Read the text below and discuss in groups the art of laying the table. How do you set the table in your country? Is it different from the British way?
MEALS
frieda: Could you please tell us something about English meals and food and cooking—how to lay the table and so on? I am going to keep house for an English family in the summer holidays and I want to know as much as I can about it before I go.
Mr. priestley: Well, here is Mrs. Priestley. She can tell you about it better than I can.
mrs. priestley: Oh, yes; I will do that gladly.
The usual meals are breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner; or, in simpler homes, breakfast, dinner, tea and supper. Breakfast is generally a bigger meal than you have on the Continent, though some English people like a "continental» breakfast of rolls and butter and coffee. But the usual English breakfast is porridge or "Corn Flakes" with milk or cream and sugar, bacon and eggs, marmalade (made from oranges) with buttered toast, and tea or coffee. For a change you can have a boiled egg, cold ham, or perhaps fish.
We generally have lunch about one o'clock. The business man in London usually finds it impossible to come home for lunch, and so he goes to a cafe or a restaurant; but if I am making lunch at home I have cold meat (left over probably from yesterday's dinner), potatoes, salad and pickles, with a pudding or fruit to follow. Sometimes we have a mutton chop, or steak and chips, followed by biscuits and cheese, and some people like a glass of light beer with lunch.
Afternoon tea you can hardly call a meal, but it is a sociable sort of thing, as friends often come in then for a chat while they have their cup of tea, cake or biscuit.
In some houses dinner is the biggest meal of the day. We had rather a special one last night, as we had an important visitor from South America to see Mr. Priestley.
We began with soup, followed by fish, roast chicken, potatoes and vegetables, a sweet, fruit and nuts. Then we went into the sitting-room for coffee and cigarettes.
But in my house, as in a great many English homes, we make the midday meal the chief one of the day, and in the evening we have the much simpler supper—an omelette, or sausages, sometimes bacon and eggs and sometimes just bread and cheese, a cup of coffee or cocoa and fruit.
HOB:My Uncle Albert always has "high tea."He says he has no use for these "afternoon teas"where you try to hold a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread and butter about as thin as a sheet of paper in the other. He's a Lancashire man, and nearly everyone in Lancashire likes high tea. So do I. We have it between five and six o'clock, and we have ham or tongue and tomatoes and salad, or a kipper, or tinned salmon, or sausages, with good strong tea, plenty of bread and butter, then stewed fruit, or a tin of pears, apricots or pineapple with cream or custard and pastries or a good cake. And that's what I call a good tea.
|
|
|
mrs. priestley: Have you now got what you wanted, Frieda?
frieda: Yes, that is very useful, but I'd like to know exactly how to lay a table and the names of all the things you use.
mrs. priestley: Well, here is Susan. She does it every day and will tell us what she does.
susan: First, I spread the table-cloth and then I put out table-mats to protect the table from hot plates and dishes—a small mat for each guest and larger ones for the hot dishes. I take out of the drawer in the sideboard all the cutlery—a fish-knife and fork for the fish, a large knife and fork for the meat, a small knife for the butter, and a fruit-knife for the dessert. Then there is a pudding-spoon and a fork for the sweet, and a soup- spoon for the soup. I put the knives and the soup-spoon on the right-hand side and the forks on the left, except the pudding-spoon and fork, which I put across the top. Then I put out the serving-spoons and forks, the carving-knife and fork, the bread- board and a knife to cut the bread, and I sharpen the carving-knife, as I know Mr. Priestley hates a blunt carving-knife. On the left of each guest I put a small plate for bread and on his right a wine-glass if we are having wine, and in the middle of the table I put a jug of water with a few pieces of ice from the refrigerator in it. Then I put out the table-napkins for each guest, put the coffee-cups and saucers, with cream and brown sugar and coffee- spoons on the tray, and I am ready for the guests to come in.
frieda: Thank you very much, Susan. There's another thing I want to ask you about, Mrs. Priestley. I have never tabled anywhere else such lovely cake as I get at your house; will you please tell me how you make it?
mrs. priestley: I'm glad you enjoy my cakes and it's very nice of you to say so. They are quite easy to make. I'll write down the quantities of flour, butter, sugar, fruit, etc., that you need and the directions for mixing and baking. If you follow these directions you can't go wrong.
|
|
|
frieda: Thank you very much, Mrs. Priestley. I'll do exactly what you tell me and if I can make a cake like yours I shall be very proud of myself.
HOB: Well, Frieda, I hope your cake will be better than those made by Aunt Aggie. I went to see her one day and found her nearly in tears. "What's the matter? “ I asked.
"Oh," she said, "I've just made a cake and the mice have been and eaten it!”
"Well," I said, "why worry about what happens to a few mice?”
Task 5.
Дата добавления: 2018-08-06; просмотров: 520; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы! |
Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!