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Meals

Advance Level

Unit 1: Video and Photograph

A Quote

The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Idioms About Meals

Whether you're at a party, cafe or at the dinner table you can always here native speakers using these idioms to talk about meals in general. See how many you can recognize.

1) Make one's mouth water - Something that looks good and appeals to our taste. Thai chicken salad is an exotic dish that makes my mouth water. 2) Burn to a crisp - To overcook or burn something very badly. Our breakfast was half-cooked bacon and eggs with toast that was burnt to a crisp.

The Origin and Meaning of Idioms A square meal The prisoners seldom got three square meals a day. This idiom had it's origin in the 1700's onboard HMS Victory. The sailors were served with breakfast and lunch that was barely sufficient to feed them. Their meals often consisting of little more than bread and water. However, the third meal of the day was quite large, nutritious and included meat. This meal was always served on a square tray - hence the term.

Unit 2: Reading

English Coffee

By Randy Wilson

With English Tea being a very familiar term, English coffee may seem as contrary a term as Arctic bananas; however, England's impact on the coffee trade and the world of business is undeniable. The history of English coffee began in 1650 at Oxford University when a Lebanese immigrant opened the first coffeehouse on campus.

Initially, coffee was seen as novelty and a snake oil, if you will, as the proprietor touted many incredible medical claims. His English coffee was said to aid in digestion, cure headaches, coughs, dropsy, gout, scurvy and even prevent miscarriages. About the only claim that was accurate was that English coffee prevented drowsiness.

By 1700, however, coffee had become a very popular beverage and there were more than two thousand coffeehouses in London. Coffeehouses occupied more retail space and paid more rent than any other trade. They came to be known as Penny Universities, because for the price of a cup of coffee, one penny, a person could sit for hours and engage in stimulating conversation with educated people.

Each coffeehouse specialized in a different clientele. In one, physicians could be consulted. Other's catered to lawyers, actors, army officers, or clergy. English coffee became the beverage of business and one coffeehouse in particular grew into one of the worlds largest and most well known companies. Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse catered primarily to seafarers and merchants and he regularly prepared "ships' lists"; for underwriters who met there to offer insurance to the ship captains. And so began Lloyd's of London, the famous insurance company.

Prior to the popularity of English coffee, beer, or ale, was the morning beverage of choice among the working class. The pubs and taverns were filled early in the morning with workers who stopped in for a few pints of camaraderie before heading off to the factories and shops around London.

One English writer wrote in 1624, "They flock to the taverns to dizzy their brains and a productionless society is the result." Fifty years later another writer credited English coffee with stimulating the economy as he wrote, "Coffee drinking hath caused a greater sobriety than has ever been seen in the business of London."

By the late 18th century the buzz of English coffee subsided and tea became the preferred British drink, due much in part to the outcry of women, who were excluded from the all-male society of the coffeehouse and complained loudly. A group of angry coffeehouse widows filed a petition with the English government to ban coffee on the grounds that their men were never at home and their duties as husband and father were being neglected. English coffee was not banned but the outcry did have repercussions on the coffeehouse business and men returned to the taverns instead.

© Copyright Randy Wilson, All Rights Reserved. Randy has more articles on coffee such as Colombian Coffee, Are Coffee Enemas the Real Thing? and Arabica Coffee. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Randy_Wilson

Vocabulary Practice

Novelty: Something that is original or new that it is surprisingly different.
Touted: To strongly advertise or boast something.
Drowsiness: A state of sleepiness.
Clientele: Customers.
Seafarers: Another term for sailors.
Camaraderie: goodwill and rapport among friends.
Sober (sobriety): To be aware and not affected by drugs or alcohol.
Repercussions: the consequences of some action.

Questions

1. Where did the history of coffee in England originate?
2. What is the meaning of Penny Universities ?
3. What reason was given to explain away the demise of English Coffee?