Food
Daily meals usually start with breakfast. An English breakfast differs
greatly from ours. Traditional British breakfast consists of a glass of fruit
juice, cornflakes with sugar and milk and buttered crisp piece of toast with
marmalade or jam or honey. Quite a lot of British people eat müsli for their
breakfast or some other ready-made cereals or porridge. Of course they drink tea
in the morning or coffee.
Tea has been called the national beverage of the English and it is still
their favourite drink. They usually put milk in their tea, but seldom put any
sugar in it. Sundays are reserved for their big cooked breakfast (which is
sometimes called „brunch“ – breakfast and lunch together) consisting
of e.g. hard or soft boiled, scrambled, poached or fried eggs, fried bacon,
sausages, tomatoes, fried bread. Their breakfast is taken at eight or at nine o
clock.
The second meal is lunch taken between 12 and 1 o?clock, which is a light
meal. People may eat in the office or factory canteen some kind of meat or fish,
potatoes and vegetables and fruit or take a sandwich to work, which is the most
current. The origin of the world „sandwich“ is interesting. An 18th
century aristocrat, the Earl of Sandwich, loved playing cards. He used to play
all day and night and hated having to stop for his meals. So he thought of a way
of putting meat between two slices of bread. In this way he could eat and play
at the same time.
The typical British break is 5 o?clock tea, which is called high tea. The
tea is usually fairly strong and eaten together with some cakes or biscuits.
About 6 o?clock most families have their evening meal or
„dinner“. Dinner is the principal meal of the day. It may be cooked or
cold depending on the time of year. There is sometimes soup as the first course
then some meat, vegetables and almost always potatoes, which is rather boring.
The English are fond of cakes and pies. And there is often a sweet – some kind
of pudding or a fruit pie.
Supper is a meal, which the English sometimes have when they come home from
the cinema or the theatre late at night. It is always lighter meat. The
traditional perception of British cuisine is of overcooked vegetables, tasteless
meat and a lot of potatoes. Many families now prefer to eat out at restaurants
or cafés or to buy take-away Chinese or Indian meals to eat at home. The
selection of foreign food is larger now and there are lots of hamburger chains.
They are a nation with a very „sweet tooth“.
Fast food is a typical feature of both British and American life styles. In a
restaurant you can eat national dishes, but there are food stalls and places
where you can either buy various types of food to eat as you walk along the
streets or take it away and eat at home. The Americans call fast food
restaurants „cheapies“. These places – McDonald s, Burger King,
Wendy?s, Kentucky Fried Chicken (in America also Mrs. Winner?s) usually
offer beverages (Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, tea, coffee, milkshakes…), some solid
food like roast chicken and chips, hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, salads or
deserts (apple, cherry pie). The oldest types of fast food are seafood stalls or
shops – usually fish and chips. Many types of fish are sold (cod, hake, plaice).
Another typical feature of British and American lifestyle is popcorn. You can
buy it when walking the streets. Various types of popcorn are sold – either
sweet with sugar and other flavours, or cooked with salt.
In our country daily meals usually start with breakfast, which consists of
something to drink – tea (with milk or with lemon) or cocoa, warm or hot milk,
black coffee – and something to eat, e. g. one or two slices of bread and butter
and cheese or eggs, ham, salami, jam etc. Instead of bread we can eat rolls or
buns or we can have something sweet – cakes, doughnuts or gingerbread. Quite a
lot of people eat cereal for their breakfast – either cornflakes or porridge or
muesli – they also sometimes add various ingredients like yoghurt, raisins,
chocolate, stewed fruit, walnuts, hazelnuts etc. Breakfast usually takes place
between 6 and 7 o clock.
Around noon (but in our school sometimes at half past two p. m.) we have our
lunch, which is warm and consists of some soup, a main dish, something to drink
and salad or dessert. Most people go to a school, office or factory canteen but
some prefer going to a restaurant or having a fast lunch in a buffet or a snack
bar or buying something at street stalls.
Soups are either vegetable soups (potato, tomato, pea, bean, carrot, parsley,
celery, mushrooms) or meat teas (beef tea, tripe, chicken, hen or goulash soup
etc.). Some people cook fruit soups (e. g. strawberry soup).
The main dish can be either sweet – e.g. strawberry or plum dumplings,
pancakes with jam and cream, baked yeast dumplings, doughnuts etc. Or we can
have some meat or fish or poultry with some vegetables such as potatoes, chips,
rice, Czech dumplings, pasta or bread. We distinguish the following types of
meat: beef, pork, veal, mutton, lamb, game and we can prepare it in various ways
– roast it, grill it, boil it, bake it or stew it – we can mince or smoke some
kinds of meat. Poultry is things like chicken, hen, duck, turkey and goose. Lots
of people in our country eat rabbits. The main fish cooked in our country is
carp (it s a traditional Christmas meal – battered carp and potato salad) and
trout.
While cooking we may add various spices so that the meal will have a unique
flavour – e. g. garlic, sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, curry, pepper, ginger,
red pepper, mace, cinnamon, clove, cumin, bay leaf, allspice, ketchup, Soya
sauce, Worchester, sugar, vinegar, mustard, peanuts, onions, flour, semolina,
etc.
After the main dish we may drink tea, lemonade, cider, juice, Coca-Cola,
mineral water syrup and water, while the adults like beer and black coffee after
their dinner.
An evening meal may be either warm or cold. Cold and quick supper may consist
of some pâté on bread or rolls, kippers or some spread. We can cook a
ready-made dish from a tin or have soup or potato pancakes.
Typical Czech meals include: Tripe soup, potato soup, „kulajda“
soup (mushrooms and potatoes boiled in a little bit of sour cream soup), roasted
goose and sauerkraut and Czech dumplings, Moravian sparrows (roasted fat pork
off cuts) and dumplings, Spanish birds (rolled beef steaks filled with salami,
pickle, egg and mustard), potato pancakes, fruit dumplings with cream, baked
yeast dumplings, potato or „hairy“ dumplings, fried cheese etc.
Traditional Czech cuisine is however a bit unhealthy and people can get fat.
Many families prefer to cook more vegetable meals, they become vegetarians or
try some kind of foreign (Chinese) food.
Some questions we could be asked
1. What is your favourite meal? Describe it.
2. What can you cook? Do you like cooking? Why? Do you use a cookery book or
your own imagination?
I prefer my own imagination in cooking but I think that it?s necessary to
have some ground of cooking which could be taken precisely from the cookery
book.
3. What do people in our country usually have for breakfast, lunch, dinner?
4. What are some typical Czech meals?
5. Give a general description of British cuisine.
6. What is brunch? What is the origin of the word sandwich?
7. What does the term fast food mean? What do they serve?
8. Do you know any fast food places? How often do you go there and why? If
you go there, how often?
9. Do you like going to the restaurant? Why?
10. How would you order meals there? Do you prefer menu or eating á la
Carte?
Menu = fixed meal – předem sestavený jídelníček – levnější
á la carte – čl. si sám vybere – dražší
I feel like a snack.
I don t feel like a big meal.
I m not hungry. Nor am I.
Do you want a drink?
What will you drink.?
We ll look at the menu.
They offer a wide choice of dishes. (eg. choice of five dishes)
I never eat soup for lunch.
I will have some vegetables.
I like my tea strong.
I don t take sugar in my tea.
Would you care for some biscuits? I think I would. So would I.
Pass me the salt, please.
I?ll help myself.
The bill, please.
They asked me to dinner.
Cutlery = příbor
A pot of strong tea for three
Iced water, plain water = čistá voda
Soft drink = nealko
to drink a toast = připít
to propose a toast = pronést přípitek
second helping = přídavek
stewed fruit = kompot
lettuce = hlávkový salát
tough meat = tuhé maso
lean meat = libové maso
fat meat = tlusté maso
11. Has it ever happened to you that you had a reason to complain about
something? What was it? What did you do? What would you do?
12. What do you think about diets? Have you ever been on diet? Was it any
good?
Overweight is a serious problem in some countries, particularly with women.
13. What is your idea of healthy food?
Rational nutrion aims at reducing the consumption of fats, white flour and
sugar.
Five groups of foodstuff: vegetables and fruit, milk and cheese, Bread and
cereals, meat, eggs and fish, Butter and vegetable oils