Text 8 chinese food – what a way to cook!

♫ Listen to the text and answer the questions:

1. What gives Chinese food its original fresh flavor?

2. How did the tradition to cut meat and vegetables into small pieces appear?

My interest in Chinese food started many years ago, when I had my first job. I was a young reporter for the Daily Journal in San Francisco. Our office wasn’t far from Chinatown. I usually managed to arrange my schedule so that I could go there at least two or three times a week for a good meal.

The first time I ever ate Chinese food I loved it. And since that, it just tastes better and better to me. The first thing I noticed was the fresh taste of the meat and vegetables. When I learned more about the food, I began to understand why it has this unique feature.

About 5000 years ago, China lost much of its wood because of over population and poor management of its forests. This loss was very bad for the country, of course, but it turned out to be very good for the wood. Wood became very expensive and hard to get, so the Chinese had to either find a substitute for their valuable wood, or learn how to use it better. There weren’t any substitutes available, so people found ways to economize.

In order to economize in cooking, they had to use very little wood. So they started to cut their meat and vegetables into small pieces before they put them into the hot oil. That way, the food cooked faster and they saved their fuel. The food prepared in this manner kept its fresh flavour that attracts people to the art of Chinese cooking.

I often wonder if the Chinese appreciated their solution to that ancient energy crisis as mush as I do now – whenever I eat Chinese food.

Text 9

Here are some common ideas about food. Think about your own tips concerning food. Write 10 advice how to keep fit.

Eating carrots is good for the eyes.

Fish is good for a brain.

Eating cheese at night makes you dream.

Garlic keeps you from getting colds.

Drinking coffee keeps you from sleeping.

Yoghurt makes you live long.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Warm milk helps you go to sleep.

A cup of tea settles your stomach.

Brown eggs taste better than white ones.

“More die in the United States of too much food than too little.”(John Kenneth Galbraith)

At different times in different countries there have been different ideas of beauty. The rich would always want to look fat in a society where food was scarce and to look thin in a society where food was plentiful. The current interest in losing weight is because of fashion as well as health. However, overeating causes a variety of illnesses.

“One should eat to live, not live to eat”.

Moliere

“… set yourself at a restaurant in front of an eight-ounce steak and then imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of them. For the ‘feed cost’ of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains!”

Frances Moore Lappe, Diet for a Small Planet

“Year by year, while the word’s population has increased, the food supply has increased more. (But) … supply of nourishing food could be enormously increased if, in the richer countries of the world, people were prepared to eat some of the food they feed to their pigs and cattle … and to their pet dogs and cats”.