Would you like a `cuppa´?

As you already know, coffee is specially popular in the US, where people drink it regularly. People drink coffee at work and most companies allow their workers to have a coffee break ( a short period in which you can rest and have coffee). In both the US and the UK, people often drink coffee at the end of an evening meal. So, in that respect, they share the habit of drinking coffee after meals with Spanish people.




Next, I give you the names of the different types of coffee:
- Black coffee: coffee without cream or milk.
- Java: a beverage consisting of an infusion of ground coffee beans.
- Coffee substitute: a drink resembling coffee that is sometimes subtituted for it.
- Irish coffee: sweetened coffee with Irish whiskey and whipped cream.
- Cafe au lait: equal parts of coffee and hot milk.
- Cafe noir, demitasse: small cup of strong black coffee without milk or cream.
- Decaf, decaffeinated coffee: coffee with the caffeine removed.
- Drip coffee: coffee made by passing boiling water through a perforated container packed with finely ground coffee.
- Espresso: strong black coffee brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee beans.
- Cappuccino, coffee cappuccino: equal parts of espresso and hot milk topped with cinnamon and nutmeg and usually whipped cream.
- Ice coffee, iced coffee: a strong sweetened coffee served over ice with cream.
- Instant coffee: dehydrated coffee that can be made into a drink by adding hot water.
- Mocha coffee, mocha: a superior dark coffee made from beans from Arabia.
- Turkish coffee: a drink made from pulverized coffee beans, usually sweetened.
- Cafe royale, coffee royal: black coffee with Cognac, lemon peel and sugar.
- White coffee: in English-speaking countries, "white coffee" refers to regular black coffee that has had milk, cream or some other "whitener" added to it. In the United States, white coffee may also refer to coffee beans which have been roasted and when prepared as espresso produces a green brew. American white coffee is highly caffeinated and it is the roasting process which produces a darker colour removing the caffeine from the coffee beans.

Coffee lovers, you can begin to choose...

Éclairs: Naughty but Nice

Have you ever tasted them? An éclair is a small cake made of a special kind of pastry, with cream inside and usually chocolate on top. Éclairs are generally thought as being very tasty but rather bad for health. For this reason, they have been used in advertisements with the words: "Naughty but Nice". Éclairs make a lovely dessert when served with French vanilla ice cream or as a tasty addition to a brunch.

Did you know?
The word éclair comes from the French éclair, lit. "lightning", from Old French esclair, from esclairare "to light up, make shine", from Latin exclarare "light up, illumine", from ex: "out" + clarus: "clear". The sense is perhaps the "lightness" of the confection.

Bands with Food Names

How many names of bands do you know? And, how many of them are related with food? As I have showed you in other posts, the language of food is everywhere, even in music. Now, I will show a few pictures of some bands...Can you join them with the other pictures of foods?

Table Talk: Food Fun Facts

Hello everybody! Here you have an interesting video about a nice chef who talks about the origin of some well-known dishes. I know it is a bit short but try to enjoy it!

World's worst restaurant names

I show you an hilarious video about a few restaurant names all over the world. Perhaps you will have to watch it twice to get the joke of some names...

Food Battle

I only just can say that animals are not only ones that fight by food.

So, watch this funny video in which two guys are fighting in order to win a food battle.

If you have enjoyed, you can find in youtube more videos about this food battle between those two guys !! you can see food battle 2009, or food battle 2011

Angels on horseback?

Can you imagine that you could eat angels on horseback? Wait, because...yes, you can! I even dare to say to you that probably, most of the Englishman have taste them.

However, I am not writing about angels on horseback in a literal way...because I am writing about an English dish which is called "angels on horseback" but, you should not be afraid because, this dish is not elaborated with horse meat or any strange condiment...

Probably, you may be thinking of the ingredients of this english dish, well it is very easy, because "angels on horseback" is elaborated with tw single ingredients: oysters and bacon frited

Yes, I know that you are asking to yourself : what is the relationship between oyster-angels and bacon-horse? Sorry, but no one knows why those ingredients are related to angels and horses, so, we have to live with the question of why and how attributed to this dish its peculiar name.

And the last thing is that I encourage you to help me in order to find out about the name of this particular dish. So, I want to know your ideas!

Funny names for food

Here you have some hilarious food names I have found. I must admit that some of them sound a bit rude… JUST HAVE A LOOK AND JUDGE YOURSELF!

Name: Crap's ('shit' in BrE slung)

Product: Chocolate

Country: France





Name: Bog ('lavatory' in BrE slung)

Product: Canned pork

Country: Denmark









Name: Bra

Product: Yogurt

Country: Sweden











Name: Jerk sauce ('chump')

Product: Sauce

Country: Jamaica











Name: Fart

Product: Juice drink

Country: Poland

To Beer or not to Beer...Which type do you prefer?

Do you like beer? If your answer is 'yes' you should know that there are several nouns referring to the same thing. Beer is a term which describes in a generic way four main types: ales, stouts, porters and lagers. Each brand has its own unique characteristics and can vary between different regions of the country. Until quite recently the majority of beer in Britain was ale and stout but since the 1970s lagers have proved more popular and now over half the beer drunk here is lager.

Ale: It covers a wide range of styles and tastes.

• Mild, is generally, although, not always, a dark beer. It was developed about 150 years ago as a cheaper and weaker alternative to the dark ales and porters of the day. In the middle years of this century, mild was the most popular draught beer style in Britain.
• Bitter is a uniquely British style, and remains the most popular draught beer in England. Within the category of bitter ale there are seemingly endless permutations of flavour, aroma and appearance. Some are golden, some are copper coloured, some exude the delicate scent of hops, some are malty, some are dry and some are sweet.There are regional differences too. In Yorkshire for example, drinkers expect a tight, creamy head on top of each pint, and they like to see the froth trace patterns known as Brussels lace on the inside of the glass as the ale slips down. In the South East, where bitter tends to be more hoppy, the favoured pint is served without a head. In Scotland, where Light, known as 60 shilling ale, is in the same class as English mild, the term heavy is regarded as something akin to bitter, but the comparison is not exact. The most popular Scottish draught ales are known as 80 shilling, or export, and 70 shilling, or special. Both may be described as heavy.
• Burton-On-Trent in the English Midlands became world-famous for another ale style, for which its water supply was particularly suitable - clear, sparkling beer known as Pale Ale.Gradually during the nineteenth century the Burton variety came to be favoured over porter and other dark brews.
• IPA, or India Pale Ale, was originally so called because it was exported to India, where British troops thirsted for each delivery. The story goes that a batch was salvaged from a sinking ship and returned to England, where drinkers immediately demanded such delicious stuff should be sold at home as well as overseas.
• Bitter was developed from the standard draught pale ale, while a stronger version came to be a widely popular bottled beer. Export is still a name applied to stronger pale ales, even though many are mainly brewed for UK consumers.
• Some older, beer styles survive in bottled form. Old Ale, also known as stock ale because its strength allows it to be kept in stock for a relatively long time, is dark and malty. Draught versions of this are called winter warmers.
• Scottish Strong Ale, or wee heavy, as it is known, is in the same strength category as barley wine, putting these at the top of the league in terms of alcohol content.

Stout: Black, full-bodied and rich, and was originally known as stout-porter. The Irish stout style is dry, acquiring a refreshing bitterness from roasted barley. Stouts which originated in the UK are sweet.

At one time there were many varieties of stout available. Some such oatmeal stout, still exists today. Imperial stout, originally exported 200 years ago to the Russian imperial court, is now rare, but is still available in bottles.

Lager: Typically light, clear, sparkling and served cold. Until 1960 lager accounted for less than one per cent of the British beer market, although it had long been popular in Scotland where it has been brewed for over a century. Originally available in bottles, and from about the middle of this century in cans, it was not generally provided on draught until 1963. Since then its growth has been phenomenal and it now accounts for almost half the beer market in Britain.

Cooking for 'William the Conquerer'

The most familiar examples of food words borrowed into English from the Anglo-Norman form of French are names for the meat of the pig, sheep, and ox, the three major farm animals of medieval Europe. In the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language, just one basic word existed for each of these three animals, alive or dead. So also in Old French; so also in modern French, in which the basic words are porc (pig), mouton (sheep), and boeuf (ox).

In Norman times, English borrowed those three French words, pork, mutton, beef. So, unusually, ever since then, English has had six basic words in this semantic field, three for the living animals and three for the meats. Why were the extra three words borrowed at all? Why were the borrowed words used in the special sense of ready-to-eat meats?

The likely answer is that because the English nobles of that period spoke French and ordered their food in French, others eventually thought it fashionable and classy to use French for the names of fine foods. In just the same way, after a successful hunt, the huntsmen demanded in French to be served with la veneson, meaning literally 'the game we just hunted', and that is whyvenison has its modern English meaning of 'deer meat'.

Etymology of 'CORN'

The English words corn and grain are linguistic doublets: both of them originate in a Proto-Indo-European word (of about 4000 B.C.E.) that may be reconstructed as grnom. This word meant 'cereal grain'. As the Indo-European languages grew apart, it took a different form in Proto-Germanic, in Latin, and in other early languages. In Proto-Germanic (about 500 B.C.E.) the form was kurnam: this became korn in Old High German and Old Norse and corn in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), and that is the immediate origin of the modern English word corn. In classical Latin, meanwhile, the form was granum. This became grano in Spanish and Italian and grain in French, meaning 'cereal grain', and the French word was borrowed into English. The French words graine (seed) and grange (barn) derive from the same Latin word.

What does corn mean? In British English it means 'cereal'—and usually it means 'wheat', the favorite cereal of Europe. When English speakers in the New World (the "Indies") encountered a cereal that was new to them, they invented a new name for it: Indian corn. In the United States, this name was eventually shortened to corn, which is why, in the United States, corn now means 'Indian corn'. Meanwhile, back in Europe, where Indian corn was soon transplanted, people came to know it under the name maize (a Carib word, transmitted by way of Spanish maiz). In South Africa it has a different name again, mealie or mielie (a word borrowed from Afrikaans and said to derive originally from Portuguese milho [millet]).

So what are Corn Flakes made from? Indian corn, of course, because they were invented and named in the United States; but British people often assume that they are made from wheat, because that is what corn means in Britain.

All about cookies

Cookie is the American word for the British word biscuit. A cookie is a flat, thin, dry cake, sweetened or unsweetened, usually sold in packets or tins.



In English, there are some expressions with the word cookie:

-To be a smart cookie: to be very clever (slang).
-To be a tough cookie: to be a hard type, a hard person (slang).
-That´s the way the cookie crumbles: that´s how things are and you must accept them (used when something unfortunate or unpleasant has happened).
-Toss your cookies: to vomit (slang).
-To be caught with one´s hand in the cookie jar: to catch someone when he or she is doing something bad. For example: He was caught with his hand in the cookie jar when he was stealing the money.

THE COOKIE MONSTER:

The Cookie Monster is a character in the US television programme Sesame Street who loves to eat cookies. He always appears when anyone has cookies and he eats all of them very quickly and wildly.

Christmas Drinks: Eggnog

Now that Christmas is near, I would like to recommend to you something new to drink with your family and friends: the eggnog. It is a sweet dairy drink made with milk, cream, sugar and beaten eggs, and flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg. Alcoholic kinds are also made. The eggnog is a popular drink in the United States and Canada, and is usually drunk in winter at parties such as Christmas and New Year. Its French name is "lait de poule" ( literally "hen´s milk" ).

Can you imagine that we can eat angels on horseback? Yes, we can! even I can say that probably most of the Englishman have taste them.

However, I am not writing about angels on horseback in a literal way...because I am writing about an English dish which is called "angels on horseback" but, you do not be afraid because it is not elaborated with horse meat or any strange condiment...

Probably, you may be thinking of the ingredients of this english dish, well it is very easy: oysters and bacon frited

Yes, I know that you are asking to yourself : what is the relationship between oyster-angels and bacon-horse? Sorry, but no one knows why those ingredients are related to angels and horses

The first one or the second one?

What do you think when somebody from United Kingdom says to you "Lollypop man"? You have two options; you can related this term with the first photograph or with the second one.

If you think that a "lollipop man" is the first photo, you are right because it is it, but a person from United Kingdom is referring to the second one.

A Lollipop man/lady is a crossing guard who temporarily stop the flow of traffic when pedestrians ( normally children) cross a dangerous intersection. Normally, those guardians are situated near to schools.

They used to wear a fluorescent raincoat and how you can imagine the name: "lollipop man" is assigned by the traffic sign used by its shape as it were a big lollipop

Have you ever been in London's Chinatown?

There are a lot of shops, restaurants... It seems that you have travelled to China. If you like the Chinese food, you can live a beautiful experience: there are typical products from this territory, not only food, also clothes and another interesting things. You can find typical dishes like Banana Rolls (a Chinese cake), Almond Sponges (a sponge cake filled with almonds) and another Chinese products.

So, if you want to know more about English language, Chinese language and their typically food, Visit London's Chinatown! It will be a good idea! It's a mixture of these things mentioned before.

Also, visiting new places you can learn things that probably, you never thought that existed.

The same 'English words' but with different meanings

Since English is spoken so widely across the world, its vocabulary is astonishingly varied. Many foods have different names, and many food names have different meanings in Britain and the United States. A good example is ‘Ciral’ which is apple juice in the United States while it is an alcoholic drink in Britain. Another good example is ‘Corn’ which is maize in the United States and wheat in Britain. The spice called ‘Turmeric’ in Britain and the United States is known in South Africa as ‘borrie’ (a loan from Malay by way of Afrikaans). The European spice known in Britain as ‘coriander’ is called in Indian English ‘dhunia’ or ‘dhania’ ; in the United States the fruit is called ‘coriander’ but the leaves are called ‘cilantro’, a word borrowed from Spanish. The Afghan spice known as ‘hing’ in Indian English is ‘asafoetida’ in Britain and the United States, while it is ‘duivelsdrek’ in South African English: this is a loanword from Afrikaans meaning literally 'devil's dung' (because that is what asafoetida smells like). The spice called ‘jeera ‘in Indian English is ‘cumin’ or ‘cummin’ in British and U.S. English. Indian English ‘methi’ is British English ‘fenugreek'’. Indian English ‘alu’ is U.S. and British English ‘potato’. The fruit ‘okra’ (this name is borrowed from the Akan language of Ghana) is also known regionally as ‘gumbo’ (borrowed from Mbundu of Angola), 'bhindi' (borrowed from Marathi of India), and ladies' fingers. The ‘chickpea’ is also known as ‘chana’(borrowed from Hindi) and ‘garbanzo bean’ (borrowed from Spanish). Even where the English names derive ultimately from a single foreign word, they may have different forms and connotations in different regions, like U.S. English ‘kabob’ for British English’ kebab’ (a word that is Turkish in origin).