1 . It was May 1945 when what would become one of America’s most popular home-cooking techniques first entered the English dictionary. In her cookbook, How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, 55-year-old Chinese immigrant (移民) Chao Yang Buwei described a process common in her homeland, where cooks would cut meat and vegetables into small bites and tumble (翻滚) them rapidly together over heat. “The Chinese term for the technique, ch’ao, cannot be accurately translated into English,” Chao complained. For short, she decided, “We shall call it ‘stir-fry.’” The term soon made its way into the American language and has since taken on a life of its own.
Chao came to cooking unexpectedly. A doctor by profession, she gave up her medical career to move to the United States in 1921 after her husband, the famed linguist (语言学家) Chao Yuanren, was offered a job at Harvard. Bored at home and only able to speak a little English, she turned to cooking dishes that reminded her of China: soups with mushrooms and pork flavored with soy sauce.
She eventually agreed when a friend begged her to write a cookbook. Chao’s eldest daughter helped her translate recipes from Chinese to English, before her husband put the finishing touches on the language, often adding phrasing that even Chao recognized as awkward. This stylistic conflict resulted in a cookbook that Chao was “ashamed to have written,” as she declared in an author’s note.
The cookbook succeeded, going into multiple printings by the end of 1945, though critics largely overlooked the anger in Chao’s words. English-language Chinese cookbooks had been published as far back as 1911 in the United States, but Chao’s was the first that refused to westernize Chinese cooking. She may have given America a well-worn phrase, but she knew that some aspects of the immigrant experience resist translation. Chao’s contribution to American food culture should have been enough to make her into headlines, but the New York Times did not even honor her with an obituary (讣告) upon her death. How many other cooking pioneers like Chao, immigrants who didn’t silence their difference in order to gain broad approval, still await rediscovery?
1. Which of the following is true about “chao”?| A．It is a cooking technique used only in America. |
| B．It quickly found a place in the American language. |
| C．It was accurately translated into “stir-fry” by Chao. |
| D．It means mixing together small pieces of materials. |
| A．Her interest in cooking. |
| B．Her profession as a doctor. |
| C．Inadaptability to life in America. |
| D．Encouragement from her husband. |
| A．Consistency in writing style. |
| B．Refusal to westernize Chinese cooking. |
| C．Success in pleasing the American taste. |
| D．Reflection of western culture. |
| A．Chao’s cookbook was largely overlooked by critics. |
| B．Chao followed the same trend as other cookbook writers. |
| C．Chao isn’t the only immigrant that deserves giving credit to. |
| D．Chao gained popularity for her unwillingness to silence her differences. |
1. Who encouraged the man to learn cooking?
| A．His grandmother. | B．His mother. | C．His teacher. |
| A．6 hours. | B．8 hours. | C．10 hours. |
| A．He made a meal. | B．He tasted some dishes. | C．He bought some foods. |
| A．Tired. | B．Dissatisfied. | C．Happy. |
1. Who is the cake made for?
| A．The man’s daughter. | B．The man. | C．The woman. |
| A．Brush the pan. | B．Mix the flour. | C．Heat the oven. |
| A．Write a message on the cake. | B．Cut out a piece of cake. | C．Put some fruit on the cake. |
4 . Advice for Cooking on a Tight Schedule
From my experience, there are three main reasons why people don’t cook more often: ability, money, and time.
Think ahead. I usually think cooking is a pain when I’m already hungry and there is nothing ready to eat. So think ahead of the coming week. When will you have time to cook? Do you have the right materials already?
Make your time worth it. When you do find time to cook a meal, make the most of it and save yourself time later on. Are you making one loaf of bread?
Hopefully that gives you a good start.
| A．Try new things. |
| B．Ability is easily improved. |
| C．Make three or four instead. |
| D．Understand your food better. |
| E．Cooking is a burden for many people. |
| F．Let cooking and living simply be a joy rather than a burden. |
| G．A little time planning ahead can save a lot of work later on. |
5 . Tomorrow’s menus could feature items prepared with complex cooking techniques and presentation — all at the push of a button. Columbia University mechanical engineers have designed a 3 - D printer that can produce and cook dishes at the same time with details at the millimeter scale.
The design combines a multiwavelength laser (激光) cooker, roughly the size of five smart phones piled together, with a microwave - oven - sized food printer. The system uses various light wavelengths to cook in different ways: a short - waved blue laser goes deep inside meat, for example, while infrared beams (红外线光束) brown the surface. As the device’s robotic arm places fine layers of chicken puree (酱, 糊), a high - powered beam moves over them and cooks the meat — with literally laser - focused precision. Thus, users can achieve perfect results — say, a machine - made burger that varies between rare and well done in a checkerboard pattern.
“It gives you a lot more control and customization,” says Jonathan Blutinger, lead author of the paper and a digital - cooking researcher at Columbia. The researchers tested only chicken for this study, but the system can work with other foods as well.
Beyond applying diverse materials and presentation patterns, this type of software - controlled setup could someday scan a QR code to automatically prepare dishes tailored to individual eating habits and dietary restrictions, Blutinger says.
The new technology is “astonishing”, says Megan Ross, a food scientist who studies 3 - D printing at Ireland’s University College Cork. Ross notes that the design is still at a beginning stage and that many technical challenges remain, such as preventing cross pollution between layers of raw and cooked meat. Still, Ross is impressed by the device’s ability to produce foods outside the field of conventional cooking. “Is this going to be sold in shops everywhere in the next few years? No,” she says. “But everyone has to start somewhere.”
1. What makes the new design different from a common cooker?| A．It works automatically. | B．It is attached to a printer. |
| C．It cooks the whole of food. | D．It can process various materials. |
| A．By customizing the dishes. | B．By accessing 3 - D technology. |
| C．By turning the food upside down. | D．By using beams of diverse wavelengths. |
| A．It is more flexible to operate. | B．It can process meat. |
| C．It avoids cross food pollution. | D．It can be applied to QR code. |
| A．It makes a meaningful start. | B．It will be well received soon. |
| C．It goes well with technology. | D．It is well thought of by the public. |
6 . A short cooking video posted by a netizen on TikTok has recently become a popular hit on the site. Bearing the tag “Chinese food”, the video not only showed off the chief’s superb skills in making Chinese dishes, but it also got netizens abroad wanting to get a taste of China’s unique food culture.
Although the video was nothing master-level, just a rather standard homemade fried potato dish, it received more than 200, 000 likes after only three days of posting. In addition to praising the chef, commenters wondered why such a simple Chinese dish could look like a fancy cuisine that had been made through tons of effort. “Even the most basic Chinese dish needs to have three elements: color, smell and taste. For example, color not only requires a chef to have sharp eyes, but also valuable experience,” said Wang, an experienced Chinese chef in Guangzhou.
Chinese cooking is not the only type of content covered by the tag. Other popular videos under the tag include “odd food” challenges, traditional Chinese dishes and Chinese snack tasting, the latter of which has become particularly popular among young omnivore vloggers (video bloggers) living in a world of continually expanding cultural globalization.
“I have been a fan of Chinese food ever since my Chinese friend cooked me di san xian at university. I was surprised by the dish’s taste and its look, which was very different from my home food, but felt it was very familiar to me because I noticed we share similar cooking skills,” said Bianca, an Italian Asian food fan.
“I started my channel by recording my roommate tasting my cooking. These videos got likes and comments gradually. Seeing some people commenting in German or English and saying ‘I want to try it’, I felt these videos can narrow the gap between the two cultures,” said Mr. Bear, a vlogger on Bilibili who promotes Chinese cooking.
1. What does the underlined word “omnivore” in Paragraph 3 refer to?| A．people eating meat. | B．people eating diverse food. |
| C．people eating strange food. | D．people eating vegetables. |
| A．common and dear. | B．expensive and delicious. |
| C．similar and disconnected. | D．special and familiar. |
| A．He is an expert determined to become a Chinese chef. |
| B．The majority of his fans tasted the food he cooked. |
| C．His videos make a difference to cultural communication. |
| D．His roommate encouraged him to cook Chinese food. |
| A．Chinese cooking has become popular among young vloggers. |
| B．advanced technology plays a great part in modern society. |
| C．online videos can make young people internationally famous. |
| D．master-level Chinese dishes are attracting more foreign fans. |
7 . “We are what we eat”—or so the saying goes. From high-calorie meals to low-fat lunches, much of our health depends on what we eat. We know about the benefits of eating properly for our physical well-being, but food and cooking it is proving to be good for our mental well-being as well.
Some people are now advocating the therapeutic (治疗的）value of cooking food. It’s not just about the end result but the experience someone goes through.
TV chef and author Nadiya Hussain agrees that cooking is great for helping our mind. She loves to bake and became the champion of the TV show, The Great British Bake Off. She says that “Baking’s always been about therapy... It’s never really been about the cake.” And she thinks that baking is an important tool for our socialisation and mental health.
Certainly, creating some delicious food has helped some of us get through the recent lockdown; it’s helped take our mind off things and given us something to do. People have said that kneading dough (面团) to make bread, for example, has given them a sense of calm and control. Research has shown that doing creative tasks, like cooking, makes us feel happier.
Nicole Farmer, who studies how food impacts our biology, behavior and mental health, told BBC online that “cooking represents the shared human experience of food, and nurturing people through food, so I think that’s where it integrates opportunity into immediate positive emotions”.
Of course, cooking can be a very sociable activity and sharing the end result, a rewarding experience. Hopefully, as we start to mix with friends and family again, we can enjoy the benefits once more and put us all in the right frame of mind.
1. What does the underlined word “well-being” mean in the first paragraph?| A．Happiness. | B．Recovery. |
| C．Preference. | D．Influence. |
| A．To explain a regulation. | B．To support a viewpoint. |
| C．To present a fact. | D．To make a prediction. |
| A．By creating delicious food. |
| B．By offering a sense of quietness. |
| C．By impressing human experience of food. |
| D．By drawing one’s attention to be occupied. |
| A．We Are What We Eat |
| B．How Food Affects Our Behavior |
| C．Cooking Benefits Mental Health |
| D．Cooking Helps Connect Friends and Family |
| A．At home. | B．In a bar. | C．In a restaurant. |
9 . Chinese fried rice with egg enjoys great popularity throughout China due to the simple cooking method. Do you want to have a try? Follow the recipe, and you will get it.
Ingredients you need.
A bowl of cooked rice, an egg, cooking oil salt, ham.
Dice ham finely; crack an egg into a bowl; add a little salt; beat it up with egg-beater or chopsticks.
Some steps to follow.
Fry the egg: Preheat a pan. Add cooking oil and heat it until 150 °C. Pour the beaten egg into the pan.
Tips on cooking.
Remember a little salt is essential when preparing the egg. And make sure to use cold rice cooked in advance.
| A．Preparations you need to make. |
| B．Except for ham, other ingredients also will do. |
| C．Let it expand for half a minute without stiring. |
| D．Frying the rice quickly over high heat also matters. |
| E．The amount of ingredients can be adjusted depending on personal tastes. |
| F．After that, add in the fried egg and mix well with the rice and diced ham. |
| G．The rice in the dish is really soft and delicious, and the egg has high nutritional value. |
The two features of life in England that possibly give visitors the worst impressions are the English weather and English cooking.
