Communication, an I, sem 2

Read the following text:

First, take 30 to 40 live scorpions. Stir-fry in hot oil for 20 seconds. Add pork, ginger, salt and pepper.
Cook gently for 40 minutes…Not your average take-away, but a traditional dish in some parts of the world and one
of the unusual recipes collected by photographer Peter Menzel and his wife, Faith, during a nine-year study of
entomophagy, the eating of insects, which has taken them all over the globe.

“I remember as a child hearing a radio programme about people eating live grasshoppers”, says Peter,
talking from their home in California. At the time I thought it was just unbelievable that people could actually eat
things like that. But then I came across a magazine called the Food Insect Newsletter and I just became fascinated
with insect eating and decided to find out more about it.”

He vividly remembers the first time he actually ate insects himself. “ It was in a village in a very remote
region. There were all these people on top of a mountain who were hunting stink bugs. I walked up to a group of
women who were mashing them up ready to cook them- but some of the women were eating them live, and they
offered me one. I knew that I couldn’t refuse, or they would have been terribly offended. But it was revolting. First
it tried to crawl across my tongue and out of my mouth, so I had to crunch down on it so it didn’t get away, and it
exploded. The taste made me feel sick but there were all these people watching me so I had to swallow it.

(Line 29) After that it got easier and Peter gradually became a connoisseur. One dish he recommends from
personal experience is roast tarantula spider. “It’s the world’s largest spider, it’s bigger than your hand. You roast it,
and it has juicy white meat inside, like a crab. And there’s actually very little difference between them, except one of
them lives in water and one on land.”

His wife, Faith, is still far from happy about insect eating. ”I’m the reluctant bug-eater here,” she says. “I
know it makes sense in environmental terms, but I just don’t like the thought of it. I suppose here in USA we’ve
stopped thinking about where our food actually comes from- we just go along to the supermarket and buy something
in a packet.”

“People have asked me why I do this,” says Peter. “Well, the food we eat is a very basic part of our culture,
and when we share other’s food I think we gain more understanding of their culture. But as well as that, it helps us
to examine our own attitudes towards what we eat. In fact, many species of insects are lower in fat, and higher in
protein than beef or chicken. And raising insects is environmentally friendly-you don’t need to destroy any wildlife
habitat to do it.”

I.Choose the answer ( A, B, C, D) which you think fits best according to the text. 4p

1. Peter and Faith have travelled round the world in order to

A. do research into people’s eating habit.
B. learn how to cook scorpions.
C. take photographs of unusual insects.
D. write a book of traditional recipes.

2. When Peter read about insect eating, he decided the idea sounded
A. shocking
B. strange
C. interesting
D. unpleasant.
 3. Why did Peter accept a stink bug from the women on the mountain?
A. He did not want to be impolite.
B. He did not realise they wanted him to eat it.
C. He thought it had been cooked.
D. He did not know what it was.
4. Peter bit into the stink bug because he wanted to
A. stop it stinging him.
B. prevent it from escaping.
C. swallow it.
D. taste it.
5. What does it refer to in line 29?
A. biting stink bugs
B. enjoying stink bugs
C. eating insects
D. cooking insects
6. Peter says that the tarantula spider is
A. similar in taste to a type of seafood
B. the most delicious insect he has eaten
C. not very different in taste from other types of insect
D. only good to eat if it is carefully cooked.
7. Faith says that although she isn’t enthusiastic about eating insects, she
A. is prepared to try anything to protect the environment
B. is aware that there are good reasons for eating them
C. will eat them if she knows where they come from
D. would buy them if she saw them in the supermarket.
8. Peter says that one advantage of his work is that he has
A. Become more aware of environmental problems.
B. Learned more about what makes food healthy.
C. Discovered new sources of food.
D. Found out about other ways of life.

II. Use an online dictionary to find synonyms for the following words in the text: dish, unbelievable,
vividly, remote, offended, happy, reluctant, suppose, basic, friendly. 2p

III. Which of the following statements do you agree or disagree with? Give reasons. 3p

a. I would definitely eat insects if I were very hungry.

b. If we thought about where some of our food came from, we might not want to eat it.