get a server’s attention? Pick up several variants, if needed.
- snap your fingers
- curl your fist finger and move it toward you
- motion with your palm down and your fingers curled toward you
- clap your hands
- make a kissing noise
- make a whistling or hissing noise
- raise your hand and call out
- raise your hand and make eye contact
- raise your hand with your first finger raised
- catch the waiter’s eye and move your head backward quickly
- catch the waiter’s eye and move your head down toward the table
___ Leaving Food or Not ___ Eating Internationally
___ Observing Carefully ___ Serving Something to Drink
___ Using Tableware ___ Keeping Your Hands in the Right Place
___ Using a Toothpick ___ Cleaning Hands
All Manner of Manners
[1] The Parker Pen Company has been doing business internationally since 1902. In that time, the company has collected many reports about customs in different countries. In 1985, Parker Pen asked Roger Axtell, one of its international sales representatives, to collect these reports in a book about cultural differences. The result is a series of books called Do’s and Taboos Around the World.
[2] The books deal with all sorts of customs, but the information about eating gives an idea of the challenges an international traveler faces. Customs for dining with guests vary so much from one country to another that you could do something polite in one country that has a completely different meaning in another. Here is one classic example: a host in the United States offers a guest from Jordan more food at dinner. The guest refuses and the host does not offer again. The Jordanian may be shocked and hungry because in Jordan, it is polite for the host to offer the food several times while it is polite for guests to refuse, even if they want more. Then what happens when someone from Jordan travels to Zambia? There, according to Axtell, it is impolite for the host to offer food first. If you aren’t aware of this custom, you may all be hungry!
[3] In some countries, guests are expected to finish everything on their dinner plates. In other countries, such as Egypt, it is polite to leave something. In China, the host will continue to fill a guest’s dish. It is polite to leave some food in the dish in order to show how generous the host was. At a formal dinner, the second-to-last course is sometimes plain boiled rice. You should refuse this to show that you are satisfied and full.
[4] What about serving yourself more to drink? In many Asian countries, you can fill everyone else’s glasses, but not your own. You will have to wait for someone else to offer you more to drink. However, if you are a woman in Italy, don’t pour your neighbor a glass. Some people do not consider this appropriate behavior for a woman. If you do pour the wine, think twice about which hand you use. In Bolivia and Chile, most people consider it incorrect to pour the wine with your left hand. When someone pours you something to drink, do you hold your glass up or leave it on the table? Customs for this are different in many countries.
[5] In the United States, you are supposed to keep one hand in your lap while you’re eating. It is considered impolite to put your elbows on the table. Diners usually hold a knife and fork only when they are cutting something, and then they put the knife down to change hands and eat with the fork in their right hand. If food is fairly soft, they use the side of the fork to cut it. However, in many countries, just the opposite is often true. People eat with their wrists resting on the edge of the table and continue to hold both the knife and the fork in their hands while they eat. In Brazil, it is considered rude to cut food with the side of a fork.
[6] According to Axtell, if you want more food in Spain, you should put your knife and fork down on opposite sides of the plate. In Greece, to show that you are finished, cross your knife and fork on the plate with the fork facing up underneath. In Argentina, do the same thing, but put the fork face down. In other countries, you position your knife and fork close together on the side of the plate or diagonally when you are finished.
[7] Of course, in many countries people don’t eat with knives and forks. They may eat with their hands, but in most countries only with the right hand. The left hand is considered unclean. If people use chopsticks, it is common to pick up the dish and hold it close to your mouth. But how close should you hold it? Customs vary from country to country!
[8] In some countries, cleaning your hands is part of the mealtime experience. In Morocco, someone will bring a pitcher of water and a basin before you eat. You hold your hands over the basin and rinse your hands in the water that is poured from the pitcher. In Japan, you will get a warm, wet cloth to wipe your hands before you eat. In other countries, such as Italy, cleaning your hands after youeat is important. You may have a finger bowl beside your plate to rinse your fingers in.
[9] When you have finished eating, can you use a toothpick? In the United States, it is impolite to use a toothpick in public. In other countries, using a toothpick shows that the food was delicious. But be careful how to use the toothpick! In some countries, it is polite to hide the toothpick behind your hand.
[10] So what is a traveler to do? Axtell recommends that you watch others carefully to see what they do. He also says that conversations about customs are very interesting, so ask questions about ways to do things. He ends each of his books by talking about the universal action that can help a traveler in many situations – the smile.
| Country | Custom |
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Health Quiz
1. Which of these would you eat?
a. frog’s legs b. horse steak c. caviar d. snails
e. blood pudding f. sheep’s eyes g. brain
2. Which of these do you think is luxury food?
a. oysters b. lobster c. truffles d. pheasant
3. Which of these do you eat most of?
a. potatoes b. rice c. pasta d. beans
4. How many meals do you eat every day?
a. two b. three c. four d. five
5. Which of these do you like eating best?
a. French food b. Chinese food c. Indian food
d. Italian food e. home cooking
6. How often do you eat out?
a. every day b. once or twice a week c. several times a month
d. occasionally e. seldom f. never
7. If you have ever tried to slim, did you …
a. give it up after a few days?
b. try for a few weeks and give up in the end?
c. continue until you were successful?
8. Do you think you eat …
a. a little? b. enough? c. quite a lot? d. definitely too much?
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Nutrients in food
Foods give us proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals.
1. Proteinsbuild and repair body cells. Meat, fish, eggs, milk, beans, grains, and nuts are rich in proteins.
2 
. Carbohydratesprovide energy for rapid use. They include sugars in fruits, sugar cane, and sugar beet; starches in potatoes, bread, cereals such as wheat, rice, maize, oats, and barley, and vegetables.
3. Fatsare concentrated stores of energy, found in butter, margarine, edible oils, meat, eggs, etc.
4. Vitaminsin tiny quantities help regulate chemical processes inside the body. Different vitamins occur in fats and oils, fresh fruits and vegetables, liver, kidney, cereals, eggs, and yeast.
5. Mineralsare necessary for the chemical activities of the body and for the construction of tissues. Minerals of certain kinds abound in milk, cheese, fish, and some green
vegetables.
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Food intake
The diagrams compare average daily calorie consumption of different foods per person in two regions. In the Western world people eat more food of more kinds than they do in the non-Western world.