英语听力精选进阶版 6393

In the UK, we throw away more than 7 million tonnes of food and drink from our homes every year. At least half of that food is perfectly¹ edible². One reason for this is a problem with portions – we keep on cooking more than we can eat. And most people just scrape their plates into the bin³ at the end of the meal.

Our ancestors didn’t have enough money to waste it discarding perfectly good food. They were thrifty⁴ and knew how to cook up something from odds⁵ and ends of food the next day. And the UK’s Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, wants us to learn some of those old skills again.

He criticises celebrity⁶ chefs, saying, “Cookbooks in the 1970s and 1980s always had chapters on using up scraps⁷ and leftovers⁹. But this stopped in the 1990s.” And if the media is part of the problem, maybe the media can be part of the answer. Mr Paterson wants celebrity chefs, like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson, to give us more recipes using leftover⁸ food.

Celebrity chefs are very influential¹⁰ in the UK. Shops frequently sell out of ingredients they use in their recipes. When Nigella Lawson praised goose fat for making roast potatoes, sales soared. And veteran cook Delia Smith has boosted sales of so many different ingredients over the years, the ‘Delia effect’ is now in the dictionary.

There are some traditional British recipes using leftovers. ‘Bubble and squeak¹¹’ is fried up leftover vegetables from the Sunday roast dinner. Bread and butter pudding is traditionally a good use for stale bread.

But modern British lifestyles and left-overs don’t go well together. We hear about food safety, and are scared to use food past its best. Once, people could buy food as they needed it. But in the last 50 years, small local shops have closed, and people do a whole week’s shopping at the supermarket. It’s hard to plan your menu a week in advance, which leads to waste. So it seems it will take more than TV chefs to persuade Britons to love leftovers.

Quiz 测验

1. According to the article, how much food do Britons throw away at home each year?

7 million tonnes.

2. Can you name two British celebrity chefs from the article?

Any two from: Nigella Lawson, Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith.

3. What is bubble and squeak?

It's fried up leftover vegetables from a Sunday roast.

4. Which kinds of shops have closed in the past 50 years?

Small shops.

5. Is the following statement true, false or not given? The Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, wants people to throw away more leftovers.

False. He wants people to eat their leftovers.

Glossary 词汇表

edible 可食用的

portions 份量

scrape their plates 把盘子刮净

bin 垃圾桶

discarding 扔掉

thrifty 节约的

cook up something （盛饭）再做

odds and ends 零零碎碎的剩饭

scraps 残羹剩饭

leftovers 残羹剩饭

celebrity chefs 名厨

recipes 菜谱

sell out of 一售而空

ingredients 佐料，成份

goose fat 鹅油

sales soared 销售直线上升

veteran cook 老厨师

boosted sales 促进销售

stale bread 陈旧面包

lifestyles 生活方式

don’t go well together 不匹配

past its best 过期

menu 菜单

1 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

2 edible   

n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的

参考例句：

• Edible wild herbs kept us from dying of starvation.我们靠着野菜才没被饿死。
• This kind of mushroom is edible,but that kind is not.这种蘑菇吃得，那种吃不得。

3 bin   

n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件

参考例句：

• He emptied several bags of rice into a bin.他把几袋米倒进大箱里。
• He threw the empty bottles in the bin.他把空瓶子扔进垃圾箱。

4 thrifty   

adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的

参考例句：

• Except for smoking and drinking,he is a thrifty man.除了抽烟、喝酒，他是个生活节俭的人。
• She was a thrifty woman and managed to put aside some money every month.她是个很会持家的妇女，每月都设法存些钱。

5 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

6 celebrity   

n.名人，名流；著名，名声，名望

参考例句：

• Tom found himself something of a celebrity. 汤姆意识到自己已小有名气了。
• He haunted famous men, hoping to get celebrity for himself. 他常和名人在一起, 希望借此使自己获得名气。

7 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

8 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

9 leftovers   

n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜

参考例句：

• He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
• She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。

10 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

11 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。