Food

British Food Vocabulary

Places that serve traditional British food can now be found in most of the world's big cities.
International hotels usually offer a full English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage and toast,
plus a choice of fried tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans and a British blood sausage
called black pudding. Most big hotels also have one or two British dishes on their dinner
menus. But if you want to explore British food while practising your English, find somewhere
with a name like The Royal Oak or The Rose and Thistle or The King's Tavern. These places
model themselves on British pubs and serve many of the same drinks and meals that pubs
across the British Isles serve.

Meals for Britain's poor

When asked for an example of British food, many people think of fish and chips. There are
thousands of takeaway fish and chip shops all across the British Isles selling deep-fried fish in
batter and potato chips. Like many British dishes, fish and chips began as a cheap meal for poor
workers who had to survive on the very low wages their wealthy upper-class employers paid
them. Takeaway fish and chips are still cheap, but more expensive versions are also now served
in up-market restaurants and pubs. These can include accompaniments like prawns, calamari,
oysters, coleslaw, salads and various sauces.

Another famous British pub meal is bangers and mash. This also began as a meal for the poor,
consisting of nothing but sausages in onion gravy plus mashed potatoes, with green peas
sometimes added. Sausages are generally cheaper than meats like beef and steak, so the poor ate
dishes like bangers and mash instead of dishes like beef Wellington and steak and kidney pie.
Vegetables are also generally cheaper than meats, so the poor often ate vegetable-based foods
like the Cornish pasty that was made by folding pastry around a spicy filling of diced vegetables
with just a little meat added when possible.

Many of the most famous British desserts were also invented by poor people. One of these
is bread and butter pudding which is made with stale bread that would otherwise be wasted.
The stale bread is put in a baking dish and covered in custard, with raisins sometimes added as
well. Even though it's cheap and easy to make, many people say bread and butter pudding is one
of their favourite desserts.

For most people the best meal of the week was eaten after church on Sundays. It was usually a
big roast dinner called a Sunday roast, and this is still one of the most popular British meals. It
consists of roasted meat, usually beef, lamb or chicken, with gravy and roast vegetables such as
potatoes, onions, carrots and parsnips. A Sunday roast can also include accompaniments
like Yorkshire pudding, green peas or beans, broccoli, and a baked dish called cauliflower
cheese.

Meals from Britain's past

Since the 17th century the British have used their military power to invade and control countries
all over Africa and Asia. They didn't often eat the local food, but in India they discovered dishes
that were so delicious they took them back home. Some, like chutney, chicken vindaloo,
kedgeree and a spicy soup called mulligatawny, became so popular that many people now think
they're traditional British foods.

The British forced Indian farmers to grow crops for British traders instead of food for their
families. This caused food shortages and huge famines in India, but it also helped the British
make huge profits and become even richer. One of these crops was tea, and the tea trade led to
the British custom of taking afternoon tea in expensive tea houses where the wealthy enjoyed
cups of tea with delicious cakes, delicate pastries and finger sandwiches. Afternoon tea is still
part of British life, and one of the most popular forms is Devonshire tea in which tea is served
with freshly-baked scones, jam and clotted cream.

British food includes dishes from many parts of the British Isles, and like the dishes mentioned
above, these dishes also reflect the past in various ways. After England invaded Ireland in the
17th century, they used Irish land, crops and farm animals to feed English armies. This made
Irish people so poor that their main food became the potato, one of the cheapest foods at the
time. And to this day many of the most famous Irish dishes are based on potatoes,
including Irish stew, a simple dish of potatoes, mutton, carrots and onions, and shepherd's
pie in which a mixture of minced meat and diced vegetables is covered with a thick layer of
mashed potato. Famous dishes from other parts of the British Isles include haggis, a Scottish
dish made of sheep stomach and other internal organs, and Welsh rarebit, a savoury dish from
Wales made of bread covered in cheese sauce.

bangers and mash steak and kidney pie

   
Irish stew
 

bread and butter pudding Sunday roast or roast dinner

 
mulligatawny soup
 

fish and chips

 
Welsh rarebit
shepherd's pie or cottage pie
 

full English breakfast

  accompaniment: a food eaten with a main dish - 
 afternoon tea: a light afternoon meal of tea with finger sandwiches, cakes or scones
 bangers and mash: British meal of sausages, mashed potatoes, onions in gravy and green peas.
 black pudding: a sausage made of pork fat, pork blood and oatmeal, usually sliced and fried
 bread and butter pudding: a baked dessert made of stale bread, raisins and custard.
 cauliflower cheese: a baked savoury dish of cauliflower and cheese sauce.
 Devonshire tea: afternoon tea with fresh scones, clotted cream and jam.
 fish and chips: a popular British meal of deep-fried fish and potato chips.
 full breakfast: English-style breakfast of eggs,bacon,sausage,toast, baked beans,
 gravy: a sauce made from the juices of cooked meat.
 haggis: a Scottish dish made from the stomach and other organs of a sheep.
 Irish stew: a stew made of mutton, potatoes, carrots and onions.
 mulligatawny: a spicy Indian-style soup.
 Cornish pasty: a baked food made by folding pastry around a savoury vegetable filling with or
without meat.
 roast vegetables: vegetables baked in a pan, often served with roast meat.
 shepherd's pie: a baked dish of minced lamb or mutton covered with a layer of mashed potato.
 stale: no longer fresh, esp. of bread, cakes, pastries, etc.
 steak and kidney pie: a pie filled with diced beef, kidney, fried onions/ gravy.
 Sunday roast (also "roast dinner"): roast meat and vegetables with gravy, often with other dishes
like Yorkshire pudding.
 Welsh rabbit: a savoury dish of toasted bread and cheese sauce.
 Yorkshire pudding: a baked food made with eggs, flour and water or milk.

Chinese Food Vocabulary

Food in northern China
In northern China wheat flour is used to make both wheat noodles and egg noodles. One of the
most famous northern dishes is chow mein which is made by stir-frying egg noodles with meat
or tofu, a soft white protein-rich food made from soy milk. Vegetables and other plant-based
foods common in China can also be added, such as bok choy, napa cabbage, Chinese broccoli,
watercress, leeks, garlic, chilli peppers, straw mushrooms, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and
very young onions called spring onions, green onions or scallions.

Other foods popular in the north include steamed buns with vegetable, bean paste or meat
fillings that are often eaten for breakfast. Boiled or pan-fried dumplings with fillings of meat or
vegetable are also popular, and usually served with a dipping sauce like vinegar or hot chilli oil.
One of the most famous northern dishes is Peking duck in which thin slices of roasted duck
skin are eaten in wheat-flour pancakes with spring onion, cucumber and a sweet bean sauce.
Many kinds of hot pot containing a wide variety of meats, vegetables, herbs and spices are also
widely-eaten, as are thick soups containing noodles or dumplings and grilled or roasted meats
and meat-based stews.

Food in southern China

In the warmer regions of southern China most dishes are eaten with bowls of steamed rice. The
most famous dishes include those made with sweet and sour sauce such as sweet and sour
deep-fried pork and sweet and sour chicken. Other famous southern dishes include Kung Pao
chicken, a delicious stir-fried mix of chicken, peanuts, vegetables and chilli peppers, and a spicy
dish called mapo tofu that's made with tofu, ground beef or pork, a spicy fermented bean paste
and soy sauce, a 2,500-year-old Chinese condiment that's become one of the world's most
popular flavourings.

Rice isn't only steamed and eaten with other dishes. It's also used to make congee, a rice
porridge often eaten for breakfast in southern China. It's also ground into rice flour to make rice
cakes and pancakes as well as very thin noodles called rice vermicelli. These noodles are often
cooked in soups with fish balls or beef balls, or fried with egg, shrimp, spring onions and other
ingredients to make a dish called fried rice vermicelli. A traditional Chinese dumpling known
as wonton is also used in many dishes such as wonton soup in which shrimp-filled wonton are
cooked in a broth with rice vermicelli.

Chinese food around the world

People who don't live in China, or who aren't part of the worldwide Chinese diaspora, might
think that the dishes served in Chinese takeaway restaurants in their neighbourhood are all there
is to Chinese food. But the food sold in these places is usually just a small range of dishes that
have become popular locally or worldwide. One such dish is Yangzhou fried rice, also called
special, house or combination fried rice. In this dish pre-cooked steamed rice is fried with other
ingredients like pork, shrimp, egg, peas, diced carrot and bean sprouts. Another example is chop
suey, a Chinese-American dish of chopped meat and vegetables in a thick sauce that most
people in China itself have never heard of. There are also many Chinese dishes that have
become popular in a few countries without becoming popular worldwide. One of these
is Hainanese chicken rice which is very popular in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, but
virtually unknown in other countries.

Chinese appetizers like spring rolls and snacks like dim sum have also become famous and
widely-eaten all around the world. There are other Chinese foods that are famous not because
they're widely-eaten, but because they seem strange to non-Chinese people. Examples
include bird's-nest soup made from the saliva of certain birds, preserved eggs called hundred-
year eggs that turn a dark grey or greenish colour, traditional mooncakes that are only baked
during the mid-autumn full-moon festival, and shark fin soup, a dish that many people think is
wrong to eat because of the large number of sharks killed every year for their fins.

bird's nest soup

bean sprouts bok choy
 
    
  

chop suey hot pot

    shark fin soup
 

chow mein Kung Pao chicken

   

spring rolls
 

congee with scallops mapo tofu

   

sweet and sour chicken

 

dim sum mooncake

   

wheat noodles
 
Peking duck
fried noodles  
 

wonton soup
 
rice vermicelli
Hainanese chicken rice  
 

Yangzhou fried

Shanghai-style wontons

 bean sprouts: edible young stems growing from beans or seeds.

 bok choy: a Chinese vegetable with white stems and dark green leaves.
 chop suey: a Chinese-style dish of meat, eggs and vegetables in a thick sauce.
  chow mein: a Chinese-style dish of fried noodles with vegetables and meat or seafood
 congee: a Chinese rice porridge with various meats and vegetables added.
 diaspora: a large group of people who come from a particular place and now live in many other
parts of the world.
 dim sum: fried or steamed dumplings of many kinds.
 dumpling: a small ball of dough and other ingredients that's boiled, fried or baked.
 Hainanese chicken rice: sliced boiled chicken served with rice cooked in chicken broth.
 hot pot: a Chinese dish in which one or more soups are cooked in a special pot at the table.
 hundred-year egg: Chinese-style preserved chicken, duck or quail egg
 Kung Pao chicken: Chinese stir-fried dish made with chicken, peanuts, vegetables and chilli
peppers.
 mapo tofu: a dish of tofu and minced meat cooked in a spicy paste of fermented beans.
 mooncake: a round Chinese cake only eaten during the mid-autumn full-moon festival
 Peking duck: thinly-sliced roasted duck skin served with vegetables and pancakes.
 rice vermicelli: very thin noodles made from rice flour.
 shark fin soup: traditional Chinese soup containing shark fins
 soya sauce: a dark liquid made from fermented soy beans that's used as a sauce
 spring roll: a fried or unfried appetizer of minced vegetables with or without meat rolled in rice
paper.
 sweet and sour sauce: a sauce made of sugar or honey and a sour liquid like vinegar or soy sauce.
 tofu: a soft white protein-rich food made from soy milk curds
 wheat noodles: noodles made from wheat flour and water.
 wonton: a Chinese dumpling made by wrapping a filling of minced meat, seafood or vegetable in
wheat dough.
 US "house fried rice" : a dish made by frying pre-cooked rice with pieces of pork, shrimp, egg and
vegetables like peas and carrot.

French Food Vocabulary

French food and French cooking took hundreds of years to develop, and like food everywhere it
reflects the history of the country in which it developed. By the 17th century the French class
system had created great inequality, and this meant rich, upper-class people could employ chefs
and eat expensive delicacies and fancy dishes, while poor lower-class people had to eat very
cheap, low-quality food.

By the 19th century the high-quality food of the rich was called haute cuisine or "high
cooking", and the low-quality food of the poor was called peasant food. But a lot of these
peasant dishes, including hundreds of soups and stews, had gradually become part of haute
cuisine after chefs began making them with better ingredients and cooking techniques, and these
dishes are still an important part of haute cuisine today.

In the 1960s, a new cooking style called nouvelle cuisine or "new cooking" developed. It
modernized French cooking by using fewer of haute cuisine's basic stocks and sauces like the
rich and creamy Hollandaise sauce. It also introduced regional cooking styles with more natural
flavours and healthier ingredients. As a result, French restaurants now serve a greater range of
cooking styles than ever before. Some serve traditional haute cuisine, others serve nouvelle
cuisine, and some focus on regional or home-style cooking. You can also find many French
restaurants and bistros that offer a mix of these styles.
French meals
Most French people eat a light breakfast of French bread or croissants with honey or jam, and
tea or coffee. For a bigger breakfast, they might have bread with ham and cheese or a savoury
paste called pâté, or a grilled ham and cheese sandwich called croque monsieur. Breakfast is
often a small meal, but lunch and dinner are much bigger meals that can last for two hours or
more. Both are usually three-course meals taken with wine and cheese plus tea or coffee. The
three courses are an entrée consisting of soup or savoury foods, a main course including meat
and vegetable dishes, and a dessert or pastries.

Entrée dishes
Entrée choices can include clear soups like French onion soup, thick soups like lobster bisque,
and small savoury dishes known as hors d'oeuvre. Popular hors d'oeuvre include meat, fish or
vegetable-filled vol-au-vents and a dish called crudités in which raw vegetables like carrot,
cucumber and celery sticks are dipped in a vinaigrette sauce. Some hors d'oeuvre are made with
expensive delicacies such as caviar, truffle, or a kind of oversized liver made by force-feeding
ducks or geese called foie gras. Another dish often served as an entrée is escargot, or cooked
snails. Even though snails were peasant food at first, they became a delicacy when haute cuisine
chefs began removing the flesh and flavouring it before returning it to the shells.

Main course dishes

The second course is usually the main course in which a meat, fish or poultry dish is served with
side dishes of vegetables. Like escargot, many haute cuisine and nouvelle cuisine main course
dishes originated from lower-class dishes. For example, a spicy fish and vegetable stew
called bouillabaisse was first invented by poor fishermen in Provence as a way of using bony
fish they couldn't sell in the market. A peasant dish that's also from Provence is a beef or lamb
stew cooked in wine called daube. Beef bourguignon from the eastern region of Burgundy is
another famous stew. It's made by slowly cooking pieces of beef in red wine before adding
garlic, onions and mushrooms. Burgundy is also where the famous chicken dish coq au vin is
from. Another peasant dish that later became a haute cuisine favourite is cassoulet, a casserole
of pork sausages and pork skin, duck or goose meat and haricot beans.

As well as meat dishes, main course options can include vegetarian dishes like ratatouille, a
popular vegetable stew. Vegetables are also prepared in various ways as side dishes. They can
be fried, as in French fries, or sliced and baked in milk as in dauphinois dishes like gratin
dauphinois. Many other vegetables like eggplant, carrot, zucchini, leek and mushrooms are also
important in French cooking.

Desserts
The third course in a French lunch or dinner is usually dessert, and some of the most popular of
all French foods are desserts and pastries. They're made by a special chef called a pâ tissier and
sold in bakeries called pâtisseries. The most well-known French desserts include the custard-
like crême brûlée and the light and creamy mousse. Favourite pastries include the éclair, a
long, cream-filled pastry, and the profiterole, a small ball-shaped pastry sometimes called a
cream puff. There are many other delicious French desserts, all worth trying if you have the
chance.

 beef Burgundy: beef braised or stewed in red wine sauce.

 bisque: a thick soup made from shellfish
 bistro: a small French restaurant serving affordable home-style food and drinks.
 bouillabaisse: a spicy stew of fish and vegetables
 cassoulet: a southern French casserole made of various meats and haricot beans
 coq au vin: chicken cooked in red wine sauce
 crême brûlée: custard with a burnt caramel top.
 crêpe: a very thin pancake.
 croque monsieur: a ham and cheese sandwich that's toasted or grilled.
 croissant: a light, flaky crescent-shaped roll eaten for breakfast in France.
 dauphinois: sliced and cooked in milk, usually with a cheese topping
 daube: a beef or lamb stew cooked slowly in wine
 delicacy: a rare and expensive food seen as a symbol of wealth
 éclair: a tube-shaped pastry with cream inside and chocolate on top
 escargot: cooked snails eaten as a delicacy in France and Catalonia
 foie gras: a delicacy made from the fatty livers of force-fed ducks and geese.
 French bread: a long, thin loaf of soft white bread with a crunchy crust.
 haute cuisine: high-class French cooking served in expensive restaurants.
 hollandaise sauce: a creamy sauce made with butter, egg yolks and vinegar.
 hors d'oeuvre: a small savoury dish served appetizer before the main course
 mousse: a smooth, light-textured dessert made with cream and eggs
 pâté: a smooth savoury paste made from finely-minced meat or fish
 pâtisserie: a shop that sells French pastries, desserts and breads.
 profiterole: a small ball-shaped pastry with cream inside and chocolate on top.
 peasant: a poor farmer forced to work for wealthy aristocrats.
 quiche: a dish in which a mixture of eggs, cheese and other ingredients is baked in a round flan base
 ratatouille: stewed vegetables, incl. tomato, garlic, onions, zucchini, eggplant and various herbs
 soufflé: a dish made with eggs that rises into a high, round shape when baked.
 stock: a liquid used to make soups, stews, sauces, etc. that's made by boiling bones, meat or
vegetables
 vinaigrette: a mixture of oil, vinegar, herbs and spices used as a salad dressing or a marinade
 vol-au-vent: a small round pastry case filled with a mixture of meat, fish or vegetables.

Indian Food Vocabulary

When thinking of Indian food, many people think of curries and rice. But there's much more to
Indian food than this. There are dozens of regional Indian cuisines, each with its own special
dishes. To make it easier to understand Indian cuisine, it's often divided into two main types;
North Indian and South Indian. In many cases they use different cooking methods, different
ingredients, and even different spices. For example, wheat-flour flatbreads are common in the
North while in the South rice is more common. This is because North Indian food was greatly
influenced by Middle Eastern cuisines of the Islamic Mughal Empire in which flatbreads were
the staple foods, while South Indian food is more like traditional Hindu cuisine of ancient India
in which rice was the staple food.

Ordering and etiquette

Three of the world's major religions - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - developed in ancient
India, and Islam was introduced when North India was conquered by the Mughal Empire in
1526. Each of these religions has its own set of rules about food, and because Indian meals
usually include many dishes that are shared, ordering is complicated if people of different
religions are eating together. In Hinduism the cow is a sacred animal, so most Hindus don't eat
beef. Eating pigs is strictly forbidden in Islam, and most Muslims also refuse to eat other
animals unless they're killed in a certain way. Jains never eat meat of any sort, and many don't
eat onions, potatoes or garlic either, while many Buddhists also prefer a vegetarian diet. In fact,
it might be best to let others order an Indian meal unless you know everyone's religion, or unless
you're only ordering vegetarian dishes that everyone can eat like potato and cauliflower aloo
gobi or a simple dish like dal that only contains lentils and spices.

Using the fingers to eat is common in India, and foreigners are welcome to eat this way too. But
if you eat with your fingers, you must never touch the food with your left hand. Hold it between
the fingertips of your right hand or scoop it up with a piece of flatbread. Try to eat without
putting your fingers in your mouth or licking them. Wash them instead in one of the small bowls
of water on the table.

Appetizers
Even though Indian meals aren't normally served in separate courses like European meals, many
Indian restaurants now list their dishes in this way. They offer traditional Indian snack foods as
appetizers. These can include deep-fried pakoras of various kinds such as vegetable pakoras
and cheese-filled paneer pakoras. Paneer is an Indian cheese similar to cottage cheese, and if
you see this word in a dish's name it means it contains this cheese. Other popular snack foods
now served as appetizers include deep-fried bhajis and samosas of various kinds, some with a
meat filling and others with a vegetable filling. Many Indian restaurants also serve kebabs as an
appetizer these days.

Main courses
Most restaurants in India serve main course dishes from one region only, but Indian restaurants
in other countries usually serve dishes from both North and South India. North Indian dishes
include many that came from Mughal cuisine like korma in which meat or vegetables are
braised with yoghurt or cream, and many that are cooked in a large clay-pot oven called
a tandoor. These include roasted tandoori chicken and a dish called chicken tikka in which
marinated pieces of boneless chicken are grilled on a skewer inside a tandoor oven. Pieces of
chicken tikka are also used in a spicy North Indian curry called chicken tikka masala that's often
flavoured with a mix of spices called garam masala.

Tandoor ovens are also used for baking thin, round flatbreads like tandoori roti as well as
thicker, longer flatbreads like nan and its popular variants garlic nan and the spicy lamb-
filled keema nan. Not all Indian flatbreads are baked, however. Many are fried in shallow pans,
including plain roti or chapati, a staple food that's often topped with Indian butter or ghee.
Another is paratha which can be plain or stuffed with vegetables or paneer. Flatbreads like
these are made with wheat flour, a staple in the North, while the South's very thin and
crisp papadums are usually made from lentil flour instead.
The pancake-like dosa is also from South India, as are main course dishes like madras
curry and many other curries made with a wide range of ingredients. Curries in the South are
eaten with rice rather than bread, and rice is also found in biryani dishes between layers of
chicken, mutton, beef, fish or mixed vegetables. Rice is also cooked along with meat or
vegetables in a spicy broth to make many kinds of pilau. Biryani and pilau dishes are good
choices if you don't like food that's too hot and spicy, but if you love spicy food, try a
hot vindaloo curry and you should be satisfied.

While sharing dishes is normal when a group of people eat Indian food, it's also possible to
order a meal for one person. You can do this by ordering a food platter called a thali. Both
meat-based and vegetarian thalis are available, and they usually include a main dish like korma
or curry as well as some dal, a hot chutney and some cooling yoghurt plus rice and rotis or
papadums. And you'll also get some dessert, of course.

Desserts and Indian drinks

There are hundreds of delicious Indian desserts, and most restaurants serve quite a few. Some of
the most popular are a soft pudding made with coconut or banana or carrot called halva, a
creamy rice and milk pudding called payasam, and a very sweet dessert called gulab jamun in
which soft dough-like balls are soaked in a sugary syrup. But the most popular dessert of all is
probably a very rich traditional Indian ice-cream called kulfi. It comes in many flavours, and if
you get the chance try one of the more traditional ones like rose, saffron, cardamom, mango or
pistachio.

Indian meals are best enjoyed with traditional Indian drinks. In hot weather cool drinks like
coconut water, a palm nectar drink called neera and the spicy jal-jeera are popular. In cold
weather a cup of hot tea or chai that's made with milk, sugar and spices is a good choice. A
great drink for all seasons is a yoghurt shake called lassi. You can order sweet lassi, salty lassi
or a fruit lassi like the very popular mango lassi.

Illustrated Indian Cuisine

 

aloo gobi
chicken tikka masala
 
  ghee
 
 

chicken biryani dal halva

     
   
garlic lamb pilau
nan  
  

paneer parathas
  tandoori chicken
madras curry with lamb  
 
 

potato pakoras
 
a thali
 
masala dosa
 

samosas
 
vegetable korma
onion bhajis  
 
 

tandoor or tandoor oven

 alu gobi: a dish of potato and cauliflower flavour with garam masala and tumeric
 bhajji: a deep-fried appetizer with a spicy vegetable filling covered in batter.
 biryani (also biriyani): a dish with layers of meat, fish or vegetables mixed with spices cooked
between layers of rice.
 chai: tea made by boiling tea leaves along with milk, sugar and a blend of spices.
 chapati(roti):thin pancake madeof whole wheat flour thats cooked on a hotplate
 chicken tikka small pieces of boneless chicken cooked on a skewer in a tandoor oven.
 curry a meat or vegetable dish cooked in a spicy Indian-style sauce, often eaten with rice.
 dhal: lentils cooked with various spices and flavourings.
 dosa : a thin Indian pancake made with rice flour and black beans
 masala: a mixture of powdered spices used in Indian cooking.
 ghee: a type of butter used in Indian cooking.
 halva: a sweet pudding made with semolina and added ingredients like carrot, coconut, cashew nuts,
etc..
 kebab: meat and vegetable pieces grilled or roasted on a skewer
 korma: meat, fish, or vegetables braised with cream or yoghurt
 kulfi: traditional Indian ice-cream
 lassi: an Indian drink made of yogurt, water and spices, with fruit sometimes added.
 madras curry (noun): a hot curry, either meat-based or vegetarian, from South India.
 naan: a soft, thick, leavened flatbread that's baked in a tandoor oven.
 pakora: a deep-fried North Indian snack or appetizer
 paneer: Indian cooking cheese similar to cottage cheese.
 pappadam: a thin, crisp, disc-shaped flatbread made with lentil flour.
 paratha: a thick, fried flatbread with extra ingredients like potato or cauliflower often added.
  pilau: rice cooked in a broth with meat, vegetables or lentils often added.
 samosa: an appetizer in which a filling of cooked meat or vegetables is wrapped in pastry and deep-
fried
 spice: a dried plant part that's added to food to give it flavour
 tandoor: an oven traditionally made of clay in which flatbreads, samosas, roast meats and
vegetables.
 tandoori chicken: marinated chicken pieces roasted in a tandoor oven
 tandoori roti: roti flatbread that's baked in a tandoor rather than fried
 thali: a meal for one person served on a platter (also called a "thali") with several different dishes.
 vindaloo: a very hot and spicy type of Indian curry

Italian Food Vocabulary

Italian food has become one of the most world's most popular national cuisines. Italian
restaurants can now be found in nearly all of the world's big cities, and famous Italian dishes
like spaghetti and macaroni are cooked in home kitchens throughout the world. But the most
famous Italian food of all is the pizza, especially the kind being sold in take-away pizza
restaurants all over the world.

Pizza
Pizza originated in the Italian city of Naples in the late 18th century when someone tried putting
a tomato topping on focaccia, an Italian flatbread that's still popular today. As other toppings
were tried, new kinds of pizza appeared such as pizza margherita with its simple topping of
tomato, mozzarella cheese and basil. Cured Italian meats were also tried and this led to meatier
pizzas like pizza quattro stagioni with its mix of toppings made of salami, ham, olives,
artichoke and mushrooms, and pizza capricciosa with baked Italian ham added to the tomato
and mozzarella topping that most traditional pizzas are based on.

After American soldiers discovered pizza in Italy during World War Two, it became very
popular in the USA. Demand for pizza steadily grew, and during the 1960s and 70s take-away
pizza restaurants opened all over the USA. Since then American pizza companies have opened
take-away restaurants all over the world, and this has led to the huge popularity of pizzas
worldwide. They still sell traditional Italian pizzas like the pepperoni pizza and pizza marinara,
but many of today's best-sellers are non-traditional pizzas like the Hawaiian pizza made with
ham and pineapple and the Mexicana pizza made with Mexican-style ingredients such as bell
peppers, ground beef and hot chilli peppers.

Pasta and pasta dishes

Many of the world's most popular recipes for home-cooked meals are also from Italy, especially
those for various kinds of pasta. Some of the most popular pastas are spaghetti, macaroni
and fettuccine, and home-cooked dishes like spaghetti Bolognese, macaroni and
cheese and fettuccine Alfredo are popular worldwide not only because they're delicious, but also
because they're so easy to make. For many pasta dishes, all you have to do is cook the pasta in
boiling water and heat up a ready-made sauce or make a simple sauce like pesto. But some pasta
dishes take more time and skill to make, and these include lasagne, a baked pasta dish in which
sheets of flat pasta divide layers of meat, seafood or vegetables in a sauce.

If you go to an Italian supermarket, or if you eat in an Italian restaurant, you can find other kinds
of pasta that are shaped like shells or tiny pillows. These are used to make small pasta
dumplings with a vegetable or meat filling. They include tube-shaped cannelloni, square-
shaped ravioli and ring-shaped tortellini. Like most pasta dishes, stuffed pasta dishes are
usually served with a sauce of some kind.

Antipasto and main courses

Italian cuisine offers many dishes besides pizza and pasta, however. If you go to an Italian
restaurant or trattoria for lunch or dinner, you'll probably start with
an antipasto like bruschetta or with an Italian bread like focaccia seasoned with olive oil, salt
and herbs. Or you might start with an Italian soup like minestrone or ribollita or with a pasta
dish like gnocchi. For your main course you might have a dish made mostly of meat
like ossobuco or scaloppine. If you're a vegetarian you can choose a main course like
eggplant parmagiana or deep-fried rice balls called arancini that are stuffed with a filling of
vegetables or cheese. Rice is also the main ingredient in risotto, a creamy dish in which rice is
cooked in a meat, fish or vegetable broth. Another popular ingredient of many Italian meals
is polenta. It's made from boiled cornflour and can be eaten as a porridge or a creamy side-dish
or cooled and then sliced and baked or fried.

Italian desserts and coffee

After your main course, you'll definitely want to try one of Italy's famous desserts. The most
popular include a very rich coffee-flavoured layer cake called tiramisu, a tube-shaped pastry
with a sweet, creamy filling called cannoli, and a kind of sweetened cream thickened with
gelatin called panna cotta. But if you're an ice cream lover, why not try the Italian-style ice
cream called gelato?

You can then follow dessert with one of the many Italian coffees that are so popular all over the
world these days. They include espresso, caffè latte, cappuccino, caffè macchiato, caffè mocha,
and many others. These Italian-style coffees are usually made with an espresso machine that
forces a high-pressure spray of very hot water through ground coffee beans.

arancini bruschetta cannelloni

     
 

chicken cacciatore
     

spaghetti carbonara
fettuccine Alfredo ossobuco  
   

spinach and ricotta ravioli

panna cotta  
gelato
   
 

tiramisu
 
gnocchi polenta
   

tortellini alla
panna or tortellini with cream
risotto  
lasagne
 
 

veal parmigiana
margherita pizza or pizza salami
 
margherita  
 

minestrone soup scaloppine and lemon sauce

 antipasto: cold savoury appetizer or starter eaten at the start of an Italian meal.
 arancini: an Italian dish of fried rice balls with a savoury filling.
 bruschetta: toasted bread and olive oil, often topped with garlic and tomato.
 cannelloni: pasta tubes filled with a mixture of meat or vegetables and cheese
  cannoli: small deep-fried pastry tubes with a creamy filling of ricotta cheese.
 espresso: an Italian coffee made by forcing steam through ground coffee beans
 fettuccine: pasta stretched into long, flat strips like ribbons.
 focaccia: oven-baked Italian flatbread
 gelato: Italian-style ice cream
 gnocchi: small dumplings made from flour, potato, or semolina, often served with a sauce.
 lasagne: a baked dish with sheets of flat pasta separating layers of ground meat or vegetables in
sauce.
 macaroni: short tubes of curved pasta, or a dish made with this
 minestrone: a thick Italian soup containing chopped vegetables and pasta
 mozzarella: a soft, white Italian cheese mostly used in salads and pizza
 olive oil: a cooking and salad oil that's made by pressing olives.
 ossobuco: a braised Italian dish of cross-cut veal shanks, vegetables and white wine.
 panna cotta: an Italian dessert made of sweetened, thickened cream.
 parmagiana: a dish of eggplant or meat slices cooked with a tomato cheese sauce.
 pasta: fresh or dried wheat dough in many shapes such as long, thin spaghetti and short tubular
macaroni.
 pepperoni: a spicy Italian-style cured sausage made of beef and pork
 pesto: a sauce made of garlic, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, basil, salt and olive oil.
 pizza: a flat round base of dough topped with tomato, cheese and other ingredients that's baked in a
special oven
 polenta (noun): boiled maize flour or cornmeal that's eaten as porridge or cooled then fried or baked.
 ravioli: a small Italian dumpling made of pasta with a meat or vegetable filling.
 ribollita: a bread and vegetable soup first made by Tuscan peasants.
 risotto: an Italian dish of creamy rice cooked in a vegetable, meat or fish broth
 salami: a cured sausage made of beef or pork that's usually eaten cold in thin slices
 scaloppine: a dish made by frying very thin slices of veal, pork or chicken.
 spaghetti: a pasta variety that's formed into long thin pieces like string
 tiramisu: an Italian dessert of sponge cake soaked in coffee and brandy with powdered chocolate
and mascarpone cheese.
 tortellini: small, ring-shaped pasta dumplings with a meat, cheese or vegetable filling
 trattoria: a small, affordable Italian restaurant, often family-run.

Mexican Food Vocabulary

The people of Mexico were among the first to develop agriculture. Around 10,000 years ago
early Mesoamerican cultures that later developed into the Mayan civilization grew crops like
corn (also called "maize"), beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, chayotes and other squash,
avocados and papayas. These foods are still the basis of Mexican cuisine, and Mayan foods still
eaten today include a thin flatbread made from cornflour called a tortilla, and an easily-carried
snack called a tamale in which a meat or vegetable filling is wrapped in a corn husk. Mayans
also grew cocoa beans to make chocolate drinks like champurrado that are still popular in
Mexico today.

Aztecs and the Spanish invasion

But this was just one of many periods in the history of Mexico. By the 13th century, Mayan
culture had declined and most of Mexico was governed by the Aztec civilization. The Aztecs
built some of the biggest and most magnificent cities in the world at the time, with their capital
city Tenochtitlan being five times the size of London in 1500. The cuisine of the Aztecs was
similar to Mayan cuisine, but with ingredients like chilli peppers, salt and honey now used more
widely. They used chilli peppers to make a hot and spicy sauce called salsa that's still popular in
Mexico today. They poured salsa on fried tortilla strips to make chilaquiles, one of the most
famous of all Mesoamerican dishes from the Aztec period.

In the 16th century, Mexico was invaded by soldiers from Spain. Within a few months millions
of Aztec people had been killed by the soldiers or died from the diseases they brought. This
made it impossible for the Aztecs to resist the invasion, and when the Spanish destroyed their
capital city of Tenochtitlan in 1521, it signaled the end of thousands of years of Mesoamerican
civilization and the beginning of Spanish rule. Along with their deadly weapons and diseases,
the Spanish brought foreign animals like sheep, pigs and cows for meat and dairy foods like
milk and cheese. They also brought foreign plants like wheat, rice, onions and garlic as well as
new spices. Since then, Mexican cuisine has combined the Mesoamerican cuisine of Mayans
and Aztecs with the European cuisine of Spain.

Appetizers and main courses

If you visit Mexico today, you'll see many snack foods being sold from carts, trailers and street
stalls. These foods are called antojitos and many are also served in Mexican restaurants, either
as appetizers or in main course dishes. Many of these antojitos are made with tortillas and
fillings of various kinds. They include meat or vegetable-filled tacos, cheese-filled quesadillas,
deep-fried tacos called flautas, chilli sauce-covered enchiladas, and toasted tortillas
called tostadas covered in various taco-style toppings.

Tortillas are also used in an American variation of Mexican food called Tex-Mex (from Texan
and Mexican). Tex-Mex dishes are tailored to American tastes, with more of the ingredients
Americans love such as grated cheese, fried onions, refried beans and lots of meat. They include
tortilla wraps filled with meats and beans called burritos, spicy fajitas stuffed with grilled
meat, fried onions and chilli peppers, cheese-topped tortilla chips called nachos, and beef or
chicken tacos made with prefabricated hard-shell tortillas. Fast food restaurants that sell Tex-
Mex food like Taco Bell® have spread across the USA and are now spreading around the world.
These places are becoming more and more popular, but if you want to try real Mexican food go
to a proper Mexican restaurant instead.

Many of the main-course dishes you can order in a Mexican restaurant are made with tortillas or
tortilla chips, but not all. Exceptions include a spicy dish of beef and beans called chilli con
carne, stuffed cornflour pancakes called gorditas, a traditional beef-stomach soup
called menudo, a marinated fish or seafood dish called ceviche, stuffed peppers deep-fried in
batter called chile relleno, and pork or chicken carne adobada flavoured with the
delicious adobo paste. Another traditional flavouring is mole, a chilli-based sauce that's used in
popular dishes like mole poblano chicken. If you order any of these dishes as a main course it
should come with condiments like salsa mexicana or salsa roja, a bowl of guacamole avocado
dip, pepita pumpkin seeds, sour cream to cool the tongue and a hot sauce to spice things up. You
should also get side dishes like a bowl of shredded lettuce and some diced or sliced tomato and
onion.

Desserts and pastries

If you visit Mexico you'll have no trouble finding delicious pastries and desserts. No matter
where you go you'll find sweet pan dulce breads and pastries like the strips of deep-fried dough
called churros that many people eat for breakfast, usually with a cup of hot champurrado. Pan
dulce pastries can also be ordered in restaurants, as can traditional Mexican desserts
like capirotada, a delicious oven-baked bread pudding. Others include a creamy rice pudding
called arroz con leche, a rich caramel custard known as flan Mexicano or Mexican flan, and
deep-fried pastries called sopapillas that are usually served with ice-cream.

Illustrated Mexican Cuisine

 

arroz con leche

chile relleno
  menudo soup
 

bean and cheese burrito

 
chilli con carne
  Mexican flan
 

capirotada
 
enchiladas
mole poblano chicken
 
 

ceviche
 
flautas
  nachos
 

champurrado and churros

 
gorditas pan dulce
   

chicken fajitas
 
guacamole quesadillas
   

tamales in corn husk

sopapillas and ice-cream
refried beans wrappings
 
   

taco tortillas
salsa
 

 adobo -a paste or marinade of chillies, vinegar, herbs and spices for flavouring meat or fish
 antojitos: Mexican street foods and snacks, sometimes served as appetizers in restaurants.
 Aztec: of the Mesoamerican civilization in Mexico when the Spanish invaded.
 burrito: a tortilla that's folded over and filled with meat, beans and cheese.
 capirotada: a dessert similar to British bread pudding
 carne adobada: meat or chicken covered with a spicy adobo paste or sauce.
 Ceviche: an appetizer or main course dish made of marinated raw fish or seafood.
 champurrado: a warm, thick, frothy Mesoamerican chocolate drink
 chilaquiles: a dish of fried tortilla strips topped with a salsa or chilli sauce and cheese
 chile relleno: stuffed chilli pepper covered in batter and deep-fried
 chilli: a stew made of ground beef, beans and fresh or powdered chilli.
 churro: a strip of sweet fried dough sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon
 enchilada: a tortilla with a filling of meat or cheese served with chilli sauce, eaten as an appetizer or
main course.
 fajita: a Tex-Mex dish of cooked meat slices, onions and peppers rolled up inside a tortilla.
 flauta: a tortilla filled with meat and cheese and then fried.
 gordita: a thick cornmeal pancake filled with meat, cheese or vegetables.
 guacamole: a thick green dip or sauce made from mashed avocado
 Maya or Mayan: of the Mesoamerican civilization in Mexico circa 2000 BC to 1300 AD.
 menudo: a spicy Mexican soup made from beef stomach.
 Mesoamerican: related to the civilizations in Mexico and Central America before the Spanish
invasion.
 mole: a rich sauce made from chilli peppers and other local ingredients.
 nachos: tortilla chips covered with cheese and various other ingredients.
 pan dulce: any of the sweet breads and pastries sold in Mexican street stalls and restaurants
 quesadilla: a cheese-filled tortilla that's grilled, with vegetables and spices sometimes added.
 salsa: a spicy sauce made from tomatoes, onions, chilli peppers,
 sopapilla: a small, pillow-shaped fried pastry dough mostly eaten as a dessert
 taco: a folded or rolled tortilla filled with minced beef or chicken, beans, spices, etc.
 tamale: a Mayan dish in which a filling of meat or vegetable is rolled in cornmeal, wrapped in a corn
husk and then steamed or grilled
 Tex-Mex: of a type of food in which Mexican dishes are tailored to typical American tastes and
ingredients.
 tortilla: a thin flatbread traditionally made of cornflour, but also made of wheat flour since the
Spanish invasion.
  tostada: an appetizer made of tortillas (often old or stale) that are toasted and used as a base for taco-
style toppings.

Thai Food Vocabulary

Many food experts say Thailand has one of the world's great cuisines, so if you love food you
should definitely try it. Whether you do this by visiting Thailand or by going to Thai restaurants
in your home country, you're sure to find dishes you like. And you might even discover some of
the most delicious food you've ever eaten!

Northeastern food
If you visit Thailand and walk around any big city like Bangkok, you'll see people selling street
food of many kinds from mobile carts. If they're selling food to workers from a building site,
they're probably selling Isan food from the northeast of Thailand. An Isan meal almost always
includes a spicy salad called som tam that's freshly-made with grated green papaya for every
customer. Som tam is usually eaten with grilled fish, pork or beef and lots of glutinous sticky
rice. Other dishes might include a ground meat salad called larb, or dishes made with a
fermented fish paste called pla ra that most foreigners find too smelly and strong-tasting to try.
Because of its low rainfall, Isan is a poor region in which people have learned how to eat
whatever they can find, including insects of many kinds. These are now sold from carts all over
Thailand, and if you get the chance you should try some deep-fried grasshoppers. They're
surprisingly good!

Southern food
While people from Isan prefer very spicy dishes and sticky rice, people from the Muslim areas
of southern Thailand prefer milder dishes and steamed rice, preferably Thailand's top-
quality jasmine rice. Many of the most delicious southern dishes are curries made with coconut
milk or coconut cream from which they get their smooth, creamy texture and rich, sweet
flavour. The most famous southern curries are Thai yellow curry with chicken and potato
(kaeng ku-ree gai) and massaman curry, a rich and creamy Indian-style curry made with beef
or chicken that was voted the world's most delicious dish by CNN viewers in 2011.

Central Thai food

Thai restaurants usually include a few Isan and southern Thai dishes on their menus, but most of
the dishes are from central Thailand. In central Thai cuisine, like all Thai cuisine, a wide range
of sauces, pastes, spices and condiments are grouped into the four basic tastes of Thai cooking;
salty, hot, sour and sweet. For example, fish sauce is used to add "saltiness" to a dish, chilli
peppers add heat or "spiciness", lime and tamarind add "sourness", and cane sugar or palm sugar
add "sweetness". These ingredients, and many others like them, are combined in various ways to
create the unique balance of flavours found in dishes like the popular noodle salad yum woon
sen and soups like tom kha gai, a spicy chicken and coconut soup, and tom yum kung, a
popular hot and sour shrimp soup that's served in Thai restaurants all around the world.
Stir-fried dishes are also flavoured with the same range of ingredients. The most popular
include chicken with cashew nuts (gai pat med mamuang), stir-fried morning glory (pak
boong fai daeng), stir-fried vegetables (pad pak luam-mit) and the very popular pad ka-prow to
which holy basil adds its unique flavour and aroma.

While soups and stir-fried dishes are always popular, when asked which Thai dish is their
favourite most people say it's a Thai curry. Many of these are from central Thailand,
including Thai green curry (kaeng khiao wan), Thai red curry (kaeng phet) and panaeng, a
very rich and nutty coconut-cream curry that's always a favourite. Another favourite is hor mok
pla, a delicious fish mousse made with red-curry paste and coconut cream that's wrapped in
banana leaves and cooked in a steamer.

Thai street food

Thailand is famous for tasty, cheap street food that's cooked on a cart or in a small shop-house
kitchen while customers wait at a roadside table. Most dishes are for one person, unlike in a
restaurant where dishes are usually shared. The most common street-food dishes
include noodles with red pork (ba mee moo daeng), khao moo daeng (red pork on rice), khao
man gai (chicken on rice), khao na ped (duck on rice) and a delicious dish of braised pork leg
served on rice called khao kha moo. Other favourites include khao pat (Thai fried rice)
and khao soi, a curry-flavoured chicken noodle soup, and popular fried noodle dishes like pad
see ew and pad thai.

No matter which of these dishes you choose, you'll be given a set of condiments as well. There
are usually four condiments, one for each of the four basic tastes of Thai cooking, including fish
sauce or prik nam pla (fish sauce with chilli) for saltiness, dried chilli for spiciness, vinegar or
squeezed lime for sourness, and sugar for sweetness. It's fun to watch as people keep adding a
little of each until the dish tastes just the way they like it, and this is something you can try too.

Thai desserts
Thailand is blessed with many natural desserts in the form of delicious tropical fruits. The
mango is among the most delicious of these, and one of Thailand's most famous desserts
is mango and sticky rice served with a sweet coconut-cream sauce. But there's another fruit
that's so good that most people eat it without any preparation or added ingredients. This
is durian, the so-called "King of Fruits" with its heavenly custard-like flesh protected by a thick
skin of sharp spikes. If you ever get the chance to try it, you must!

Other popular desserts include pumpkin custard, sticky rice in banana leaves, and sweet

roti which you can buy from one of the many street vendors who make it on their carts. You can
have plain sweet roti or one with banana or coconut filling, but however you have it, it'll be
dripping with sweetened condensed milk. It isn't very healthy, but can you resist it?

chicken and cashew nuts durian

    
 

hor mok pla

 

noodles with red pork Thai green curry

 

khao moo daeng

 
pad see ew
  Thai red curry
 

khao soi
 
pad thai Thai yellow curry
   

larb with pork

 
  tom kha gai
panaeng moo
 
 
 

massaman curry
  tom yum kung
 
som tam
 

morning glory stir fry

 
yum woon sen
sweet roti
 chicken with cashew nuts: one of Thailand's most famous and delicious stir-fried dishes
 coconut milk: a milky white liquid that's squeezed from coconut meat and used in cooking
 durian: a large tropical fruit covered in sharp spikes with a delicious creamy custard-like flesh
 fish sauce: a salty liquid used in cooking and as a table condiment.
 holy basil: an Indian herb used as a tea, a medicine and as an ingredient in certain dishes.
 Thai fish mousse: a steamed mousse made of fish mixed with red curry paste and coconut cream
that's cooked in a banana leaf wrapping.
  Isaan: of the region in northeastern Thailand where Lao food, language and culture survive.
 jasmine rice: a fragrant long-grain variety of rice that Thailand is famous for.
 khao man gai: Thai street dish based on China's "Hainanese chicken rice", but with Thai-style
topping of soy sauce plus chilli, ginger, garlic and vinegar.
 khao moo daeng: slices of red barbecue pork served on rice with a sweet red sauce, boiled egg,
sliced cucumber and coriander leaves.
 khao na ped: street dish based on China's duck rice, served with fresh ginger, a sweet dark soy sauce
and stewed green vegetable.
 khao pat: Thai fried rice, made with pre-cooked rice, fish sauce, chilli and garlic plus vegetables,
chicken, pork, beef or prawns.
 khao soi: a Burmese-style curried noodle soup usually made with chicken and often topped with
crispy egg noodles.
 larb: a Lao-style salad made of raw or cooked ground meat, roasted ground rice, chillies, garlic,
herbs, fish sauce.
 mango and sticky rice: sliced fresh mango served with sticky rice and a sweet topping of coconut
milk and palm sugar.
 massaman curry: a sweet, mild curry usually made with chicken or beef plus potatoes, peanuts or
cashews, coconut cream and sweet spices like cinnamon and cloves.
 morning glory: a green leafy vegetable that's the main ingredient of stir-fried morning glory (pak
boong fai daeng).
 noodles with red pork: Chinese-style barbecued red pork with egg noodles.
 pad ka-prow: a popular street dish in which holy basil is stir-fried with chilli, garlic, various sauces
and either chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or tofu.
 pad see ew: a stir-fried street dish made with wide, flat noodles, dark soy sauce, Chinese broccoli
and chicken, beef, pork or shrimp.
 pad thai: a popular street dish made with thin noodles stir-fried with eggs, tofu, tamarind, fish sauce,
dried shrimp, garlic, chilli and palm sugar
 panaeng: a popular red curry with a sweet, nutty coconut-cream based sauce, usually made with
chicken, pork, beef or tofu.
 prik nam pla: sliced chilli in fish sauce, an essential Thai table condiment that's both spicy and
salty.
 pumpkin custard: a dessert of steamed pumpkin wedges filled with creamy coconut custard.
 green papaya salad: a spicy Isan salad made of grated green papaya and nam pla or pla ra and many
other ingredients.
 sticky rice: soft glutinous rice, a staple of Isan cuisine, that's often served in small rattan baskets.
 sticky rice in banana leaves: a dessert of sticky rice sweetened with banana and coconut milk in a
banana leaf wrapping.
 sweet roti: a street dessert cooked on a hot plate, often with added coconut or banana, that's topped
with sweetened condensed milk
 Thai green curry: a Thai curry made with green curry paste, green chillies, Thai eggplant or pea
aubergines, and either chicken, beef, shrimp, tofu.
 Thai red curry: a spicy curry made with coconut milk and red curry paste
 Thai yellow curry: a mild curry from South Thailand most often made with chicken and potato.
 tom kha gai: a cream-coloured chicken soup made with coconut milk, galangal, mushrooms,
lemongrass, fish sauce.
 tom yum kung: a hot and sour clear shrimp soup that's very popular in Thai restaurants all over the
world.
 yum woon sen: a salad made with pre-cooked glass noodles (or cellophane noodles), pork, shrimp,
peanuts, chilli, coriander.

American food
(CNN) — Fast, junk, processed -- when it comes to American food, the country is
best known for the stuff that's described by words better suited to greasy,
grinding industrial output. But citizens of the USA have an impressive appetite
for good stuff, too.
lime pie

If life gives you limes, don't make limeade, make a

Key lime pie. The official state pie of Florida, this
sassy tart has made herself a worldwide reputation,
which started in -- where else? -- the Florida Keys,
from whence come the tiny limes that gave the pie its
name.
Aunt Sally, a cook for Florida's first self-made millionaire, ship salvager William Curry, gets
the credit for making the first Key lime pie in the late 1800s. But you might also thank
Florida sponge fisherman for likely originating the concoction of key lime juice, sweetened
condensed milk, and egg yolks, which could be "cooked" (by a thickening chemical reaction
of the ingredients) at sea.
Tater tots

We love French fries, but for an American food

variation on the potato theme, one beloved at Sonic
drive-ins and school cafeterias everywhere, consider
the Tater Tot.
Notice it often has the registered trademark -- these
commercial hash brown cylinders are indeed
proprietary to the Ore-Ida company. If you'd been one of the Grigg brothers who founded
Ore-Ida, you'd have wanted to come up with something to do with leftover slivers of cut-up
potatoes, too. They added some flour and seasoning and shaped the mash into tiny tots and
put them on the market in 1956. A little more than 50 years later, America is eating about 32
million kilos of these taters annually.
San Francisco sourdough bread

Sourdough is as old as the pyramids and not

coincidentally was eaten in ancient Egypt. But
the hands-down American favorite, and the
sourest variety, comes from San Francisco.
As much a part of NoCal culinary culture as
Napa Valley wine, sourdough bread has been a
staple since Gold Rush days. Once upon a
frontier time, miners (called "sourdoughs" for surviving on the stuff) and settlers carried
sourdough starter (more reliable than other leavening) in pouches around their necks or on
their belts.
Cobb salad

The chef's salad originated back East, but

American food innovators working with
lettuce out West weren't going to be outdone.
In 1937, Bob Cobb, the owner of The Brown
Derby, was scrounging around at the
restaurant's North Vine location for a meal for
Sid Grauman of Grauman's Theater when he
put together a salad with what he found in the fridge: a head of lettuce, an avocado, some
romaine, watercress, tomatoes, some cold chicken breast, a hard-boiled egg, chives, cheese,
and some old-fashioned French dressing.
Brown Derby lore says, "He started chopping. Added some crisp bacon, swiped from a busy
chef." The salad went onto the menu and straight into the heart of Hollywood.
Pot roast

The childhood Sunday family dinner of

baby boomers everywhere, pot roast claims
a sentimental favorite place in the top 10 of
American comfort foods. There's a whole
generation that would be lost without it.
Beef brisket, bottom or top round, or chuck
set in a deep roasting pan with potatoes,
carrots, onions, and whatever else your
mom threw in to be infused with the meat's simmering juices, the pot roast could be anointed
with red wine or even beer, then covered and cooked on the stovetop or in the oven.
Banana split

Like the banana makes it good for you. Still,

kudos to whoever invented the variation of
the sundae known as the banana split.
There's the 1904 Latrobe, Pennsylvania,
story, in which future optometrist David
Strickler was experimenting with sundaes at
a pharmacy soda fountain, split a banana
lengthwise, and put it in a long boat dish.
And the 1907 Wilmington, Ohio, story, wherein restaurant owner Ernest Hazard came up
with it to draw students from a nearby college. Fame spread after a Walgreens in Chicago
made the split its signature dessert in the 1920s. Whatever the history, you'll find plenty food
for thought at the annual Banana Split Festival, which takes place on the second weekend in
June in Wilmington.
Jambalaya

Jambalaya, crawfish pie, file gumbo ...

what dish could be so evocative that it
inspired Hank Williams to write a party
song for it in 1952 and dozens more to
cover it (including everyone from Jo
Stafford to Credence Clearwater Revival to
Emmylou Harris)?
The sweep-up-the-kitchen cousin of
Spanish paella, jambalaya comes in red (Creole, with tomatoes) and brown (Cajun, without).
Made with meat, vegetables (a trinity of celery, peppers, and onions), and rice, Louisiana's
signature dish might be most memorable when made with shrimp and andouille sausage.
Whatever the color and secret ingredients, you can be sure of one thing when you sit down
with friends to a big bowlful: son of a gun, gonna have big fun on the bayou.
Chicken fried steak

A guilty pleasure if there ever was one,

chicken fried steak was born to go with
American food classics like mashed
potatoes and black-eyed peas.
A slab of tenderized steak breaded in
seasoned flour and pan fried, it's kin to
the Weiner Schnitzel brought to Texas by
Austrian and German immigrants, who
adapted their veal recipe to use the bountiful beef found in Texas.
Lamesa, on the cattle-ranching South Texas plains, claims to be the birthplace of the dish,
but John "White Gravy" Neutzling of Lone Star State cowboy town of Bandera insisted he
invented it. Do you care, or do you just want to ladle on that peppery white gravy and dig in?
Wild Alaska salmon

Guys risk life and limb fishing for this delish

superfood.
Unlike Atlantic salmon, which is 99.8% farmed,
Alaska salmon is wild, which means the fish live
free and eat clean -- all the better to glaze with Dijon mustard or real maple syrup. Alaska
salmon season coincides with their return to spawning streams (guided by an amazing sense
of smell to the exact spot where they were born).
Worry not: before fishing season, state biologists ensure that plenty of salmon have already
passed upstream to lay eggs. But let's get to that cedar plank, the preferred method of
cooking for the many Pacific Northwest Indian tribes whose mythologies and diets include
salmon.
Use red cedar (it has no preservatives), and cook slow, for that rich, smoky flavor. Barring
that, there's always lox and bagels.
California roll

So much more than the gateway sushi,

the California roll isn't just for wimps who can't
go it raw -- although that's essentially the way it
got its start in Los Angeles, where sushi chefs
from Japan were trying to gain a beachhead in
the late 1960s/early 1970s.
Most credit chef Manashita Ichiro and his
assistant Mashita Ichiro, at L.A.'s Tokyo Kaikan restaurant, which had one of the country's
first sushi bars, with creating the "inside out" roll that preempted Americans' aversions by
putting the nori (seaweed) on the inside of the rice and substituting avocado for toro (raw
fatty tuna).
The avocado-crab-cucumber roll became a hit, and from that SoCal beachhead, sushi
conquered the country. After leading the charge for the sushi invasion of the 1980s, the
California roll now occupies grocery stores everywhere. Wasabi anyone?
Macaroni and cheese

The ultimate comfort food, macaroni and

cheese is also the salvation of many a mom
placating a finicky toddler.
Nothing particularly American about pasta
and cheese -- except for the fact that on a
European trip, Thomas Jefferson liked a
certain noodle dish so much he took notes
and had it served back home at a state dinner as "macaroni pie."
Jefferson's cousin Mary Randolph included a recipe for "macaroni and cheese" in her 1824
cookbook "The Virginia Housewife."
So whether you're eating a gourmet version by one of the countless chefs who've put their
own spin on it, or just digging like a desperado in the pantry for that box of Kraft, give mac
and cheese its patriotic props.
Maryland crabcakes

The Chesapeake Bay yields more than just the

regatta-loving suntanned class in their sock-
free topsiders.
It's the home habitat of the blue crab, which
both Maryland and Virginia claim as their
own.
Boardwalk style (mixed with fillers and
served on a bun) or restaurant/gourmet style; fried, broiled, or baked, crab cakes can be made
with any kind of crab, but the blue crabs of Chesapeake Bay are preferred for both tradition
and taste.
When Baltimore magazine rounded up the best places to get the city's signature food, editors
declared simplicity the key, while lamenting the fact that most crabmeat doesn't even come
from home turf these days. Kind of makes you crabby, doesn't it?
Potato chips

We have a high-maintenance resort guest to

thank for America's hands-down favorite snack.
Saratoga Springs, New York, 1853: Native
American chef George Crum is in the kitchen at
the elegant Moon Lake Lodge. A persnickety
customer sends back his French fries (then
highfalutin fare eaten with a fork) for being too
thick. Crum makes a second, thinner, order.
Still too thick for the picky diner. Annoyed, Crum makes the next batch with a little attitude,
slicing the potatoes so thin, the crispy things can't possibly be picked up with a fork.
Surprise: the wafer-thin fried potatoes are a hit.
Traveling salesman Herman Lay sold them out of the trunk of his car before founding Lay's
Potato Chips, the first nationally marketed brand. Lay's would ultimately merge in 1961 with
Frito to create the snack behemoth Frito-Lay.
Cioppino

San Francisco's answer to French

bouillabaisse, cioppino (cho-pea-no) is
fish stew with an Italian flair.
It's an American food that's been around
since the late 1800s, when Portuguese
and Italian fishermen who settled the
North Beach section of the city brought their on-board catch-of-the-day stew back to land
and area restaurants picked up on it.
Cooked in a tomato base with wine and spices and chopped fish (whatever was plentiful, but
almost always crab), cioppino probably takes its name from the classic fish stew of Italy's
Liguria region, where many Gold Rush era fishermen came from.
Get a memorable bowl at Sotto Mare in North Beach, Scoma's on Fisherman's Wharf, and
Anchor Oyster Bar in the Castro District. Don't feel bad about going with the "lazy man's"
cioppino -- it only means you're not going to spend half the meal cracking shellfish.
Fortune cookies

Culinary snobs like to look down their

holier-than-thou chopsticks at ABC
(American-born Chinese) food, but
we're not afraid to stand up for the honor
of such North American favorites as
General Tso's chicken, Mongolian beef,
broccoli beef, lemon chicken, deep-fried
spring rolls and that nuclear orange
sauce that covers sweet-and-sour anything.
As the seminal symbol of all great American-born Chinese grub, however, we salute the
mighty fortune cookie. Almost certainly invented in California in the early 1900s (origin
stories vary between San Francisco, Los Angeles and even Japan), the buttery sweet
crescents are now found in Chinese joints around the world ... with the notable exception of
China.
That's OK -- the crunchy biscuits are still our favorite way to close out any Chinese meal.
Peanut butter sandwich

Creamy or chunky? To each his own, but

everybody -- except those afflicted with
the dreaded and dangerous peanut allergy
and the moms who worry sick about them
-- loves a good peanut butter sandwich.
First served to clients at Dr. John Harvey
Kellogg's sanatorium in Battle Creek,
Michigan, peanut paste was improved
upon when chemist Joseph Rosefield added hydrogenated vegetable oil and called his spread
Skippy.
That was 1922; not quite 100 years later, peanut butter is an American mainstay, often paired
with jelly for that lunchbox workhorse the PB&J. For a rocking alternative, try peanut butter
sandwiches the way Elvis Presley liked them: with ripe mashed bananas, grilled in butter.
Popcorn
As the imperative on the Orville Redenbacher site urges: "All hail the super snack." The
bow-tied entrepreneur pitched his popcorn tent in Valparaiso, Indiana, which celebrates its
heritage at the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival the first Saturday after Labor Day.
It's just one of several Midwestern corn belt towns that vie for the title of Popcorn Capital of
the World, but centuries before Orville's obsession aromatically inflated in microwaves or
Jiffy Pop magically expanded on stovetops, Native Americans in New Mexico discovered
corn could be popped — way back in 3600 B.C.
Americans currently consume about 14 billion liters of popcorn a year; that's 43 liters per
man, woman, and child.
Fried chicken and waffles

Scottish immigrants brought the deep-fry

method across the pond, and it was good old
Colonel Saunders who really locked in on
the commercial potential in 1930 when he
started pressure-frying chicken breaded in
his secret spices at his service station in
Corbin, Kentucky, paving the way for
Kentucky Fried and all the other fried chickens to come.
Nuggets, fingers, popcorn, bites, patties -- one of our all-time favorite ways to eat fried
chicken is with waffles. And one of our favorite places to eat it is at Roscoe's Chicken and
Waffles.
Immortalized in "Pulp Fiction" and "Swingers," the L.A. institution got the soul-food seal of
approval when Obama himself related to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" that he'd popped
in for some wings and waffles and downed them in the presidential limo.
New England clam chowder

Gone are the days when Catholics

religiously abstained from eating meat on
Fridays, but you'll still find clam chowder
traditionally served in some East Coast
locales -- not that it reminds anyone of
penance these days.
There are time-honored versions of
chowder from Maine to Florida, but the
most famous and favorite has to be New England style: creamy white with potatoes and
onions.
There's Manhattan: clear with tomatoes. And there's even Minorcan (from around St.
Augustine, Florida): spicy with hot datil pepper. The variations on East Coast clam chowder
are deliciously numerous.
Even the West Coast has a version (with salmon instead of pork). With your fistful of oyster
crackers ready to dump in, you might stop to wonder: What were the Pilgrims thinking when
they fed clams to their hogs?
New Mexican flat enchiladas

It was the pre-Columbian Maya who

invented tortillas, and apparently the Aztecs
who started wrapping them around bits of
fish and meat. You have only to go to any
Mexican or Tex-Mex place to see what those
ancients wrought when someone dipped
tortillas "en chile" (hence, the name).
"Flat" (the stacked New Mexico style) or
rolled, smothered in red chili sauce or green (or both, for "Christmas" style), enchiladas are
the source of much cultural pride in the Land of Enchantment; they're particularly enchanting
made with the state's famed blue-corn tortillas -- fried egg on top optional.

Lobster rolls
Boiled or steamed alive -- animal cruelty some insist -- lobsters practically define a great
Down East occasion. And maybe nowhere more so
than in Maine, which provides 80% of the clawed
creatures, and where lobster shacks and lobster
bakes are culinary institutions.
Melted butter on knuckle, claw, or tail meat -- we
love it simple. But the perfect accompaniment to a
salty sea air day in Vacationland would have to be
the lobster roll. Chunks of sweet lobster meat
lightly dressed with mayo or lemon or both, heaped in a buttered hot dog bun makes for
some seriously satisfying finger food.
Fabulous finger-licking lobster time in Maine is during shack season, May to October, and
every August, when Rockland puts on its annual lobster festival. Suggested soundtrack for a
weekend of shacking: B-52s' "Rock Lobster."
Buffalo wings
Long before Troy Aikman became pitchman for
Wingstop, folks in Buffalo, New York, were
enjoying the hot and spicy wings that most agree
came into being by the hands of Teressa
Bellissimo, who owned the Anchor Bar and first
tossed chicken wings in cayenne pepper hot sauce
and butter in 1964.
According to Calvin Trillin, hot wings might have
originated with John Young, and his "mambo sauce" -- also in Buffalo. Either way, they
came from Buffalo, which, by the way, doesn't call them Buffalo wings.
If you think your kitchen table or couch-in-front-of-football represents the extreme in wing
eating, think again: Every Labor Day weekend, Buffalo celebrates its great contribution to
the nation's pub grub with the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival.
Indian frybread

If you've had it at Indian Market in Santa Fe or to

a powwow or pueblo anywhere in the country,
you're probably salivating at the very thought.
Who would think that a flat chunk of leavened
dough fried or deep-fried could be so addictive?
Tradition says it was the Navajo who created
frybread with the flour, sugar, salt, and lard given
to them by the government when they were relocated from Arizona to Bosque Redondo,
New Mexico, 150 years ago.
Frybread's a calorie bomb all right, but drizzled with honey or topped with ground beef,
tomatoes, onions, cheese, and lettuce for an Indian taco or all by its lonesome, it's an
American Indian staple not to be missed.
BLT
When tomatoes come into season, there's hardly a better way to celebrate the bounty than
with a juicy bacon, lettuce, and tomato.
Food guru John Mariani says the BLT is the no. 2 favorite sandwich in the United States
(after ham), and it's no. 1 in the United
Kingdom.
Bread can be toasted or not, bacon
crispy or limp, lettuce iceberg or other
(but iceberg is preferred for imparting
crunch and not interfering with the
flavor), and mayo -- good quality or
just forget about it.
Provenance of the BLT isn't clear, but a remarkably similar club sandwich showed up in the
"1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book." The sodium level gives the health-
minded pause, but the BLT tastes like summer -- and who can resist that?
Frito pie

Even the most modest chili has legions

of fans. Consider Kit Carson, whose
dying regret was that he didn't have time
for one more bowl. Or the mysterious
"La Dama de Azul," a Spanish nun
named Sister Mary of Agreda, who
reportedly never left her convent in
Spain but came back from one of her
astral projections preaching Christianity to Indians in the New World with their recipe for
venison chili.
Less apocryphally, "chili queens" in 1880s San Antonio, Texas, sold their spicy stew from
stands, and the "San Antonio Chili Stand" at the 1893 Chicago world's fair secured chili's
nationwide fame.
We really love the American ingenuity that added corn chips and cheddar cheese to make
Frito pie, a kitschy delight you can order served in the bag at the Five & Dime on the Santa
Fe Plaza, the same physical location of the original Woolworth's lunch counter that came up
with it.

Po' boy

The muffaletta might be the signature

sandwich of Crescent City, but the po'
boy is the "shotgun house of New Orleans
cuisine."
The traditional Louisiana sub is said to
have originated in 1929, when Bennie and
Clovis Martin -- both of whom had been
streetcar conductors and union members
before opening the coffee shop that legend says became the birthplace of the po' boy --
supported striking streetcar motormen and conductors with food.
"We fed those men free of charge until the strike ended," Bennie was quoted. "Whenever we
saw one of the striking men coming, one of us would say, 'Here comes another poor boy.'"
Enjoy the beloved everyman sandwich in its seemingly infinite variety (the traditional fried
oyster and shrimp can't be beat) and fight the encroachment of chain sub shops at the
annual Oak Street Po-Boy Festival each Fall.
Green chile stew

Have pork and green chiles ever spent such

delicious time together? Green chile stew
has been called the queen of the New
Mexican winter table, but we don't need a
cold winter day to eat this fragrant favorite.
We like it anytime -- so long as the Hatch
chiles are roasted fresh. Order them
from Hatch Chile Express in Hatch, New
Mexico, the Chile Capital of the World; they come already roasted, peeled, deseeded,
chopped, and frozen.
Better yet, make the trip to green chile stew country and order up a bowl. Whether you eat it
in New Mexico at a table near a kiva fireplace or at your own kitchen table, the aroma and
taste are to die for, and the comfort level remarkable on the resurrection scale.
Chocolate-chip cookies

Today the name most associated with the

killer cookie might be Mrs. Fields, but we
actually have Ruth Wakefield, who owned
the Toll House Inn, a popular spot for
home cooking in 1930s Whitman,
Massachusetts, to thank for all spoon-
licking love shared through chocolate chip
cookies.
Was Mrs. Wakefield making her Butter Drop Do cookies when, lacking baker's chocolate,
she substituted a cut-up Nestle's semisweet chocolate bar? Or did the vibrations of a Hobart
mixer knock some chocolate bars off a shelf and into her sugar-cookie dough?
However chocolate chips ended up in the batter, a new cookie was born. Andrew Nestle
reputedly got the recipe from her -- it remains on the package to this day -- and Wakefield
got a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. Can you feel the serotonin and endorphins
releasing?
Blueberry cobbler

Also charmingly called slump, grunt,

and buckle, cobbler got its start with
early oven-less colonists who came up with the no-crust-on-the-bottom fruit dish that could
cook in a pan or pot over a fire.
They might have been lofting a mocking revolutionary middle finger at the mother country
by making a sloppy American version of the refined British steamed fruit and dough
pudding. Cobblers become doubly American when made with blueberries, which are native
to North America (Maine practically has a monopoly on them).
We love blueberries for how they sex up practically any crust, dough, or batter, maybe most
of all in cobblers and that other all-American favorite, the blueberry muffin.
Nachos

The bane of diets and the boon of

happy hours -- could there be a more
perfect calorie-dense accompaniment
to a pitcher of margaritas?
Less rhetorically: why does Piedras
Negras, Mexico, just over the border
from Eagle Pass, Texas, host The
International Nacho Festival and the
Biggest Nacho in the World Contest
every October?
Because it was there that Ignacio "Nacho" Anaya invented nachos when a gaggle of
shopping wives of American soldiers stationed at Fort Duncan arrived at the Victory Club
restaurant after closing time.
Maitre d'Ignacio improvised something for the gals with what he had on hand, christening
his melty creation nachos especiales. From thence they have gone forth across the border, the
continent and the world.
Philly cheese steak
It's a sandwich so greasy and hallowed in its hometown that the posture you must adopt to
eat it without ruining your clothes has a name: "the Philadelphia Lean."
Made of "frizzled beef," chopped while being grilled in grease, the Philly cheese steak
sandwich gets the rest of its greasy goodness from onions and cheese (American, provolone,
or Cheese Whiz), all of which is laid into a long locally made Amoroso bun.
Pat and Harry Olivieri get the credit for making the first cheese steaks (originally with pizza
sauce -- cheese apparently came later, courtesy of one of Pat's cooks) and selling them from
their hot dog stand in south Philly.
Pat later opened Pat's King of Steaks, which still operates today and vies with rival Geno's
Steaks for the title of best cheese steak in town.
Cheeseburger
 Lunch counter, traditional, gourmet,
sliders, Kobe. White Castle,
Whataburger, Burger King, In-N-Out,
McDonald's, Steak N' Shake, Five
Guys, The Heart Attack Grill. It's hard
to believe, but it all began with a simple
mistake.
Or so say the folks in Pasadena,
California, who claim the classic cheeseburger was born there in the late 1920s when a
young chef at The Rite Spot accidentally burned a burger and slapped on some cheese to
cover his blunder.
Our favorite rendition might be the way they do cheeseburgers in New Mexico: with green
chilis, natch. Follow the Green Chile Cheeseburger Trail.

Clam Chowder

It is basically illegal to visit Boston without trying New England clam chowder. The fragrant soup is sold
everywhere, and it looks hideous, being white and lumpy. But one taste is all it takes to fall in love.
Whoever decided to mix the quahog shellfish with tender potatoes, salted pork, heavy cream and herbs is a
total genius. There are many ways to eat it, but you may as well go all out and get a bread bowl at the
Atlantic Fish Co., where the chefs carve out a cavity in a fresh boule, pour in the heavenly juice, then put the
top back on. Edible dinnerware.

Bagel and Lox

Trying to narrow New York down to a single representative cuisine is a fool's errand. A Nathan's hot dog?
Pastrami from Katz's? A bad cup of diner coffee? Let's pay respects to the city's strong Jewish population
and go with bagels and lox, a weekend staple on many Manhattan tables. Scientific studies have been
conducted trying to work out why the New York bagel reigns supreme over all others; legend attributes it to
the water. Whatever the cause, head to Russ and Daughters on the Lower East Side and tell them you want a
selection of smoked fish, cream cheeses and, if you're feeling flash, caviar.

Deep-Dish Pizza

Pizza in Chicago looks and tastes different. The dish is deep, as the name suggests, meaning the crust rises
high and allows for an artery-choking volume of cheese and tomato sauce. Unsurprisingly, they call it a
"pie". It is not for the lighthearted and should only be attempted while wearing dark clothes or a large
napkin. For a particularly authentic meal, pair the pie with sugary soda. You might like to do this at an Uno
Pizzeria, which claims to have invented the Italian American hybrid dish in 1943.

Drop Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

A biscuit in America means, essentially, a flaky scone often made with lard and buttermilk. In places such as
Montana, where people burn energy working on horse ranches, biscuits are eaten at breakfast smothered in a
thick white gravy that is studded with bits of sausage. It certainly wakes you up in the morning. For a fun
twist, try a musical version in Austin, Texas, where Biscuits and Groovy offers varies with names like "the
Aretha Franklin" (maple bacon, colby jack cheese).

Texas Barbecue

Australians might like to stoke up a barbie on the weekend, but Texans live and die by the practice.
Mesquite smoked meats and tenderising rubs are common obsessions, and it is not uncommon to go to
football games and find people have brought entire ranges to the parking lots that are worth upwards of five
or even ten thousand dollars – a pastime called "tailgating". For excellent brisket, head to the Dallas Farmers
Market, stand in line for a bit, then find a seat at Pecan Lodge. Also good are the pork links, pulled pork,
beef ribs and collard greens. Basically everything.

Hominy Grits

Southern food seems to exist in its own universe, and an entire list could be written just focusing on things
like chicken and waffles (yes, you read that correctly). So perhaps it's a good idea to just go with one of the
basics: hominy grits, which is essentially corn milled into a rough powder and then boiled up with butter or
bacon grease. It sounds rough but it's actually sublime. For proof, try Blossom Restaurant in Charleston,
South Carolina, which offers Geechie Boy grits with shrimp and andouille sausage. Pair it with brussels
sprouts and sweetened ice tea..
Hominy Grill restaurant, Charleston, South Carolina.

Tacos

Los Angeles is a city with a taqueria on every street corner, basically. With so many Spanish-speakers it's
possible to find anything from greasy nachos on Venice Beach to exquisite Michoacan-style goat stews. For
a good sampler, forget the chain stuff and try El Huarache Azteca, a tiny, no-fuss eatery in the
neighbourhood of Highland Park, where menus run the full gamut from fajitas to mole verde and "flautas" –
fried crisp taquitos stuffed with chicken. (Guacamole is a no-brainer.) Keep in mind that Mexican food and
Tex-Mex are two very different things.

Traditional Ukrainian Dishes

Borscht with garlic fritters
Ukrainian dishes often use a number of ingredients. Borscht is
a direct proof of this. Initially, this dish was made of 30
ingredients but, of course, over time that number has
decreased. However, the technique remains unchanged. Beef
is placed in cold water to make a meat broth. Then the meat
is taken out and other ingredients are added and cooked in a
closed saucepan. Garlic fritters are given instead of bread
and called pampushki by locals. Traditionally, every
Ukrainian girl learns how to cook borscht before getting
married.

Chicken Kiev
Chicken Kiev is the dish that has brought fame to Ukraine. The simple combination of fresh chicken filet
with a piece of butter is considered to be quite exquisite all over the world. To ensure that butter does not
flow during the frying, you’ll need a lot of practice and true professionalism. Nowadays, chicken Kiev is
served in fashionable restaurants across London and New York. It is always the first dish ordered by foodies
visiting the Ukrainian capital.

Potato pancakes
Deruny, or potato pancakes, are a perfect course
for breakfast or dinner. They are usually freshly fried or
baked. If you want to make a good batch of deruny, first off,
you should make sure the potatoes are finely grated. Then, to
diversify the flavor, add meat, slices of chopped onions,
mushrooms, fresh herbs or a variety of spices. Alternatively,
you could just keep it simple: potatoes and a pinch of salt.

Salo
It has already become a source of humor: Ukrainians
love salo. This well-established symbol of hospitality and
wealth is usually served as an appetizer—but sometimes a
fully fledged dish. Pork fat is reportedly a source of
vitamin D and A, both of which foster brain activity,
digestion and detoxification. Put it on rye bread with
spices or greens and have yourself a surprisingly healthy
snack.

Vareniki
Vareniki is a kind of dumpling. It is made of dough, but the
filling depends on the imagination and taste preferences of the
chef and their guests. Cabbages, meat, mushrooms, cottage
cheese, cherries, currant or potatoes are the most typical
fillings. Savory or sweet, vareniki turns out to be succulent.
Ukrainians put sour cream almost in every dish, and these
dumplings often get the same treatment. Begin your meal with
one of these—you won’t regret it.

Stuffed cabbage rolls

Traditional stuffed cabbage rolls, golubtsi, take many hours
to prepare properly. There are two ways to make them: bake
them in the oven or stew them in a pan. Minced meat with
rice wrapped in cabbage leaf requires fine culinary skills and passion. Otherwise, the form and the taste of
the rolls will suffer. Golubtsi is a good choice for dinner—top with some sour cream to give it ever more
gusto.

Okroshka
Okroshka is a refreshing soup that is mostly cooked
during the summer period. The ingredients vary: it may
be prepared with kvass or kefir, both of which are sour in
taste. The accompanying sausages, cucumbers, greens,
carrots and radishes should be chopped in relatively large
pieces to give it texture. Once you tried okroshka it’ll
soon become your savior from sultry weather.

Banush
Western Ukraine has a number of unique recipes that are not
as common in the central or eastern parts of the country. One
of them is a legendary dish called banush. Decades ago,
banush was a dish associated with poverty, but now this
staple food is served in the best restaurants across the
Carpathians. It is made of corn grits, fried pork fat and
cheese, and is traditionally cooked over a fire in order to get
it well smoked. Mushrooms are also often added to the
porridge, to make the taste even richer.

Holodets
This strange dish shocks tourists. But, for Ukrainians, it
is the central dish served at all celebrations. Holodets is
made of meat broth, frozen to a jelly-like state, with
pieces of meat inside. One of the main components for
this kind of aspic is pork leg. To be more specific, the
lowest part, the one that ends with hoofs. During the
process of cooking, the smell spreads all over the
apartment. But the result is so satisfying that it is worth
it.

Syrniki
Fans of sweet flavors for breakfast will fall in love with
syrniki. Made of cottage cheese, flour, eggs and sugar, the
dish is nourishing and airy. After being gently fried in a
 pan, syrniki is topped with jam and sour cream. It literally
melts in the mouth and will fast become your favorite
dish. Despite the simplicity of ingredients, making syrniki
is a very exacting process. The most important thing to
consider is proportions—make sure you stick to the recipe.

Homemade sausages
Homemade sausages consist of meat, fat, and spices, in a natural shell. The dish exceeds any store-bought
sausage, in composition and quality. Most of the Ukrainian housewives know their own secret recipe and
find it easy to cook. Mince pork or beef meat, add some garlic, wrap and bake. Then, the sausages can be
frozen and later fried, baked, grilled or simply boiled as a side to vareniki or banush.

Nalisniki
Another nourishing recipe, the filling for which can be
chosen randomly. Anything that can be wrapped in a
pancake can be put inside nalisniki—but the traditional
filling is cottage cheese and raisins. The secret to
perfecting this dish is cooking it slowly on a low fire.
Nalisniki could be mistaken for pancakes, but the difference is that Ukrainian versions are thinner, meaning
your filling will dominate the taste. Tourists with a sweet tooth can add jam and sugar.

Make an apple pie

Steps
Heat oven to 425°F. Place 1 pie crust in ungreased 9-inch glass pie plate. Press firmly against side and
bottom. In large bowl, gently mix filling ingredients; spoon into crust-lined pie plate. Top with second crust.
Wrap excess top crust under bottom crust edge, pressing edges
together to seal; flute. Cut slits or shapes in several places in
top crust. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until apples are tender and
crust is golden brown. Cover edge of crust with 2- to 3-inch
wide strips of foil after first 15 to 20 minutes of baking to
prevent excessive browning. Cool on cooling rack at least 2
hours before serving.
Tips from the Pillsbury Kitchen

 Two (21-oz.) cans of more fruit apple pie filling can be used if you’re short on time.

 Let your apple pie cool for at least 2 hours before cutting into it. The filling will
thicken as it cools, making it easier to slice.

 To make Caramel-Pecan Apple Pie: right after removing the pie from the oven, drizzle
with 1/3 cup caramel ice cream topping. Sprinkle with 2 to 4 tablespoons chopped
pecans.

 To freeze Baked Pie: Assemble and bake pie as directed in recipe. Cool completely.
Wrap pie tightly with plastic wrap. Place pie in a 2-gallon freezer storage bag; seal.
Freeze up to 4 months. To reheat, thaw pie in refrigerator overnight. Remove bag and
plastic wrap. C... More +

Vegetables Vocabulary
One type of food that nearly everyone eats every day is the food group called vegetables. Some
vegetables grow underground, including root vegetables like potatoes, yams, carrots, turnips
and beetroot as well as bulbs like onion and garlic.

Green vegetables or greens include leaf vegetables like spinach and cabbage as well as

certain legumes like peas and string beans. Many vegetables have seeds inside, and the best-
known of these include pumpkin, squash, eggplant and the many kinds of pepper like the green
pepper, chilli pepper and the bell pepper or capsicum. Salad vegetables such as lettuce and
cucumber are eaten raw while other vegetables, including cauliflower, mushrooms and stem
vegetables like asparagus and celery, can be eaten either raw or cooked.

artichoke banana gooseberry

asparagus blackberry lemon
beetroot blackcurrant lime
bell pepper or capsicum blueberry mango
broccoli cantaloupe or rockmelon or mangosteen
Brussels sprouts muskmelon orange
cabbage cherry nectarine
carrot coconut papaya or pawpaw
apple fig peach
apricot grapes pineapple
avocado green olive plum
kiwifruit or kiwi or Chinese raisins
 raspberry garlic sweet potato
strawberry lettuce string beans or green beans
tomato mushrooms turnip
watermelon onion yam
cauliflower peas zucchini
celery potato ginger
cucumber pumpkin radish
capsicum spinach
chilli squash
eggplant

 bulb: a round underground part of certain plants like onion and garlic plant.
 greens: green vegetables.
 leaf vegetable: a leaf or leafy plant that's eaten as a vegetable, like spinach.
 legume: a seed that grows in a pod, like a pea or bean.
 raw: not cooked.
 root vegetable: a vegetable that grows under the ground, like potato and carrot.
 salad vegetable: a vegetable that's often used in salads.
 vegetable: part of a plant that can be cooked and eaten with a main course
 berry: any small juicy fruit with many tiny seeds like a strawberry.
 citrus fruit: a fruit with lots of Vitamin C like an orange or lemon.
 dried fruit: fruit that's had water removed from it, like raisins.
 melon: a large round fruit with a hard skin and soft flesh inside.
 drupe: a fruit with soft flesh around a large stone, like a plum or peach.
 ripe: (of fruit only) ready to eat after growing to full size.
 temperate fruit: any fruit that only grows in a cool or cold climate.
 tropical fruit: any fruit that grows in a warm, tropical climate

Fruits Vocabulary
Another important type of food is fruit. Fruits contain seeds or a stone, and they can be eaten
raw after becoming ripe. Some of the most popular and delicious fruits are tropical fruits like
pineapples, bananas, mangoes, papayas and mangosteens.

There are also many delicious subtropical fruits that grow in slightly cooler climates like the
Middle East. Olives, figs, dates and grapes have been eaten for thousands of years in the Middle
East, either as fresh fruits or dried fruits like the various kinds of dried grape we now call
raisins, sultanas and currants. Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit are also
subtropical fruits, famous for their high levels of vitamin C. Melons are large, thick-skinned
fruits that can grow in both tropical and subtropical climates. The most popular melons include
the cantaloupe, the honeydew and the juicy and refreshing watermelon.

Fruits that can grow in even colder climates are called temperate fruits. They include apples
and pears as well as stone fruits like apricots, plums, peaches, cherries and
avocados. Berries are also temperate fruits, but they have many tiny seeds rather than one big
seed like stone fruits. They are round and juicy and the most popular include strawberries,
raspberries, blueberries and kiwifruit. There is another very popular berry similar in size to the
kiwifruit that most people think is a vegetable rather than a fruit. It's red, juicy and is used to
make a sauce called ketchup. Do you know what it is?
Grains, Beans and Nuts Vocabulary
Besides fruits and vegetables, plants also give us grains, beans and nuts.

Grains
Grains are seeds from grasses called cereals that were first cultivated over nine thousand years
ago. Among the first to be cultivated were wheat and barley in the Middle East, rice and millet
in Asia and Africa, and corn or maize in Central America. All these grains are still eaten today,
along with many others like oats, rye and sorghum. Many grains are cooked and eaten whole or
made into breakfast cereals. But grains like wheat, rye, millet and corn are usually ground into
a powder called flour which is then used to make foods like bread, cakes and tortillas.

Beans
Like grains, beans are edible seeds, but beans are usually bigger than grains and come from
flowering plants instead of grasses. They have been cultivated for thousands of years in all parts
of the world. Broad beans, mung beans and adzuki beans were first cultivated in Asia, while
lima beans, pinto beans, kidney beans and haricot beans (now used to make "baked beans") were
first cultivated in South America. The cocoa bean, from which chocolate is made, is also from
South America, while Africa’s most famous bean by far is the coffee bean.

Beans come from a large family of plants called legumes. Other edible legumes include chick
peas, lentils, black-eyed peas and soybeans. Most legumes have long seedpods in which the
seeds grow. After the seeds have grown into what we call beans or peas, the seedpods are picked
off the plant and split open.

Nuts
Nuts are hard, dry fruits with a woody outer covering that has to be cracked open to get the
edible seed inside. Some nuts are so hard that special tools called nutcrackers (image right) are
used to open them. Some of the most popular nuts are almonds, hazelnuts, cashews, chestnuts,
Brazil nuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans and macadamia nuts. One of the most famous nuts is the
coconut. Its white flesh is delicious and the water inside makes a sweet and refreshing drink.
Another famous food that most people think is a nut is actually a legume. They grow
underground and are often eaten with drinks at a bar or a party. Can you guess what they are?
 almonds peanuts
coffee beans

black eyed peas  pinto beans

corn or maize  
 

cashew nuts pistachios

 
flour
 

chestnuts
  rice (cooked)
baked beans
   

chickpeas
 
legumes
  tortilla
 

cocoa beans
  lentils
  walnuts
 

coconut
  lima beans
  wheat
bean: an edible seed, often kidney-shaped, that grows in a seedpod.
cereal: breakfast food made from roasted grain, esp. wheat, corn or oats.
cereal: 1. a plant that produces edible grain, like rice and wheat 2. breakfast cereal.
edible: safe and tasting good enough to eat.
flour: a powder made by grinding grain.
grain: seeds used as food, like wheat, rice and millet.
grind: to crush something into tiny pieces.
legume: a plant with a seedpod containing beans or peas.
nut: a hard, dry fruit with seeds inside a hard, woody shell
nutcracker: a tool for breaking open the hard shells of nuts.
seedpod (also pod): the long structure of legumes in which several peas or beans grow.

Meat and Poultry Vocabulary

Many different animals and birds have been hunted in the wild, but only a few have been raised
for their meat. In the ancient civilizations of Egypt, India, China and Greece people raised pigs,
sheep, cattle and poultry like chickens and ducks, and all these are still being raised today. Even
though much has changed since ancient times, the kinds of meat and poultry we eat today are
still mostly the same.

Meat
In a modern supermarket we see the same meats, although the cuts may have changed. Today's
cuts of beef include topside, spare ribs and steaks like fillet and T-bone steak as well as various
cuts of veal. We also see legs of lamb and lamb chops as well as mutton from older sheep.
Many cuts of pork are also seen, including legs of pork, pork chops and pork spare ribs as well
as cured pig meats like bacon and ham. Meats of all kinds are diced for making dishes like
stew or minced to make sausages, meat pies and hamburger patties.

Rabbit and goat meat is also eaten in many places, as are various kinds of offal like liver,
kidney, heart, tripe and brains. Offal and meats like ox tongue, sheep's head and pig's feet or
"trotters" are often eaten by people who can't afford more expensive meats, or in places where
every edible part of a slaughtered animal is cooked and eaten. In ancient times people also
hunted game like wild boar, deer, quail and pheasant, and all these meats are also eaten today,
especially in expensive restaurants.

Poultry
Birds kept as poultry include chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys. Whole birds can be boiled or
roasted, or they can be cut into pieces before being cooked. When eating fried chicken, for
example, we can eat pieces of breast or wings or drumsticks. Eggs from poultry are also an
important type of food, with chicken eggs being the most popular. When shopping, you can
choose to buy free-range poultry or free-range eggs if you don't like factory farming in which
birds are kept in small cages and never allowed to range freely in the outside world.
  

bacon mutton
  duck  
 

beef spare ribs ox tongue

  fillet steak  
 

ox heart
beef topside
   
ham on the bone or honey
glazed ham
 

chicken pork leg

   
leg of lamb
 

chicken breasts
  rabbit
 

drumsticks liver
   

sausages
 
chicken wings
  minced pork
 

sliced ham
 

diced goat meat

 tripe
T-bone steak turkey
 
 

bacon: meat from the back or sides of a pig that's cured and sliced.
beef: meat from a cow, bull or ox.
breast: meat from the front of a bird
chop: a small cut of meat, usually lamb or pork, from near the ribs
cure: to preserve meat by smoking, salting or drying.
cut: a piece of meat cut from a certain part of an animal.
dice: to cut food into small cubes or square-shaped pieces.
drumstick: a cooked chicken leg
free-range: (of poultry) free to live naturally outside instead of being kept inside a farm
building.
game: 1. wild animals and birds hunted by people 2. meat from hunted animals and birds.
ham: cured meat from a pig's upper leg, usually sliced.
lamb: 1. a young sheep 2. meat from a young sheep.
meat: animal or bird flesh eaten as food.
mince: to cut meat into tiny pieces, often with a machine called a mincer.
mutton: meat from an adult sheep.
offal: organs from an animal or bird eaten as food, like liver, heart and kidney.
pork: meat from a pig
poultry: 1. birds kept for their meat or eggs 2. meat from these birds.
sausage: minced meat in a long tube of skin, usually fried
slaughter: to kill an animal for its meat
spare ribs: a cut of pork or beef that contains rib bones.
steak: a thick slice of high-quality beef.
tripe: the stomach of a sheep or cow eaten as food.
veal: meat from a calf or young cow.

Fish and Seafood Vocabulary

Another important type of food is seafood, which includes many kinds of fish as well
as shellfish and other sea creatures like squid. Some kinds of seafood are raised in ponds or in
cages in the sea, but most of the fish we eat are taken alive from the ocean by big commercial
fishing boats. Commercial fishing has done a lot of damage by overfishing and by trawling with
huge nets that can catch everything, including fish too small to sell and other sea creatures like
dolphins. But if you like fishing, don't worry. This sort of damage isn't caused by people who go
fishing in small boats or who fish with a fishing rod.

Fish
Fish are an important source of protein that can be eaten raw, as in Japanese sashimi, or kept for
future use by being pickled, as in pickled herring, by being smoked, as in smoked salmon, or by
being canned, as in canned tuna. But most fish is cooked either by frying, baking, grilling or
steaming. It can be cooked whole, or cut into large pieces called fillets, or cut into small pieces
and used to make soup, curry, stew, etc. But however you eat your fish, watch out for bones!

The most widely-eaten fish include salmon, tuna, snapper, mackerel, cod, trout, carp, catfish and
sardines. Most of these are caught in the sea or in lakes and rivers, but edible fish are also raised
in ponds. In Chinese aquaculture, fish like the grass carp have been raised for nearly four
thousand years, but the first known example of aquaculture is a complex of ponds and canals
built by the Gunditjmara people of Australia over eight thousand years ago to farm eel, a long,
thin, snake-like fish that's still eaten today.

Seafood
Many other sea creatures can also be eaten, including some with an outer shell you have to
remove before getting to the soft flesh inside. This type of seafood includes lobsters,
crabs, crayfish, prawns and shrimp, a smaller relative of the prawn. Others live inside a very
hard shell that can be difficult to open, and these include oysters, mussels, scallops and
periwinkles. In some places the word "shellfish" covers both these kinds of seafood, but in
others it only means the latter kind with very hard shells. Other edible sea creatures like the
squid and the octopus have soft bodies and no shell, but long arms that help them move quickly
through the water. Fish eggs called roe can also be eaten, and one of the most high-class and
expensive foods in the world is sturgeon roe, also known as caviar.

carp crayfish
mussels

caviar or sturgeon roe eel

   
octopus

fillets of snapper
cod
oysters

crab lobster
periwinkles or winkles
   

scallop
prawn squid

salmon roe shrimp trout

 

salmon fillet smoked fish tuna

snapper
sardines in a can tuna steak

aquaculture: the raising of fish and other aquatic animals for food.
canned: preserved in a metal can without air.
caviar: the eggs of the sturgeon fish sold as an expensive food
crayfish: a freshwater creature that looks like a small lobster.
eel: a long fish that looks like a snake.
fillet: one side of a fish with the bones taken out.
fish: 1. an animal that lives and swims in water and breathes through gills 2. the flesh of these
animals.
fish: to catch fish with a fishing rod, a net or a spear.
lobster: a sea creature with a hard shell, eight legs, two claws and eyes on long stalks.
octopus: a sea creature with a soft round body, no shell, and eight arms called tentacles.
oyster: shellfish with a rough shell in which pearls can grow.
pickled: preserved in salt water or vinegar
prawn: a sea creature with a thin shell and ten small legs.
roe: all the eggs inside a female fish.
sashimi: a Japanese dish of raw fish eaten with soy sauce.
seafood: food from the sea, incl. fish, shellfish, fish eggs, etc.
shellfish: edible sea creatures with a shell, like lobsters and oysters.
squid: a sea creature with a soft body, eight arms and two long tentacles
trawl: to catch sea creatures, esp. fish, by pulling a large net behind a boat.
Dairy Foods Vocabulary
People have been raising animals like horses, donkeys, camels, goats, sheep and cows for
thousands of years. They were raised for meat and skins as well as for milk¹. If female animals
were producing milk to feed their young, people could also drink it if they milked² the animals.
The milk spoiled if it wasn't drunk within a day or two, so people found ways to turn it into
foods that lasted longer, and these foods became what we now call dairy foods.

Milk, Cream and Butter

Most of the milk we drink these days is cow's milk. Like all milk, if cow's milk is left to stand it
separates into a low-fat drink called skimmed milk and a top layer of thick, high-fat cream.
Cream is used both in cooking and as a topping on desserts, but if it's stirred very quickly or
"whipped" it gets even thicker and can be used in cakes and pastries as well. Cream can also be
thickened by adding chemicals, and this type of cream is called double cream, heavy cream or
whipping cream. If cream is whipped for a long time, it gradually turns into butter. Butter is
used in cooking and also as a spread, but many people now use a butter-like substance made
from vegetable oils or animal fats called margarine instead.

Cheeses
If milk is left for a few days, soft lumps called curds begin to form. If the curds are removed and
drained, a soft cheese is made. If they're also pressed, a harder cheese is made. The most popular
soft cheeses include ricotta and cottage cheese as well as creamy table cheeses like Brie and
Camembert. Semi-soft cheeses include feta, a Greek cooking cheese made from goat's milk
that's also used in salads, and Mozzarella, an Italian cheese that's often used in pizzas.

Semi-hard cheeses with a mild taste include Gouda, Edam and many Swiss cheeses in which
holes called "eyes" are found. These cheeses are often made in wheel-shaped moulds¹, and this
is why they're usually sold in wedge-shaped pieces. Harder and stronger-tasting cheeses like
Cheddar and Cheshire can be used as both cooking and table cheeses, as can many blue
cheeses like Gorgonzola and Stilton that have a blue mould² inside that gives them a special
flavour. The hardest cheeses like Parmesan are usually grated and sprinkled over other foods
like spaghetti sauce to make them even tastier.

In many countries the best-selling cheeses are processed cheese and cream cheeses that are

made in factories and have chemicals added that change their colour and taste. They're cheap to
make, but most cheese lovers say they're tasteless and never eat them.

Other Dairy Products

Milk is also used to make ice-cream, Italian gelato and yoghurt, a dairy product that's made by
adding a special bacteria to milk that makes it firmer and gives it a sour taste. Milk can also be
dried to make powdered milk that's used to make chocolate and a processed food for babies
called infant formula. Companies that make infant formula spend huge amounts of money
marketing it as a healthy alternative to natural mother's milk, but most doctors say mother's milk
is much healthier because it contains important elements that infant formula lacks.
 Brie soft cheese Edam cheese Parmesan cheese

butter
feta cheese processed cheese slices

Camembert cheese frozen yoghurt Stilton blue cheese

Cheddar cheese gelato

  ricotta cheese

condensed milk
Swiss cheese
ice-cream

cottage cheese
milk wheel of Gouda cheese

cream cheese as spread

milk powder or powdered milk
whipped cream
 

double or thickened cream

Mozzarella cheese
yoghurt or yogurt
 blue cheese: cheese containing blue mould, such as Stilton and Danish Blue
  butter: a solid, pale yellow dairy food made by churning cream
 cheese: a soft or hard food made from milk curds that's used in cooking or eaten on
crackers, bread.
 cooking cheese: any cheese that's mostly used in cooking.
 cottage cheese: soft, lumpy white cheese made from skimmed milk curds
 cream: thick, high-fat liquid from milk that's used in cooking and with desserts.
 cream cheese: a soft smooth white cheese with a very mild taste.
 dairy foods: milk and all the foods made from milk.
 feta: a soft white goat's milk cheese from Greece.
 gelato: Italian-style ice cream.
 margarine: a butter-like substance made from vegetable oils or animal fats
 milk¹ (noun): 1. a natural liquid food that female mammals produce for their young 2.
cow's milk
 milk² (verb): to get milk from a cow or other animal, either by hand or with a milking
machine.
 mold: a container that gives a solidifying liquid its final shape.
 mould² (noun): tiny green, blue, or white fungi that can grow on or in certain foods
 powdered milk: a powder made from dried milk.
 processed cheese: cheese made in a factory with many added chemicals
 skim milk: milk that's had the cream taken out of it - .
 Swiss cheese: any semi-hard cheese with holes in it
 table cheese: any cheese that's meant to be served at table rather than used in cooking.
 yoghurt or yogurt: a soft dairy food made by fermenting milk.

Vanilla Cake
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a cake pan.
2. In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and
butter. Beat in the eggs, then add a tablespoon of
vanilla extract and whisk. Add flour to the mixture
Ingredients
and stir in milk until the batter is smooth. Pour or
spoon batter into the greased cake pan. • 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. • 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 1/2 cup milk

baking a cake beating eggs

burnt toast
 mashing potatoes
carving meat slicing a tomato

chopping green onions melting butter

sprinkling salt

cutting a pepper mixing flour and eggs

steaming broccoli

peeling an apple
frying fish fillets
stirring a sauce
 

grating cheese roasting a chicken

stir-frying vegetables 

grilling sautéing mushrooms

whisking a cake mix

 add: to put something else in.

 bake: to cook in an oven.
 beat: to mix eggs, cream, etc. with a fork, a beater, or a whisk.
 boil: to cook in boiling water
 burn: to spoil food by cooking it for too long or at a temperature that's too high.
 carve: to cut slices or small pieces from a large piece of cooked meat
 chop or chop up: to cut into small pieces with a sharp knife.
  cook: to prepare food for eating
 cookbook or cookery book: a book of recipes, often with pictures
 dice: to cut food into small cubes or squares.
 dish: food that's cooked in a certain way.
 fry: to cook food in hot oil, butter or fat.
 grate: to cut tiny slices from cheese, vegetables, chocolate, etc. with a grater.
 grease: to rub butter or oil onto a baking pan or dish to stop food from sticking
 broil: to cook directly over or under a very hot gas flame or electric element
 herb: a plant used for adding flavour to food.
 ingredient: any food, liquid, herb or spice that's used to make a particular dish.
 mash: to crush food like cooked potato until it's a smooth mass
 melt: to turn a solid substance into a liquid by heating.
 mix: to combine two or more substances.
 peel: to take or cut the skin off a vegetable or fruit.
 pinch: a very small amount of something like salt or ground spice.
 preheat: to turn on and heat an oven or grill before cooking.
 prepare: to make food ready for cooking or eating.
 recipe: a list of ingredients and instructions for cooking a particular dish.
 roast: to cook foods like meat and vegetables in an oven
 sauté: to fry quickly in hot oil or fat.
 serve: to give someone food that's been prepared or a drink.
 spice: a plant part, often ground into a powder, that adds flavour to a dish
 sprinkle: to add a few drops of liquid or a substance like salt or pepper by shaking a
container or by using your fingers
 steam: to cook in hot steam from boiling water.
 stir: to move a spoon or other implement around to mix something.
 stir-fry: to fry quickly over a high heat while stirring.
 whisk: to mix something very quickly with a whisk.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner

In most parts of the world people have three meals a day. The first is breakfast, then lunch in the
middle of the day and dinner in the evening. Most people have breakfast at home, and some take
a home-made lunch to work or school. Most people also have dinner at home, and for many
modern families dinnertime is the only chance we have to get together and talk to one another.
At family dinners we don't have to follow the rules of etiquette for formal dining, but if you go
to expensive restaurants or travel for business it's useful to know these rules. You might also
need to know them if you're hosting a dinner party or having special guests for dinner.

Table settings and dining etiquette

Houses and large apartments often have a dining room with a dining table that can seat many
people. Dining rooms are sometimes used for everyday meals, but often they're only used for big
family gatherings, dinner parties or formal meals. If you're hosting a meal like this, you'll
probably use your best set of dinnerware and cutlery. Before your guests arrive you'll need
to set the table. Begin by covering the table with a tablecloth and then place
a centrepiece such as candle sticks or a flower arrangement in the middle of the table. Then
arrange place settings around the table, making sure there's a place for everyone, including
yourself.

Place settings for formal dinners usually include a place mat, or an empty space, in the middle
with a dinner fork and a smaller salad fork to the left, a table knife and soup spoon to the
right, and a dessert fork and spoon across the top. Each place setting also has a bread
plate and butter knife on the left and a drinking glass or tumbler and a wine glass on the right.
Sometimes these glasses are on coasters, but only if place mats are used instead of a tablecloth.
The place settings for dinner in most hotel dining rooms and fancy restaurants are also like this.

Salad or soup bowls, dinner plates and dessert bowls are often brought to the table during the
meal, and if so they shouldn't be on the table before the meal begins. There should, however, be
a folded napkin at each guest's place, and if you're serving steak or fish you can add a steak
knife or fish knife as well. Salt and pepper shakers and jugs full of drinking water should also
be on the table. If you're serving tea or coffee after the meal, bring cups and saucers as well as
a sugar bowl, teaspoons and a small jug of milk or cream to the table.

bowl fish knife

cup and saucer

butter knife napkin or serviette

  dessert fork and spoon

candlesticks placemat
dinner fork

centrepiece place setting

dinner plate
 

salt and pepper shakers

dinnerware set
coasters
 
 tumbler
setting the table sugar bowl

water jug
soup spoon table knife

wine glass
steak knife tablecloth
 

 bowl: a round dish for soup, salad or a serving of dessert

 bread plate: a small plate for buttering bread rolls.
 butter knife: a knife with a blunt, rounded end for spreading butter.
 candlestick: a holder, usually tall and thin, for one or more candles.
 centerpiece: a display placed in the middle of a dining table
 coaster: a small mat or flat object under a bottle or glass that protects the table.
 cup and saucer: a small plate and matching cup for tea or coffee
 dessert fork and spoon: a three-pronged fork with an oval spoon for eating desserts from a bowl or
plate
 dining room: the room in a house or hotel where meals are eaten
 dinner party: a dinner in someone's home to which guests are invited
 etiquette: rules for behaving correctly in social situations.
 fish knife: a knife with a wide blade for eating fish
 formal: requiring official or social rules be followed.
 napkin: a cloth or paper towel for wiping your mouth and hands while eating
 place mat: a flat piece of cloth, plastic or wood at the centre of each place setting on a dining table.
 place setting: dishes, glasses and cutlery arranged in place for one person
 set the table: to arrange place settings for everyone on a dining table.
 shaker: a container for salt, pepper, chili powder, etc. with small holes from which the contents are
shaken out.
 soup spoon: a round or oval spoon for eating soup
 steak knife: a knife with a serrated blade for diners to cut steak at the table.
 tablecloth: a large cloth for covering a dining table.
 tumbler: a drinking glass with straight sides and no stem or handle.
 pitcher: a large container with a handle from which drinking water is poured.
 wine glass : a glass with a long stem and a wide base for drinking wine.

Restaurant Vocabulary
Most people eat out quite often, even if they like cooking and eating at home. They might eat
breakfast or lunch in a cafeteria or canteen where they work or study, or go to
a café or restaurant nearby. Many people also go out to eat dinner once or twice a week. They
might go to a fast food restaurant for a quick meal, or go to a proper restaurant if they're eating
out with family or friends, or when going on a date. They might go somewhere that serves just
one country's food like an Italian or Japanese restaurant, or to a restaurant that serves a particular
type of food like seafood or vegetarian food. They might even go to a high-class restaurant that
serves expensive cuisine in a formal setting.

English has become the world's international language, so if you're travelling, studying or
working overseas it's the language you'll probably use when eating out. You might use it
to make a booking and reserve a table, and when you arrive you might be greeted in English by
the head waiter or maitre d’ before being led to your table. Then your waiter or waitress will
probably bring menus in English and tell you about the day's specials and answer any questions,
also most-likely in English.

Menus and courses

A menu is a list of the food and drinks that guests can order. Menus are sometimes written on
large boards for everyone to see, and sometimes they're printed on paper and handed to each
guest. A simple menu like a breakfast menu or a children's menu might list just a few dishes and
drinks, but lunch and dinner menus usually list many dishes. They can be à la carte dishes
ordered individually, or dishes grouped together in a set menu. In European or Western-style
menus, dishes are listed in a series of courses. The first course is called
starters, appetizers or hors d’oeuvres, and can be a bowl of soup, a small serving of pasta, a
salad or one of many savoury starters. Next is the main course or entrée, and this is usually
fish, meat or poultry served with vegetables or salad or other side dishes. In many restaurants
vegetarian entrées are also available these days.

After the main course, your waiter or waitress might bring a dessert menu if you haven't already
ordered desserts from the main menu.
Desserts are nearly always sweet, and can
be frozen like ice cream or gelato, served
at room temperature like fruit salad or
cakes, or served hot like
pancakes, puddings and fruit pies.
Dessert is sometimes followed by
a cheese platter with a selection of
different cheeses as well as crackers,
dried fruits, nuts, etc. Guests are usually
offered tea and coffee, and sometimes
chocolates are also served after a meal.

Many people like to drink wine when they eat out, and higher-class restaurants often employ a
wine steward or sommelier who helps guests pair wines from the wine list with the food they
order. Traditionally, red wines are paired with darker meats like steak, roast beef and duck,
while white wines and light reds are paired with lighter meats like chicken, fish and seafood.
Many wine lists don't show the prices, so make sure you ask how much a glass or bottle costs
before ordering. Famous wines can cost thousands of dollars per bottle, and you don't want to
get a nasty shock when you see the bill.

Bills and tipping

When you've finished your meal and you're ready to leave, ask your waiter for the bill. In many
countries a service charge of 10% to 20% of the total amount is added to the bill. This is meant
to be shared among the service staff, but in North America and some Eastern European countries
a service charge isn't added. In these places you should give a tip¹ of 15% to 20% directly to the
waiter instead. Waiters and other staff like bartenders are usually paid very low wages, so when
eating out try to tip² generously, especially in countries like the USA where a service charge
isn't added to the bill.

 à la carte: ordered as a separate dish; not part of a set menu

 appetizer: a dish that's eaten before the main course.
 bill (check): the written amount you must pay for a meal and drinks
 café (coffee shop): an informal restaurant serving simple meals plus hot and cold drinks
 cafeteria (canteen): a place that sells low-cost meals in a school or work-place, usually from a self-
service counter
 cheese platter: a selection of cheeses and crackers served on a large plate.
 course: one part of a meal.
 cuisine: a country or region's style of cooking.
 dessert: sweet food eaten at the end of a meal
 eat out: to go out to a restaurant, esp. at night.
 entrée: 1. the main course of a meal 2. a course before the main course (Br English)
 fast food: quickly prepared food like hamburgers and French fries.
 high-class: of high quality or high social status.
 hors d’oeuvre: a savoury food served as an appetizer before the main course.
 head waiter: the person who supervises a restaurant's waiting staff.
 make a booking: to contact a restaurant and reserve a table for a meal.
 menu: the list of foods and drinks served in a restaurant, café, hotel,.
 pasta: Italian food made from flour and water, such as spaghetti, ravioli, lasagne.
 pudding: a soft sweet food eaten as a dessert
 restaurant: a place with a kitchen and dining area where people pay to eat meals.
 savoury: (of food) salty or spicy rather than sweet.
 service: an extra amount added to a restaurant bill that's meant to be given to staff for their service.
 set menu: a multi-course meal sold for a fixed price
 side order: an extra dish or serving that's ordered together with a main dish.
 sommelier (wine steward): a wine expert who advises guests on ordering or pairing wines.
 special: a dish that's available sometimes, but isn't on the regular menu.
 tip¹: extra money given by a guest to a waiter or other staff.
 tip² (v): to give extra money to a waiter or other staff member for their service.
 vegetarian: of dishes or diets that don't include animal products, esp. meat.
 waiter: a person who takes orders from guests and brings their food
 wine list: a printed list of all the wines available in a restaurant
 List of Drinks
Hot drink  Mint tea
 Tea with lemon
 Coffee  Green tea
 Decaf coffe  Chocolate milk
 Coffe with milk  Hot chocolate
 Espresso Cold drink names
 Black coffe
 Cappuccino  Tomato juice
 Frappuccino  Smoothie
 Tea bag  Milkshake
 Tea  Coconut milk
 Decafe tea  Orange juice
 Black tea  Lemonade
 Fruit tea  Fruit juice
 Herbal tea  Cocoa
 Tea with milk  Water
 Cammomile tea

Food and Health Vocabulary

The food we eat can affect our health in many ways. If we eat food that's contaminated with
bacteria, we'll be sick and go to the toilet more often. We can also get sick if we eat dangerous
foods like poisonous mushrooms or certain kinds of fish. These foods have short-term effects on
our health, but food can also have long-term effects on our health.

These long-term effects vary depending on where we live and how much we eat. In a country
with food shortages due to war or lack of rain, people might suffer from malnutrition. People
with malnutrition lose a lot of weight and become very thin and weak. They can also develop
long-term illnesses due to the lack of essential nutrients like vitamin C and iron. People in rich,
developed countries can also develop food-related illnesses, but they're usually related to eating
too much, or overeating, rather than eating too little.

The term malnutrition is made from the combining form mal- (bad) + the noun nutrition (food,

nourishment, eating). It therefore means "bad eating", and covers "wrong" eating, under-eating
and over-eating. Other words formed with mal- include: malpractice, malfunction, malodorous
Overweight and obesity

People who overeat can become overweight, especially if they don't exercise. Being a little
overweight isn't usually related to serious health problems, but putting on more weight and
becoming obese definitely is. This is because obesity is a major risk factor for many serious
illnesses that can be fatal and shorten our lives by many years.

People who are suffering from malnutrition can usually recover by simply
eating nutritious food, but people who are obese face a far more difficult situation. To recover
they must lose a lot of weight by eating less and changing to a healthy diet¹. This can be very
difficult to do, especially if they live in a place full of Western-style fast
foods and processed foods. And even if they lose weight by going on a diet², most people soon
return to their usual diet and put the weight back on. So learning about food and health and how
to prevent obesity in the first place is one of the most important things we can learn.

All the energy our bodies need comes from the food we eat, and it's measured in calories. If we
balance the calories we get from food with the number we "burn" each day as energy, our body
weight stays the same. But if we eat more food than we need, the extra energy is stored as body
fat and we put on weight. You can check to see if your body weight is healthy or not by
measuring your height and weight and then calculating your body mass index (or BMI) with a
special formula. If your BMI is between 18.5 and 25, your weight is healthy. If it's between 25
and 30, you're overweight, and if it's over 30, you're obese and need to change your diet.

The obesity epidemic

Before the 1970s obesity wasn't a serious problem, but in the mid-70s obesity rates began rising
in Western countries like the USA, UK and Australia. These were the first countries in which
major food companies began increasing their profits by selling more snack foods, fast foods and
processed junk food than ever before. Fast food companies opened hamburger, pizza and fried
chicken outlets in every big town and city and spent huge amounts of money marketing them.
Major food companies filled supermarkets with frozen "TV dinners" and convinced families
they were as healthy as home-cooked meals. They marketed more and more sweets, snack foods
and sugary drinks to children even though they knew they were damaging their health and
ruining their teeth. They spent millions of dollars lobbying governments in order to stop them
from regulating their industry and reducing their profits.

In the 1990s Western food companies began targeting people in developing countries as well,
and many are now eating hamburgers, pizzas and other Western foods instead of traditional
local foods. As a result, obesity rates have increased greatly in those countries as well.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), only 1% of the world's children were
obese in 1975, but the number is now 10 times higher. The number of overweight and obese
adults has also increased greatly since 1975 and is now over 2 billion people. The situation has
become so serious that it's being called an obesity epidemic.

An epidemic usually involves just one disease, but the obesity epidemic is related to several
diseases. It's a major risk factor for heart disease and heart attacks, high blood
pressure and strokes, diabetes and kidney disease, and many kinds of cancer, all of which can
be fatal. And our risk of developing one of these diseases increases every time we eat certain
dangerous or fattening foods.

Dangerous foods
Most nutritionists now agree that a diet of Western-style processed food and fast food is one of
the unhealthiest diets of all. This is because it's so high in saturated fats, trans fats, sugar and
salt, all of which can be a danger to health.

Saturated fats and trans fats

Saturated fats and trans fats are dangerous because they increase our blood levels of cholesterol,
a substance that can form fatty lumps that block blood flow and cause heart attacks and stroke.
The worst foods for saturated fats include bacon, sausages, hamburgers, fatty steaks, ham and
salami pizzas, high-fat cream, etc.

Trans fats are even more dangerous and harder to avoid because food companies use them so
often. They can be found in potato crisps, donuts, pastries, cookies and other processed foods as
well as in margarine and oils used to make French fries, onion rings and other deep-fried foods.
They're banned in New York City and certain other places, but still used elsewhere even though
the WHO has said they cause over half a million deaths every year. (Source: WHO News
Release, 14 May 2018)

Sugar
Sugar is a natural carbohydrate found in fruits and vegetables, but it's also added to thousands
of products to make them taste sweeter. It's added to soft drinks and energy drinks, flavoured
yoghurt, cereals, cookies, cakes, sweets and candy, and most other processed foods. Too much
sugar can cause obesity and diabetes as well as heart disease. Just one soft drink or energy drink
contains nearly half the sugar we should consume in one day, so anyone on a diet of Western-
style processed foods is sure to consume too much. In 2014 Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition
at Harvard University, wrote, "The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure,
inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk
for heart attack and stroke."

Salt
We all need a little salt in our diets, but consuming more than 5 or 6 grams per day can lead to
high blood pressure which is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. A
high-salt diet is also a probable risk factor for stomach cancer. Salt is added to so many products
(often listed as sodium or sodium chloride on the packet) that it's become yet another reason to
avoid processed foods.

Healthy diets and foods

To learn more about food and health, nutritionists have studied diets in places where people are
healthier and live longer than usual. They've found that in Japan and Mediterranean countries in
southern Europe, rates of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer are among the lowest in the
world. Even though their traditional cuisines look and taste very different, Japanese and
Mediterranean people eat many of the same foods. They eat lots of fruits, vegetables, whole
grains, beans and nuts, and they cook in vegetable oils rather than animal fats. Their traditional
diets also include plenty of fish and seafood, but not many dairy foods or eggs, and little or no
red meat.

Mediterranean Diet

Mediterranean and Japanese diets are similar and both are linked to low rates of diet-related
illness like heart disease. Should we use them as a guide to healthy eating? Many experts now
think so.

 fresh vegetables
 fish and seafood
 grains (esp. wholewheat bread and pasta)
 beans, legumes and nuts
 fresh and dried fruits
 eggs and dairy foods in moderation
 olive oil

Many nutritionists now recommend low-fat diets like this, or the

similar pescatarian/pescetarian diet that includes dairy products, fish and seafood, but no
poultry or red meat like pork or beef. Some are even recommending a totally meat-
free vegetarian or vegan diet, especially for people with heart disease or other diet-related
illnesses. But if you become vegetarian or vegan, they say you must make sure you get all the
essential amino acids from protein-rich plant foods like soybeans.

Summary
If we eat healthy foods in a balanced diet, there's a good chance we'll live long and healthy lives.
A balanced diet should provide around the same number of calories as the body uses each day.
This allows us to maintain a healthy BMI by ensuring we don't lose or gain too much weight.
Our diet should include a wide variety of fresh, natural foods with a good balance of nutrients
plus all the essential vitamins and minerals. We should try to avoid fatty foods and processed
foods that contain substances that can be dangerous like sugar and salt, and additives such
as preservatives, colourings and artificial flavourings that might not have been tested for long
enough. And we should definitely avoid Western-style fast foods that contain saturated fats and
trans fats.

 body mass index (or BMI): a weight-to-height ratio that shows if you're overweight, underweight or
at a healthy weight.
 calorie (noun): a unit for measuring the amount of energy we get from food
 carbohydrate: a substance in foods such as bread and potatoes that is a major source of energy or
calories
 cancer: a serious illness that is usually difficult to cure and often leads to death
 cholesterol: a substance in body cells that can cause heart disease if levels in the blood are too high.
 consume: to eat or drink something
  contaminate: to make something a carrier of disease.
 diabetes: a serious illness in which your body cannot regulate the amount of sugar in the blood.
 epidemic: the sudden spread of a disease or medical condition.
 fast food: food served quickly, esp. Western foods like hamburgers, pizzas, fried chicken and French
fries.
 fatal: causing someone to die
 heart disease: a medical condition in which the heart fails to work properly.
 hypertension: a condition in which the blood pressure is higher than it should be
 junk food: unhealthy food, esp. fatty fast foods and processed snack foods.
 lobby: to contact people with power like politicians and try to influence them for your benefit.
 malnutrition: a condition of weakness or illness caused by eating too much food, not enough food
or unhealthy food.
 market: to use advertising and other persuasive methods to make people want a product
 nutrient: a substance in food that is necessary for good health.
 nutritious: (of food or drinks) containing substances we need in order to be healthy.
 obese: very fat; far above a healthy weight.
 obesity: the state of being very overweight, or the medical condition related to this
 overeat: to eat more food than the body needs.
 overweight: above a normal or healthy weight
 pescatarian/pescetarian: (of a diet) including vegetarian food and fish, but no other meat.
 preservative: a chemical substance used for preventing food from spoiling or wood from decaying.
 process: to add chemicals or other substances to food to make it last longer or look or taste better.
 profit: money made by selling a product or service.
 regulate: to use official powers or laws to control an activity, process or industry.
 risk factor: something that increases your chances of developing a disease or being injured.
 saturated fat: a type of fat that's found in butter, cheese, red meat.
 stroke: the sudden bursting of a blood vessel in the brain that can cause serious illness or death.
 trans fat: an artificial fat that makes food last longer and taste better but is very bad for health.
 vegan: (of a diet) with plant foods only; without animal products, including meat, fish, seafood,
eggs, milk, cheese.
 vegetarian: (of a diet) with plant foods and sometimes dairy products, but without meat, fish, or
seafood.

Heart health
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a growing concern in the U.S. The condition can lead
to heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.
Some sources report that it is possible to prevent up to 80% of premature heart disease and stroke
diagnoses with lifestyle changes, such as increasing physical activity and healthful eating.
The foods people eat can reduce their blood pressure and help keep their heart healthy.
The dietary approaches to stop hypertension diet, known as the DASH dietTrusted Source, includes
plenty of healthful foods for the heart. The program recommends the following:
 eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains
 choosing fat-free or low fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, and vegetable oils
 limiting saturated and trans fat intake, such as fatty meats and full-fat dairy products
 limiting drinks and foods that contain added sugars
  restricting sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams per day — ideally 1,500 mg daily—
and increasing consumption of potassium, magnesium, and calcium
High fiber foods are also crucial for keeping the heart healthy.
The AHATrusted Source state that dietary fiber helps improve blood cholesterol and lowers the risk
of heart disease, stroke, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.
The medical community has long recognized the link between trans fats and heart-related illnesses,
such as coronary heart disease.
Limiting certain types of fats can also improve heart health. For instance, eliminating trans fats
reduces the levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. This type of cholesterol causes plaque to
collect within the arteries, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Reducing blood pressure can also promote heart health. A person can achieve this by limiting their
salt intake to no more than 1,500 milligramsTrusted Source per day.
Food manufacturers add salt to many processed and fast foods, and a person who wishes to lower
their blood pressure should avoid these products.
Reduced cancer risk
Eating foods that contain antioxidants can reduce a person’s risk of developing cancer by protecting
cells from damage.
The presence of free radicals in the body increases the risk of cancer, but antioxidants help remove
them to lower the likelihood of this disease.
Many phytochemicals found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes act as antioxidants,
including beta-carotene, lycopene, and vitamins A, C, and E.
According to the National Cancer InstituteTrusted Source, though humans trials are inconclusive,
there are laboratory and animal studies that link certain antioxidants to a reduced incidence of free
radical damage due to cancer.
Foods high in antioxidants include:
 berries such as blueberries and raspberries
 dark leafy greens
 pumpkin and carrots
 nuts and seeds
Having obesity may increaseTrusted Source a person’s risk of developing cancer and result in
poorer outcomes. Maintaining a moderate weight may reduce these risks.
In a 2014 studyTrusted Source, researchers found that a diet rich in fruits reduced the risk of upper
gastrointestinal tract cancers.
They also found that a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and fiber lowered the risk of colorectal cancer,
while a diet rich in fiber reduces the risk of liver cancer.
Better mood
Some evidence suggests a close relationship between diet and mood.
In 2016, researchers found that diets with a high glycemic load may trigger increased symptoms
of depression and fatigue.
A diet with a high glycemic load includes many refined carbohydrates, such as those found in soft
drinks, cakes, white bread, and biscuits. Vegetables, whole fruit, and whole grains have a lower
glycemic load.
If a person suspects they have symptoms of depression, talking to a doctor or mental health
professional can help.

Improved gut health

The colon is full of naturally occurring bacteria, which play important roles in metabolism and
digestion.
Certain strains of bacteria also produce vitamins K and B, which benefit the colon. These strains
also help fight harmful bacteria and viruses.
A diet low in fiber and high in sugar and fat alters the gut microbiome, increasing inflammation in
the area.
However, a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, legumes, and whole grains provides a combination of
prebiotics and probiotics that help good bacteria thrive in the colon.
These fermented foods are rich in probiotics:
 yogurt
 kimchi
 sauerkraut
 miso
 kefir
Fiber is an easily accessible prebiotic and is abundant in legumes, grains, fruits, and vegetables. It
also promotes regular bowel movements, which can help prevent bowel cancer and diverticulitis.
Improved memory
A healthful diet may help maintain cognition and brain health.
A 2015 study identified nutrients and foods that protect against cognitive decline and dementia. The
researchers found the following to be beneficial:
  vitamin D, vitamin C, and vitamin E
 omega-3 fatty acids
 flavonoids and polyphenols
 fish
Among other diets, the Mediterranean diet incorporates many of these nutrients.
Weight loss
Maintaining a moderate weight can help reduce the risk of chronic health issues. Having overweight
or obesity are risk factors for several conditions, including:
 heart disease
 type 2 diabetes
 poor bone density
 some cancers
Many healthful foods, including vegetables, fruits, and beans, are lower in calories than most
processed foods.
A person can determine their calorie requirements using guidance from the Dietary Guidelines for
Americans 2015–2020Trusted Source.
Maintaining a healthful diet free from processed foods can help a person stay within their daily limit
without monitoring calorie intake.
Dietary fiber is particularly important for managing weight. Plant-based foods contain plenty of
dietary fiber, which helps regulate hunger by making people feel fuller for longer.
In 2018, researchers found that a diet rich in fiber and lean proteins resulted in weight loss without
the need for monitoring calorie intake.
Diabetes management
A healthful diet can help a person with diabetes in:
 managing blood glucose levels
 keeping blood pressure and cholesterol within target ranges
 preventing or delaying complications of diabetes
 maintaining a moderate weight
It is vital for people with diabetes to limit their intake of foods with added sugar and salt. They
should also consider avoiding fried foods high in saturated and trans fats.
Strong bones and teeth
A diet with adequate calcium and magnesium is important for strong bones and teeth. Keeping the
bones healthy can minimize the risk of bone issues later in life, such as osteoporosis.
The following foods are rich in calcium:
  low fat dairy products
 broccoli
 cauliflower
 cabbage
 canned fish with bones
 tofu
 legumes
Food manufacturers often fortify cereals and plant-based milks with calcium.
Magnesium is abundant in many foods, and some of the best sources include leafy green vegetables,
nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
Getting a good night’s sleep
A variety of factors, including sleep apnea, can disrupt sleep patterns.
Sleep apnea occurs when the airways repeatedly become blocked during sleep. Risk factors include
obesity, drinking alcohol, and eating an unhealthful diet.
Reducing alcohol and caffeine intake can help a person gain restful sleep, whether they have sleep
apnea or not.
The health of the next generation
Children learn most health-related behaviors from the adults around them, and parents who model
healthful eating and exercise habits tend to pass these on.
Eating at home may also help. In 2018, researchers found that children who regularly ate meals with
their families consumed more vegetables and fewer sugary foods than their peers who ate at home
less frequently.
In addition, children who participate in gardening and cooking at home may be more likely to make
healthful dietary and lifestyle choices.
Quick tips for a healthful diet
There are plenty of small, positive ways to improve diet, including:
 swapping soft drinks for water and herbal tea
 eating no meat for at least 1 day a week
 ensuring each meal consists of around 50% fresh produce
 swapping cow’s milk for plant-based milk
 consuming whole fruits instead of juices, which contain less fiber and often include added
sugar
 avoiding processed meats, which are high in salt and may increase the risk of colon cancer
 eating more lean protein, which people can find in eggs, tofu, fish, and nuts
A person may also benefit from taking a cooking class, and learning how to incorporate more
vegetables into meals.
Summary
Healthful eating has many health benefits, such as reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, obesity,
and type 2 diabetes. It can also boost a person’s mood and provide them with more energy.
A doctor or dietitian can provide tips on eating a more healthful diet.
What is healthful eating?

Having a balanced diet meansTrusted Source eating foods from all main food groups in the right
quantities. These food groups are:
 whole grains
 fruits
 vegetables
 protein
 dairy
 fats
The following sections discuss healthful choices from these food groups.
Whole grains
Whole grains are products made from the entire grain, which includes the germ and bran. In
contrast, refined grains contain only part of the grain.
Whole grain foods have excellent health benefits. A meta-analysis from 2016Trusted Source looked
at 45 different studies, concluding that a high intake of whole grains helps protect against many
health conditions, with benefits that include the following:
 a lower risk of heart disease
 a lower risk of cardiovascular disease
 a lower total cancer risk
 reduced all-cause mortality
Whole grain foods are high in fiber and are good sources of B vitamins and trace minerals,
including iron, zinc, and magnesium. Grains lose much of their healthful properties if they have
gone through a refining process.
Examples of whole grains are:
 wholemeal bread
  whole wheat pasta
 whole grain cereals, such as oatmeal
 corn
To make sure the grains are whole, look for the word “whole” or “whole grain” as the first
ingredient that a manufacturer has listed on the package under nutritional information.
Fruits and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber. According to the American Heart
Association (AHA)Trusted Source, choosing a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is the best
way to get all the vitamins and minerals the body needs.
The AHA recommend filling half of the plateTrusted Source with fruit or vegetables for each meal,
making up 4.5 cupsTrusted Source of each per day. This quantity can include fresh, frozen, and
canned varieties.
For the most health benefits, people can check product labels and avoid canned, frozen, or dried
products with high sodium or added sugars.
Juices labeled “100%” are part of this food group, but eating whole fruits or vegetables is better, as
they will provide more fiber.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source report that a diet high in
fruits and vegetables can help with weight management programs. The CDC also link this type of
diet with a lower risk of many conditions, including:
 heart disease
 stroke
 diabetes
 high blood pressure
 some cancers
All fruits and vegetables have health benefits, and healthcare professionals recommend that people
consume a wide variety. Read about the top healthful fruits and most healthful vegetables here.
Protein
Protein is an important macronutrient that every cell in the body needs. It helps build and repair
cells and body tissues, including the skin, hair, muscle, and bone. Protein is also important for blood
clotting, immune system responses, hormones, and enzymes.
Many protein-rich foods also contain high levels of minerals, including iron, magnesium, and zinc.
Protein occurs in both animal and plant foods. Animal sources include meat, fish, and eggs. Beans,
nuts, and soya are protein options for those following a vegan or vegetarian diet.
A general guideline from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends that people get 50
grams (g) of protein per day on a 2,000 calorie diet. Individual protein needs will vary, however,
depending on a person’s activity levels and weight. A healthful diet should include a range of
protein foods.
Read more about high protein diets and plant-based sources of protein.
Dairy
Dairy products can be excellent sources of calcium. A calcium-rich diet promotes healthy bones and
teeth.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the dairy food group contains:
 fluid milk products
 foods made from milk that retain their calcium content, such as yogurt and cheese
 calcium-fortified soymilk, or soy beverage
Milk-based foods that do not retain calcium, such as cream, cream cheese, and butter, are not part of
this food group.
The USDA suggest that people may need 2–3 cups of dairy products per day.
There is some controversy over whether dairy is good or bad for you.
Choose low fat or fat-free versions of dairy products, such as milks and yogurts, to benefitTrusted
Source heart health. However, consuming dairy is not necessary to be healthy, as long as people get
essential nutrients, such as calcium, from nondairy sources. Dairy alternatives can be part of a
healthful diet.
Fats
Fats are an essential part of a healthful diet. Fats are necessary for nervous system function, energy,
absorption of certain vitamins, and for skin, hair, and joint health.
Fats occur in both animal and plant foods. There are several main types of fats, and some are more
healthful than others:
 Monosaturated and polyunsaturated fats are healthful fats that can boost heart health. Good
sources include avocados, fish, nuts, seeds, and olives.
 Saturated fats and trans fats can raise total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or
“bad” cholesterol. LDL can increase the risk of heart disease. Saturated fats usually come
from animal products, including cream, fatty meat, and fried foods.
The FDA recommend that people get 78 g of fat per day in a 2,000 calorie diet. People should aim
to get less than 10% of their daily calories from saturated fats.
Tips
Along with choosing healthful foods from each food group, the following tips will help a
person follow a healthful diet.
Tip 1: Manage portion size
People of different ages, sexes, and activity levels need different amounts of food, but many
people take in more energy than they use. Research suggests that portion size is a key factor,
and larger-than-needed portions lead to weight gain.
The AHA explain that a portionTrusted Source is what a person chooses to eat, while a
serving is the amount of food manufacturers list on the nutrition facts label.
Examples of servings are one slice of bread and one wedge of melon. The AHS report that
portion sizes in restaurants have increased dramatically over the years.
Paying attention to what a serving is, how many calories are in it, and how much food a
person is eating can make the difference between obesity and maintaining a healthful weight.
Tip 2: Eat fresh and avoid processed
According to a 2018 study, ultra-processed foods may make up 60%Trusted Source of the
calories people eat in the U.S.
Fresh foods are more likely to be “nutrient-rich,” while processed foods are often “energy-
rich” from added fats and sugars. Processed foods not only contain added ingredients,
including dyes and preservatives, but the processing itself can destroy nutrients.
Whole foods, such as fresh fruit, are a good source of vitamins and minerals. Many
processed foods contain little nutritional value. Consuming a high proportion of processed
foods can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
Tip 3: Limit added sugars
Adding sugar to foods and drinks enhances the flavor but adds little or no nutritional value.
Many people in the U.S. eat too much added sugars, leading toTrusted Source weight gain,
type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
In contrast, naturally occurring sugars can have health benefits. These include fructose from
fruit and lactose from dairy products.
The AHA recommend that people consume no more than 25 g of added sugars for females
and 36 g for malesTrusted Source. This amount does not include naturally occurring sugars,
only added sugars.
Swapping cakes and cookies for fruit, and halving or cutting out the sugar added to coffee
and tea, can reduce daily sugar intake. Condiments, such as ketchup, may also add more
calories than a person realizes.
Replacing sweetened sodas with sparkling water and drinking alcohol in moderation can
further reduce excess calories. The CDC recommend limiting alcohol intake to one drink per
day for females and two drinks per day for malesTrusted Source.
Find tips for cutting out sugar here.
Tip 4: Replace animal fats in the diet
Animal produce is often high in saturated fats and includes red meat, butter, cheese, and
cream. Saturated fats are difficult for the body to break down, so levels of harmful
cholesterol can rise, increasing the risk of heart disease.
The AHA recommend replacing foods high in saturated fats with more healthful
optionsTrusted Source to lower cholesterol and improve the body’s fat profile. Healthful,
unsaturated fats are in oily fish and nuts.
To reduce the amount of unhealthful fat in the diet:
 choose lean meats, such as poultry
 choose low fat dairy products
 cook meat and chicken without the skin
 limit red meat intake
 grill or boil meat instead of frying
 use vegetable oil rather than animal fat
 replace some meat servings with oily fish, nuts, beans, or legumes

Tip 5: Sodium down, potassium up

Sodium, found in salt, is directly linkedTrusted Source to high blood pressure because it
increases water retention. Potassium can counteractTrusted Source the harmful effects of
salt, so eating less sodium and more potassium is a change that can boost heart health.
Bananas, tuna, and butternut squash are good sources of potassium. Too much potassium can
lead to irregular heart rhythms, though, so people can speak to their doctor or other
healthcare practitioners before using supplements.
Limiting the intake of processed foods will reduce sodium intake, as manufacturers add salt
during the processing. The majority of sodium in the American diet comes from processed
and restaurant food, with relatively little coming from cooking or table salt.
To retain flavor when cutting down salt, try eating foods with herbs, such as basil, rosemary,
garlic, oregano, paprika, and cayenne, or low salt condiments, such as yellow mustard.
People can also buy low sodium seasonings.
Tip 6: Add calcium and vitamin D
Calcium is crucial for strengthening and maintaining bone structure. Vitamin D helpsTrusted
Source the body to absorb calcium.
While dairy is the best-known source, there are many plant-based sources of calcium.
Good sources of calcium besides dairy include:
 soybeans
 chia seeds
 almonds
 collard greens
 broccoli
 white beans
Dietary sources do not provide enough vitamin D for the body. Sunlight is necessary to help
the body synthesize vitamin D.
Exposing some bare skin to the sunlight each day will help maintain levels of calcium, and
vitamin D. Here are some tips to get more vitamin D.
Summary
The most healthful diets involve eating a variety of nutrient dense foods from all major food
groups, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein sources, and healthful fats.
Getting the right balance of sodium and potassium will help look after the heart, and cutting
down on sodium-rich and processed foods can reduce the risk of chronic health conditions.
For best results, people are best to always follow a healthful diet alongside an active
lifestyle.