新编大学英语第三册unit12 Text B: Food for Thought
UNIT 12 AFTER-CLASS READING 1; New College English (II)
Food for Thought
1 I am very happy to be invited to talk to the International Club this afternoon. This group does so much for our school and community that I couldn't resist accepting your invitation. I'm a firm believer in better international relations. To prove it, I ate pizza with Italian sausage last night, French toast this morning, and tacos for lunch. While I might overdo eating sometimes, I'm not too unusual. Americans have a love affair with food. We simply love food in all forms, shapes, and sizes.
2 You've all heard the remark, "The way to a man s heart is through his stomach." That's probably a few years before modern medicine found that the way to a man's heart is to turn right at the liver. You may have heard Napoleon's famous saying, "An army marches on its stomach." Perhaps that accounts for the slowness of some armies. To these celebrated quotations, I add one more: "The way to express Americanism is through your stomach." My quote probably won't go down in history; nevertheless, it is true.
3 As a matter of fact, it was a foreign exchange student sponsored by your club who really first convinced me about the importance of food in understanding people. Her name was Carmen Morales, and some of you might remember her. She came from Colombia and spent a year at our school. One winter's day after school, Carmen and I had a conversation. I was having my usual after-school candy bar when I saw her. She looked a little glum, so I thought I'd cheer her up.
4 "What's the matter?" I asked, unwrapping my candy bar.
5 "Isn't it obvious?" she said. "Just look at me!"
6 "You look fine to me," I said. In fact, she didn't look fine. She looked as if she might cry.
7 "I've gained fifteen pounds since I've been in this country," she said.
8 "What's the problem? Are you eating because you miss your folks back home?" She looked at me and shook her head. And I washed the candy bar down with the last swallow of Coke.
9 "It's you Americans," she exclaimed. "Eat, eat, eat! Wherever you go, you eat! And I'm becoming one of you."
10 Well, that did surprise me. I thought to be an American you had to take a citizenship test, be sworn in, and everything. I didn't know wolfing down a couple of hamburgers would do it. When I told her this, it was some time before I could calm her down. She finally told me, "You Americans love food. There are doughnuts at our club meetings before school. When I go out at night with my American sister, we almost always stop off for a snack. And a snack to her is a hamburger and fries. In my country, we have breakfast, a large afternoon meal, and a light evening meal without all these snacks."
11 She was right. It took a foreign exchange student to show me something important about us Americans. We are very much in love with food. It's part of being American. As I began to think about it, I noticed the importance food has for us. What's another word used worldwide for American? Yankee. How do we use it? Yankee pot roast. Southern culture has given us some of our finest authors and our noblest traditions. What do we remember? Southern fried chicken. Why this kind of thing is as American as apple pie!
12 Think about the important American symbols that are closely tied to food. Base-ball America's national pastime. But what's a ballgame without hot dogs, peanuts, and Cracker Jacks? Or think about Hollywood. Hollywood is a symbol the world over of America's glamour and excitement, but how often do you watch a movie with your fingers glistening in the dim glow of the theater with the extra butter you asked for in the extra large tub of popcorn?
13 Even if you watch the movie at home, it's likely that food will be there. We have TV trays from which we eat our TV dinners. And do you really watch those commercials, or are you one of the dozen or so of us who know that commercials are put on TV so we can have a break during which to raid the refrigerator?
14 Carmen really got me to thinking. Even our nation's most important cultural heroes are identified with food. Popeye eats his spinach, usually not even stopping to cook it. Dagwood has his "hero" sandwich. Snoopy has his chocolate chip cookies. Even President Reagan had his jelly beans. Our space program promises to "boldly go where no man has gone before", and what goes with them? Instant orange drink!
15 To Americans, food means much more than nutrition, more than the basic three meals a day. The tacos guiltily squeezed in during the trip to the mall. The cupcake that beckoned you and pleaded until you put it out of its misery.
16 Some of us even have a new hobby recreational eating. We eat at parties, meetings, brunches, and coffee breaks. We eat to have a good time. We even have fad food with absolutely no purpose other than to pass time. Bubble gum is a kind of food that serves as a toy. Even after the flavor is gone, it's there to pop, snap, stretch, and chomp.
17 However, nowhere is our love affair with food more evident than in our passion for the hamburger. There are enough hamburger restaurants to feed us all three meals a day every day. We are told that we "deserve a break today". To do what? To eat, naturally! How big will the hamburger be? Three ounces? Four? A third of a pound? Carmen didn't understand that the simple snack of a burger and fries that her host-sister had at night was more than a snack: it was a display of patriotism.
18 Even those of us who diet still love to eat. Dieters find themselves drawn toward diet foods and health foods as a substitute for the real thing. A bean curd sandwich may be a poor substitute for a hot dog, but as Shakespeare said, "Love is blind." I believe that was in Hamlet or maybe Macbeef. American food lovers will fall for anything they can chew and swallow.
19 But perhaps our love affair with food isn't all bad. After all, it broadens international understanding, something the International Club really cares about. We Americans love all kinds of food: Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Greek, French, Japanese, German, and many others. We are a virtual United Nations of food.
20 Not only that, did you know eating keeps the crime rate down? Why, if more people were sticking ribs in their mouths instead of a gun in someone's ribs, we could solve the crime problem entirely.
21 Eating also keeps the farmers in business. If we weren't so intent on consuming so much, many family farms might go under.
22 Eating keeps teenagers employed. How many of you have worked at a fast food place building pizzas, stuffing tacos, or flipping hamburgers?
23 And eating is better than fighting.
24 As I reflect on it, it's a good thing I talked to Carmen that day. She did make me realize something about Americans and food. Eating is part of being American. We eat because it's fun. We eat to be friendly and sociable. We eat because we are free to do what we want to do. We eat what we want, when we want and that's American. That's something we can teach the foreign exchange students we look forward to having this year our eating habits reflect America's value on freedom.
25 By bringing people like Carmen Morales to America, you in the International Club help Americans like me learn about America, as well as about other countries of the world.
26 Now will you excuse me? I have to grab a snack. After all this talking, I'm just starved.
