A Short History of the Doughnut

A – Before you start

Answer the questions with a partner.
1. What do people usually eat for breakfast in your country?
2. Do they usually prefer sweet food like biscuits or croissants, or salty food like eggs
and bacon?
3. Do you eat a healthy breakfast, in your opinion? Why (not)?
4. Are doughnuts popular in your country? If so, when do people usually eat them?

B – Listen and answer

Read these statements. Then listen (without reading) and write T (true) or F (false).
1. In the USA, doughnuts are only sold in specialised shops.
2. Cakes that were similar to doughnuts first arrived in America from Germany.
3. The first real doughnuts were made with nuts.
4. Adolph Levitt invented a machine to make doughnuts faster.
5. Doughnuts became more popular in the 1980s.
6. Ten million doughnuts are eaten every year in the USA.

C – Read and answer

Read the article and answer the questions.
1. When did olykoeks first arrive in the USA?
2. What spices did Elizabeth Gregory use in her doughnuts?
3. Who first made ring-shaped doughnuts? How?
4. Why did the popularity of doughnuts spread to other countries during World War I?
5. Why did people like Adolph Levitt’s doughnut machine?
6. Why aren’t doughnuts good for you?

D – Learn it! Use it!

Complete these sentences with words from the glossary. (You may have to adapt the
expression in some way; e.g. change the verb tense, or change from plural to singular.)
1. Yesterday, we cooked a Mexican dish for our friends. We read the ________ in a
magazine.
2. Susan buys all her fruit and vegetables from a ________ in the market in Green
Street.
3. Many young couples pay rent because they can’t ________ to buy a house or flat.
4. This sauce has a strange ________. I think it’s gone bad.
5. On the bottle of acid, there was a ________ to wear rubber gloves when using it.
6. After the TV advertising campaign, sales of the new smart phone ________ by 80
per cent.

E–
Choose the best word for each space.
One of the best-known doughnut fans in the world is Homer Simpson. Homer is
the 1________ (main/mane/mail) character in an American animated TV series called
The Simpsons. He has a wife, Marge, and three 2_________ (sons/boys/children): Bart,
Lisa and Maggie.
 Homer has a 3________ (work/place/job) at the Springfield Nuclear Power
Plant,4________ (while/where/when) he is a safety inspector. However, he is unpro-
fessional, lazy and aggressive.
He spends his 5________ (extra/spare/lost) time eating junk food, like potato
chips and doughnuts, and watching TV, so it is not 6________ (surprising/surprised/
surprise) that he is obese. However, he is immensely popular and is considered to be
one of the greatest comic creations of modern times.

F – Check your pronunciation

Are these statements true or false?
1. Dough and round have the same vowel sound.
2. Stall and born have the same vowel sound.
3. Watch rhymes with catch.
4. Treat rhymes with hit.
5. Dutch rhymes with much.
6. Food rhymes with good.
7. The letter ‘a’ has the same pronunciation in bagel and bag.
8. World and war have the same vowel sound.

G – Write about it
Write about the most popular snack in your country. Mention:
- when people eat it;
- what it’s made of;
- how it originated;
- whether it’s healthy;
- whether you like it.