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Meals

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Unit 5 Meals

to order заказывать
to prefer предпочитать
to taste пробовать
helping порция
appetizer закуска
salad салат
caviar икра
jelled fish/ meat заливное
speciality фирменное блюдо
for the first course на первое
pea soup гороховый суп
cabbage soup капустный суп
chicken soup куриный суп
broth / clear soup бульон
the main course основное блюдо
meat course мясные блюда
pork / mutton chop свиная /баранья отбивная
hamburger говяжья котлета
grill жареное мясо (рыба)
roast beef ростбиф
steak бифштекс
tender нежный
overdone пережаренный
underdone недожаренный
fish course рыбные блюда
boiled fish отварная рыба
fried fish жареная рыба
trout форель
salmon лосось
cod треска
carp карп
sturgeon осетрина
herring сельдь
lobster омар
oyster устрицы
vegetables овощи
brown bread черный хлеб
white (wheat) bread белый хлеб
long loaf батон
buns сдобные булочки
soft drinks безалкогольные напитки
juice сок
hard drinks спиртные напитки
wine list карта вин
champagne шампанское
dry wine сухое вино
table wine столовое вино
for dessert на десерт
fruit фрукты
ice-cream мороженное
cake пирожное
to be hungry быть голодным
to have a bite перекусить
light meal легкая еда
to have another helping of smth просить добавки
standard dish обычное (основное) блюдо
festive dinner праздничный ужин
enjoy your meal приятного аппетита
to cook готовить
to make tea/ coffee готовить чай / кофе
to be delicious быть восхитительным
to be on diet быть на диете
to be vegetarian быть вегетарианцем
to be full up наесться
dish посуда
to set the table накрывать на стол

Task 1. Read and translate the text.

We eat various food-stuffs: meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, eggs, bread, etc. Before we have our meals, we must cook the food. We put salt, sugar, pepper, mustard and various spices into our food to make it salted, sweet or sour. When dinner is ready we set the table or serve the table.

Dinner is a substantial meal with us. At home we usually have a three-course dinner. For the first course we have cabbage soup or noodle soup. For the main course we prefer meat with vegetables. I don’t like fish, but sometimes I have it just for a change. My favorite dish is roasted meat. It smells so appetizing and is very tasty. For dessert we have fruit or some kind of jelly. Besides I’m fond of strawberries with cream which is delicious. I never eat much at supper. If I feel hungry late in the evening, I take a cup of tea and a small slice of bread and butter.

When the meal is over we get up from the table and clear the table. We clear away the dirty cups and plates and wash them up.

Usually I have my meals at home. But sometimes when I stay at the University after classes for a long time I have a bite at our canteen. It’s a self-service dining-room, so there are neither waitresses nor waiters there. The dining room is not very large and it is crowded with students, especially during the intervals. So we have to stand in a queue for 5-10 minutes to take something. First of all I select the dishes on the menu. The cook is rather well in our canteen. We are quite satisfied with our dishes. Sometimes we get a very tasty pies and cakes there. It makes your mouth water just to look at them.

If we don’t want to have a substantial meal we may have refreshment – various salads or dairy products such as: yoghurt, sour-cream, sour-milk, etc. Sometimes we prefer this kind of meal as it costs very little. Students are not very particular about what they eat as long as it is eatable.

Task 2. Read and try to memorize.

 

When people are at the table they may ask their neighbors for something they can’t easily reach. In this case they say: “pass me the salt, please.”

The hostess may want to help you to something: “What shall I help you?”

When you accept something that is offered you say: “Yes, please”.

When you refuse something you say “No, thank you. No more, thank you”.

When you want to praise the food, you say “It’s delicious!”

When the meal is over we clear the table, we clear away the plates, dishes, cutlery, then wash it up in the kitchen.

Task 3. Can you define if it is fruit or vegetable? Translate the words.

Potatoes, apple, cabbage, onions, pears, grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, raisins, bananas, peaches, beets, carrots, peas, apricots, pineapples, cauliflower, beans, plums, prunes, cherries, oranges, garlic, fennel, parsley, asparagus, tangerines, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries.

Task 4. Read and translate the dialogue.

W - Good morning, sir (miss, madam). For one?
A - Yes, please.
W - Would you like this table by the window?
A - Thank you.
W - Here’s the menu.
A - Well, now, what do you recommend?
W - Well, the roast lamb is very good. Or, if you prefer fish, there is nice cod today.
A - I think, I’ll have the roast lamb, please.
W - What vegetables would you like with it?
A - Some baked potatoes. And what green vegetables do you have?
W - Peas, spinach, beans.
A - I think I’ll have peas. They are nice with lamb.
W - Very well, sir (miss, madam). And what will you have for the first? Soup or grapefruit?
A - I’ll have a grapefruit to start with. Could I order my dessert now? I’m in a hurry.
W - Yes, certainly. What would you like?
A - I think I’d like an apple pie and coffee.
W - Very well, sir (miss, madam).

 

Task 5. Check your knowledge.

Think of the questions you would ask a waiter / waitress at a restaurant.

Task 6.Check your knowledge. Try to compose a menu and speak about the quality of each course.

We roamed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then, it being too late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of the Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was still early when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to try a good, slap-up supper. He said he would show us what could be done up the river in the way of cooking, and suggested that, with the vegetables and the remains of the cold beef and general odds and ends, we should make an Irish stew.

It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and made a fire, and Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never have thought that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job turned out to be the biggest thing of its kind that I had ever been in. We began cheerfully, one might almost say skittishly, but our light-heartedness was gone by the time the first potato was finished. The more we peeled, the more peel there seemed to be left on; by the time we had got all the peel off and all the eyes out, there was no potato left – at least none worth speaking of. George came and had a look at it – it was about the size of a pea-nut. He said:

“Oh, that won’t do! You’re wasting them. You must scrape them.”

So we scraped them, and that was harder work than peeling. They are such an extraordinary shape, potatoes – all bumps and warts and hollows. We worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes, and did four potatoes. Then we struck. We said we should require the rest of the evening for scraping ourselves.

I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for making a fellow in a mess. It seemed difficult to believe that the potato-scrapings in which Harris and I stood, half smothered, could have come off four potatoes. It shows you what can be done with economy and care.

George said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish stew, so we washed half-a-dozen or so more, and put them in without peeling. We also put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. George stirred it all up, and then he said that there seemed to be a lot of room to spare, so we overhauled both the hampers, and picked out all the odds and ends and the remnants, and added them to the stew. There were half a pork pie and a bit of cold boiled bacon left, and we put them in. Then George found half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied that into the pot.

He said that was the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such a lot of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked, and put those in. George said they would thicken the gravy.

I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and I remember that, towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water- rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his contribution to the dinner; whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.

We had a discussion as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other things, and that every little helped; but George stood up for precedent. He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew, and he would rather be on the safe side, and not try experiments.

Harris said:

“If you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it’s like? It’s men such as you that hamper the world’s progress. Think of the man who first tried German sausage!”

It was a great success, that Irish stew. I don’t think I ever enjoyed a meal more. There was something so fresh and piquant about it. One’s palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things: here was a dish with a new flavour, with a taste like nothing else on earth.

And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff in it. The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer, but we all had good teeth, so that did not matter much: and as for the gravy, it was a poem – a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach, but nutritious.

We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Montmorency had a fight with the kettle during tea-time, and came off a poor second.

Throughout the trip, he had manifested great curiosity concerning the kettle. He would sit and watch it, as it boiled, with a puzzled expression, and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling at it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded it as a challenge, and would want to fight it, only, at that precise moment, some one would always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at it.

To-day he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening attitude. It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck, and it up and spit at him.

“Ah! would ye!” growled Montmorency, showing his teeth; “I’ll teach ye to cheek a hard-working, respectable dog; ye miserable, long-nosed, dirty- looking scoundrel, ye. Come on!”

And he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout.

Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and Montmorency left the boat, and did a constitutional three times round the island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every now and then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud.

From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle with a mixture of awe, suspicion, and hate. Whenever he saw it he would growl and back at a rapid rate, with his tail shut down, and the moment it was put upon the stove he would promptly climb out of the boat, and sit on the bank, till the whole tea business was over.

Jerome K. Jerom

“Three Men in a Boat”

1) Translate the recipe of the ragout.

2) Retell the text.