ESL Cooking Reading Comprehension Passage

Modern Cooking
We all need to eat to keep fit and healthy. Young children cannot grow tall and strong unless they
eat a well-balanced diet. This means a selection of foods that provide protein, fat, carbohydrate,
vitamins and mineral elements.
Some foods can be digested raw but other foods are heated and cooked to make digestion faster.
Salad leaves, cucumber, tomatoes, vegetables such as carrots, and fruit do not need cooking.
However apples are an example of fruit that can be eaten raw and also cooked. Stewed apples,
apples baked in the oven and apples in pies and topped with crumble are ways of eating the fruit.
When food is cooked, it is heated.
Before people had electricity and gas, they cooked on wood and charcoal fires. A fairly recent
addition to cooking is the microwave. This speeds up the cooking time. Fan ovens are also more
efficient. Barbecue cooking outside in the garden on a warm day in summer, is very popular. In the
kitchen, utensils are used to contain the food, and they vary from open pans to pans with lids, frying
pans, steamers, pressure cookers and woks.
Before supermarkets sold ready cooked meals that just require re-heating, it was the tradition that
men left the women in the home to prepare and cook food. Now both men and women share the
tasks in well-designed kitchens. In restaurants, the chef, a few years ago, was nearly always male.
Today however, there are as many female chefs as men.
There has been a great revival in the way food is cooked, mainly in part due to seeing a lot of
cooking programmes on television. These are often presented as competitions like Master Chef and
the Great British bake-off. Also people travel more to foreign countries and return home with exotic
and interesting recipes. The availability of ingredients in the supermarkets also encourages
experimentation.
The kitchen is now the 'hub' of the house. The family, friends and visitors when waiting for a meal
to be prepared all gather in the kitchen and help to prepare the dishes or watch others doing the
cooking. The utensils available to aid the food preparation are plentiful. Different types of knives
for example. Aprons and oven gloves help to protect us from spills and heat when taking hot dishes
from the oven.
Some people love cooking, planning the meal, assembling the ingredients and then preparing the
food. Others however prefer to open a tin of food and hot up the contents.
ESL Cooking Reading Comprehension
1) Why do we need to eat a well-balanced diet?
A) To keeps us fit and healthy and helps children grow.
B) To help us balance on wet surfaces.
C) We need a balanced diet to help us live to be 100.
D) We can live well without a balanced diet.
2) Which food mentioned in the passage can be eaten raw?
A) Dates
B) Oranges
C) Brazil nuts
D) Apples
3) Where do people most often cook using a barbecue?
A) Inside the house.
B) In the garden
C) In the garage.
D) In the kitchen.
4) Where can you buy ready prepared meals for heating up at home?
A) At airports.
B) On the beach.
C) In supermarkets.
D) Only in London.
5) What is the main reason for using a microwave?
A) To shorten cooking time.
B) To teach young children how to cook.
C) To melt icecream.
D) To make food much smaller.

TEST
Read and complete the text below. For each of the empty spaces (1—12) choose the correct
answer (A, B, C or D).
FOOD
Visitors to the US think either that there is no real American food, only (1) ..........
borrowed from other countries, or else that the Americans eat only "fast food". While
there is some truth in both these impressions, real American food does exist.
The British also have a poor (2) ........ for food. Visitors to Britain often (3) ...........
that food in restaurants is badly presented, overdone and has no taste. But the best
English food is not generally found in restaurants but in people's homes. Certain foods are
considered essential to traditional British cooking and form the basis of most meals. These (4)
............. bread, pastry and (5) ............ products such as milk, cheese and eggs. Potatoes, especially
chips, are eaten at lunch or dinner. A (6) .............. potato (a potato baked whole in its skin) with
cheese is a popular "pub lunch". Good (7) ............... home cooking, i.e. food prepared without spicy
or creamy sauces, is something the British are proud of. People's interest in trying new recipes is
encouraged by the many cookery programs on TV. Famous TV (8) ................ include
Della Smith and Ainsley Harriott. They give advice about healthy eating. The main
idea is to (9) ............... the amount of fatty foods and sugar and to (10) ...............
people to eat more fruit and vegetables. When British and American people (11) .................... they
can choose from a wide range of eating places: burger bars, pizzerias, fast food outlets. They seem
to be (12) ................ a battle between what they want to eat and what is good for them.

1 А courses B meals С dishes D stuff

2 А taste B status С experience D reputation
3 А complain B argue С discuss D persuade
4 А have B include С consist D mean
5 А dаiry B organic С fatty D vegetarian
6 А coat B dressed С jacket D peeled
7 А easy B simple С ordinary D plain
8 А chefs B bosses С chiefs D directors
9 А ignore B miss С reduce D neglect
10 А encourage B help С convince D assure
11 А take out B eat out C get out D stay out
12 А playing B fighting С struggling D combating