В. Make up dialogues discussing good and bad table manners. Use the material of Section A for questions and that of Section В for answers

XVII. Brash up your table manners.

A. Answer the following questions and then check youranswers by comparing litem with the answers below:

1. What is the correct way to sit at table? 2. Should you use your fork or your knife for taking a slice of bread from the bread-plate? 3. How should you get a slice of bread from the plate standing on the far end of the table? 4. What is the correct way of using spoon, fork and knife? 5. How should you cut your meat? 6. What are the dishes for which knife shouldn't be used? 7. What is the way to eat chicken? 8. What is one supposed to do with the stones while eating stewed fruit? 9. What should you do with the spoon after stirring your tea? 10. What should you do if your food is too hot? 11. What should you say to refuse a second helping? 12. What should you say if you like the dish very much? 13. What should you say if you dislike the dish? 14. What shouldn't one do while eating? 15. Where should one keep the newspaper or the book during a meal, on the table or on one's lap?

Answers toExercise XVII.

a) "It tastes (really) fine" or "It is delicious."

b) Never eat the stones (trying to be overpolite). Neither would it be a good idea to dispose of them by dropping them under the table, placing them in your pocket or in your neighbour's wine-glass. Just take them from your mouth on your spoon and place them on your own saucer.

c) Nowhere near the table. Reading at one's meals is a bad habit; it is bad for your digestion and impolite towards others sitting at the same table.

d) Sit straight and close to the table. Don't put your elbows on the table. Don't cross your legs or spread them all over the place under the table.

e) Never lean across the table or over your neighbours to get something out of your reach. Just say: "Please pass the bread." Or. "Would you mind passing the bread, please?"

f) Nothing. Keep your impressions to yourself and don't embarrass your hostess.

g) Fish dishes are generally eaten without using knife. If one does, it is considered a serious breach of good table manners. The same refers to rissoles, cereal and, in general, to anything that is soft enough to be comfortably eaten with spoon or fork.

h) Neither. Your hand is quite correct for getting a slice of bread for yourself. After all, it is you who is going to eat it.

i) While eating, one should produce as little noise or sound as possible. It is decidedly bad manners to speak with your mouth full. Don't put your bread in your soup. Don't pour your tea in your saucer. Don't leave much on the plate: it is impolite towards your hostess. If you have liked the dish, it doesn't follow that you should polish the plate with your bread.

j) Don't hold your spoon in your fist, don't tilt it so as to spill its contents. The fork should be held in your left hand, the knife in your right.

k) It is wrong first to cut all the meat you have got on your plate in small pieces and then eat it. Cut off a slice at a time, eat it, then cut off another, holding your knife in the right hand and your fork in the left.

l) "No more, thank you."

m) Cut off and eat as much as possible by using your knife and fork; the remaining part eat by holding the piece in your hand by the end of the bone.

n) Never cool your food by blowing at it. Just wait a bit, there is no hurry.

o) Don't leave your spoon in the glass while drinking. Put it on your saucer.

XVIII. a) Read and translate the following extracts:

1. Breakfast in the Jenssen home was not much different from breakfast in a couple of hundred thousand homes in the Great City. Walter Jenssen had his paper propped against the vinegar cruet and the sugar bowl. He read expertly, not even taking his eyes off the printed page when he raised his coffee cup to his mouth. Paul Jenssen, seven going on eight, was eating his hot cereal, which had to be sweetened heavily to get him to touch it. Myrna Jenssen, Walter's five-year-old daughter, was scratching her towhead with her left hand while she fed herself with her right. Myrna, too, was expert in her fashion: she would put the spoon in her mouth, slide the cereal off, and bring out the spoon upside down. Elsie Jenssen (Mrs. Walter) had stopped eating momentarily the better to explore with her tongue a bicuspid (коренной зуб) that seriously needed attention. (From "The Ideal Man" by J. O'Hara)

b) Comment on the table manners of the Jenssen family and say what you would do if you were the father or the mother:

2. While Anna prepared herself to meet her class of fortysix lively and inquisitive children her landlady was busy preparing the high tea for her husband and the new lodger.

She had screwed the old mincer to the kitchen table and now fed it with rather tough strips of beef, the remains of the Sunday joint. There was not much, to be sure, but Mrs. Flynn's pinch-penny spirit had been roused to meet this challenge and the heel of a brown loaf, a large onion, and a tomato on the table were the ingredients of the rest of the proposed cottage pie.

"If I open a tin of baked beans," said Mrs. Flynn aloud, "there'll be no need for gravy, I shan't waste gas unnecessarily!" She pursed her thin lips with satisfaction, remembering, with sudden pleasure, that she had bought the beans at a reduced price as "This Week's Amazing Offer" at the local grocer's. She twirled the handle of the mincer with added zest.

Yesterday's stewed apple, she thought busily, could be served out with a little evaporated milk, in three individual dishes. A cherry on top of each would make a nice festive touch, decided Mrs. Flynn in a wild burst of extravagance. She straightened up from her mincing and opened the store cupboard where she kept her tinned and bottled food. In the front row a small jar of cherries gleamed rosily. For one long minute Mrs. Flynn studied its charms, torn between opposite forces of art and thrift. Victory was accomplished easily. "Pity to open them," said Mrs. Flynn, slamming the cupboard door and returned to her mincing. (From "Fresh from the Country" by M. Reed)

Дата добавления: 2014-10-17