1 . Camera flashes cut across the softly lighted downtown Los Angeles restaurant, as the crowd at Ludo Bites jostles (推挤) for the photo-of the Columbian River king salmon duck. “This is the game we all now play, ” chef and owner Ludo Lefebvre said. “We cook, we smile-and the people, they don’t eat. They get their cameras.”
Not so long ago, diners, hungry for special meals, would pull out a point-and-shoot at a restaurant for a quick picture of sliced birthday cake.
No more. Taking a cue from Twitter and Facebook cultures, serious foodies (美食家) and casual consumers alike are using digital technology to document each bite, then sharing the pictures online.
Flickr, the photo-sharing website, has seen the number of pictures tagged as “food” jump from about half a million in 2008 to more than 6 million today, according to company officials. In the group “I Ate This” on Flickr’s site, nearly 20,000 people have uploaded more than 307,000 images of their latest meals.
Camera manufacturers are joining the trend, selling cameras that offer “food” settings, which adjust to enhance colors and textures (质地) on close-ups.
“I am sharing my experiences with my friends,” said Hong Pham, 33, a Los Angeles radiologist who runs the food blog Ravenous Couple. “Why shouldn’t I share what inspires me?”
But what is documentary fun for people such as Pham is souring the gastronomic (烹饪的) set.
Managers regularly face diners demanding to be moved away from camera flashes and sounds. Waiters find themselves tongue-tied as customers take out voice recorders to capture a recitation of each course. Some chefs have had enough.
Chef Grant Achatz allows only no-flash photography in his restaurant. He, like many other chefs, finds himself torn between being flattered by the public’s enthusiasm and annoyed with the effect the picture-taking is having on the restaurant’s operation.
Some consumers now believe food should be consumed visually as well as physically. “What happened to the enjoyment of just eating the food?” said Andrew Knowlton, the restaurant editor for Bon Appetite magazine. “People are losing sight of why you go out.”
1. Who is the most supportive of taking pictures of food in restaurants?
| A．Grant Achatz. | B．Andrew Knowlton. |
| C．Hong Pham. | D．Ludo Lefebvre. |
2. People tend to take pictures in restaurants because ______.
| A．delicately-made dishes are visually inviting |
| B．they will share with others their dining experience |
| C．cameras can be specially set for food photography |
| D．they can profit by selling pictures to famous websites |
3. What can we infer from the passage?
| A．More pictures will be uploaded at websites like Twitter and Facebook. |
| B．Consumers used to take pictures in restaurants only for their birthdays. |
| C．Rules should be set out that there is no food photography in restaurants. |
| D．Chefs are likely to accept picture-taking in their restaurants to a limited extent. |
4. The passage is most probably a ______.
| A．news story | B．feature article |
| C．commercial advertisement | D．survey report |
