Food and drink

I. Pay attention to the pronunciation of the following word

sample [`sa:mpl] – пробовать

sauce [sO:s] – соус, приправа

cuisine [kwI(:)`zi:n] – кухня, кулинарное искусство

appreciate [{`pri:SIeIt] – ценить, оценивать

abundant [{`b[nd{nt ] – изобильный

delicatessen [,delIk{`tesn] – гастрономический магазин

spice [`spaIs] – специя, пряность, приправа

snack [`sn@k] – легкая закуска

flour [`flau{] – мука

savoury [`seIv({)rI] – соленый

marmalade [`ma:m({)leId] – джем, повидло, мармелад

menu [`menju:] – меню

outlet [`autlet] – торговая точка

ambivalent [@`mbIvalent] – двойственный, противоречивый

2. Read the text.

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.

Another explanation may be that most visitors to Britain do not get the opportunity to sample home cooking. They either eat the food cooked in an institution, such as a university canteen, or they ‘eat out’ a lot, usually in rather cheap restaurants and cafes. 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 to 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.

Attitudes to food

The explanations above can only serve as a partial excuse for the unfortunate reputation of British cuisine. Even in fast restaurants and everyday cafes, the quality seems to be lower than it is in equivalent places in other countries. It seems that British people simply don’t care enough to 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 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 just as bad as it is in the cafes. British supermarkets sell far more instant coffee than what the few people who drink it often call ‘real’ coffee. Meals tend to be eaten quickly and the table cleared. Parties and celebrations are not normally centred around food.

When the British do pay attention to food, it is most frequently not to 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 in 1993, when it was discovered that 100 tonnes of six-year-old beef had been allowed to go on sale; or when a government minister announced that the country’s eggs were infected with salmonella. In the early 1990s, everybody in the country knew about ‘mad cow disease’ (a disease affecting the brains of infected cattle). There are quite a large number of the implications for their health of what they eat. ‘Health food shops’ are as abundant in country’s high streets as delicatessens.

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. 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.