英语听力文摘 English Digest 599、太空中进餐！

 　　In the 1960s, during the earliest space flights, no one knew exactly how weightlessness would affect eating and drinking.

 

　　Would food fly off a plate? Would astronauts have digestive problems, with no gravity to help things along the digestive system? The first astronauts ate rather unappealing food pastes squeezed directly into the mouth from toothpaste-like tubes. Yuck!

　　Today, astronauts eat a variety of foods like steak, shrimp¹ cocktail², strawberries and butterscotch pudding. Each food is made as appetizing and simple to prepare as possible. Steak, for example, is cooked here on earth and sealed into a reheatable pack. Strawberries are freeze dried, keeping their shape and texture³ when they’re rehydrated. It’s easy to get water in space, because the fuel cells that supply electricity for spacecraft produce water as a byproduct.

 

　　Containers of food have to be taped, magnetized, or velcroed to trays, and astronauts usually dine with foot restraints on-unless they feel like floating around! There’s usually enough liquid surface tension to keep food in its container, but bump a plate or fork, and watch your dinner drift away!

 

　　Liquids are even trickier⁴. Juice won’t pour out of a container, but simply stays inside. If you shook it out, little globs of juice would fly everywhere! That’s why liquids are squirted directly into the mouth or sucked in with a straw from a sealed container. Once food is in the mouth, there’s no problem swallowing or digesting.

1 shrimp   

n.虾，小虾；矮小的人

参考例句：

• When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
• When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。

2 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。

3 texture   

n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理

参考例句：

• We could feel the smooth texture of silk.我们能感觉出丝绸的光滑质地。
• Her skin has a fine texture.她的皮肤细腻。

4 trickier   

adj.狡猾的( tricky的比较级 )；（形势、工作等）复杂的；机警的；微妙的

参考例句：

• This is the general rule, but some cases are trickier than others. 以上是一般规则，但某些案例会比别的案例更为棘手。 来自互联网
• The lower the numbers go, the trickier the problems get. 武器的数量越低，问题就越复杂。 来自互联网