Лекция: Restaurant English

Over the decades, this no-nonsense approach to cooking sank deep into the American culture, although even on the frontier a woman could gain fame for the lightness of her corn biscuits or the delicacy of her hot berry pie. Gradually, however, regional distinctions began to emerge and flourish sb that, for example, there is now fried Kentucky ham with red-eye gravy, smoked Pennsylavia Dutch ham with dried apples, cornmeal-coated Texas ham, thinly sliced Virginia ham with hot biscuits, Missouri baked glazed ham. Similarly, clam chowder was given a milk base in New England, a tomato base in the mid-America region, and the clams in the chowder were sometimes replaced by oysters in the South.

Aside from regional differences, there were lessons learnt from later arrivals from Europe who brought with them to America a taste and a skill for a different kind of kitchen craft, for sauerbraten in Milwaukee, for Polish sausage in Chicago and for a dozen different spaghetti sauces in New York.

There is a versatility and ingenuity to the American cuisine which belies its basic simplicity. It is as varied, inventive and ultimately indefinable as America itself.

Questions:

1. Why is the USA compared to a pantry?

2. What is an American kitchen like?

3. Mention some well-known American dishes.

4. Why is big-city cooking very much the same all over the United States?

5. Where does the no-nonsense American attitude to cuisine come from?

6. What is your opinion of American cooking?