Index | Home Page | Back | Next ______FOOD
Dialogue:______read aloud in pairs
A: What do you think of British food?
B: That's a very difficult question to answer, because if you look in two
supermarket trolleys, you'll see that what people buy is completely different. Some
people will go for fresh vegetables and wholemeal bread, while others prefer tins and
packets of highly processed food.
A: Is there such a thing as British food?
B: That's the second problem, because a lot of what we buy comes from other
parts of the European Community or further afield. Many trolleys will contain both
New Zealand butter and South African fruit.
A: Well, what do people mean when they say they don't like British food?
B: I think it's probably possible to generalize about what is eaten at main meal-
times. Northern Europeans, including the British, tend to eat more potatoes than
Asians, who prefer rice.
A: Can you explain why many Asians prefer French or Italian cuisine to British
cooking?
B: That's both a question of what different Europeans eat and how it's prepared.
For example, pizza has become international. People are accustomed to eating it and
Italians prepare it well.
A: Do the British prepare food badly?
B: In fact, we have some of the top chefs in the world, but only people with a lot
of money experience British cooking at its best. Students staying in English
families often have to put up with convenience foods, quick preparations served up by
working couples who have little time for anything other than their jobs.
A: Surely, not all host families offer fast food.
B: No .... some are very careful about what they eat. They may buy brown rice,
wholemeal bread, muesli and organically grown fruit. They may eat a mainly
vegetarian diet. But this can cause different problems. Japanese students are used to
eating white rice, while Southern Europeans are used to eating a lot of meat. Certain
versions of the British diet are probably very healthy, but don't appeal internationally.
People simply aren't used to them.