Episode 0321

Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and we've been traveling around the world eating different foods from different countries and today we're in Thailand.

That's right. Thai food is one of the most popular types of food around the world, especially because of that specific Asian taste it has. And so we're going to jump right into this dialogue today and see what we have prepared for you today.

What did you cook?

Great idea. As long as I don't get food poisoning. So what is on the menu tonight?

Now, this next dish is one of the most famous. Foreigners call it papaya salad, but the proper name is Tom Sum. It is a spicy salad made from a mix of fresh vegetables including shredded unripened papaya and tomato.

This is called Pad Thai. It's stir-fried noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chili pepper plus bean sprouts, shrimp and tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It's practically Thailand's national dish.

Want some more?

I'm stuffed.

All right, so we've got a number of different dishes we'd like to talk about as well as phrases. So let's look at some of those dishes and important keywords and language takeaway.

Language takeaway.

All right, so the first word we have on language takeaway today is food poisoning. So we don't want to get food poisoning when having this any meal.

Any meal. No, that's right. Food poisoning is a bad thing. Now this is something that happens when you eat bad food or dirty food. Basically, you get very, very sick and you feel like you have to vomit. You have to throw up.

That's right. So your stomach hurts, you feel like you have to throw up, you may be going to the bathroom very often. That means usually you have food poisoning.

All right, and so people often associate food poisoning with food that you eat on the street, maybe dirtier food. But this is something you should be very careful of when you're traveling, not to Thailand alone, but maybe to any other country. You can get it in America, you can get it in Mexico. So just something to be careful of.

That's right. So, apart from that, we're going to jump into our first dish for today. We're having a soup called Tom Yum soup.

It does, and it's very yellow or orange colored and uh, it's a very, very common dish on Thai restaurant menus. And uh, there's some key ingredients in this soup that I think are important to discuss. They're often found in Thai food and other kinds of Asian food.

The first one is ginger.

Ginger, that's right. This is a root. It kind of looks like a potato almost.

It does, it's usually white and it has little arms, you know, it kind of, it's not a round object, it's got pointy little arms.

That's right. And uh, ginger is, the characteristic taste of ginger is kind of strong and bitter.

It is quite strong. You'll find it in Japanese food, often times you get pickled ginger to eat, it's like a pink uh food, you get with sushi. Other times in like Chinese cooking, it's something that's chopped up with garlic and cooked in oil. So, ginger is a very important one.

That's right. So in this soup, we have ginger and we also have lemongrass.

So this is very interesting because it's not very easily found around the world.

That's right. This is very common in Southeast Asian cooking and you might have a hard time finding it in places like America where it's not really a part of the cuisine.

But lemongrass is very distinct. It has a very strong flavor and uh it's actually quite long. It's green and long. It looks a bit like celery, but it's harder.

That's right. That's right. And uh the taste that it gives it to is a little bit citric, kind of like lemon almost.

That's right. But you're going to find this in soups like Tom Yum or other things. So, uh lemongrass is another one.

That's right. It's uh stir-fried noodles with eggs and peanuts are the most like the key ingredients in there.

That's right. But you might also get a little bit of hot red pepper, some sugar, some lime. And the noodles are flat. They're not round.

That's right. And actually one of the key ingredients also that gives it this very distinct taste is tamarind juice.

All right, tamarind juice. This is again, another one of those flavors from Southeast Asia that you might not find in many other places, certainly not America.

Now, tamarind, they're funny looking things. They look like peas but they're dark brown.

That's right. So tamarind juice gives it this kind of sweet flavor. So this is the interesting thing about Pad Thai is that you have these sweet flavors from the tamarind juice, from even the fish sauce combined with chili, so it's kind of like a spicy, very sweet taste.

That's right. So that's all we have for language takeaway, why don't we take another listen to our dialogue.

What did you cook?

Great idea. As long as I don't get food poisoning. So what is on the menu tonight?

Now, this next dish is one of the most famous. Foreigners call it papaya salad, but the proper name is Tom Sum. It is a spicy salad made from a mix of fresh vegetables including shredded unripened papaya and tomato.

This is called Pad Thai. It's stir-fried noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chili pepper plus bean sprouts, shrimp and tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It's practically Thailand's national dish.

Want some more?

I'm stuffed.

All right, we're back so now let's take a look at four key phrases on Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

So first up, we have the phrase "on the menu." What's on the menu tonight?

That's right, the that person asked, "So what's on the menu?" And by saying this, we're saying, well, what are we having for dinner?

What are we going to eat? That's right. So you might want to think, okay, menu, I'm going to look at the menu, but you could even say this at home where there is no menu. This is a spoken language way of saying what are we eating tonight?

Right, that's right. What's for dinner? What's what what are we eating? What's on the menu, even though, as you said, there's no menu.

That's right. And after that, we have another phrase that's really important. We say, "for starters," we're going to have this or that. So for starters.

That's right. We said, "for starters, we are having a soup, a Tom Yum soup." So a starter dish is something that you have to begin the meal, a small dish, maybe.

That's right, start, starter. So a starter is a noun, it's a thing, and it's something you eat at the beginning. Usually, it's not very heavy. Not a a steak would never be a starter, right?

All right, so here we have Tom Yum soup, which is our starter.

And uh, and after that, we have the national dish. Now this is a great phrase.

Right. We had the Pad Thai, which is considered to be the national dish. And so usually every country has their national dish, something that's unique or that a country is famous for.

Like, for example, China would be famous for?

Kung Pao chicken.

Kung Pao chicken, yeah.

In America you might even say that apple pie is the most, you know, important national dish. But do you guys have one in Ecuador? What's your national dish?

Uh I would say I have no idea which would be, it's very not, not very well known. Maybe ceviche, it's uh kind of shared between Peru and Ecuador.

Like maybe in Argentina you would say steak is is a national dish.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh or in Mexico, you know, like tacos or enchiladas, stuff like that.

Or in Italy, spaghetti bolognese.

That's right.

Uh all right, so we have um we have a number of different countries and each country maybe has one or two national dishes. These are very special dishes that uh that are important for that country.

That's right. So we have our national dishes and after we finish dinner, we ate so much that we say, "I'm stuffed."

I'm stuffed. Now this is a common phrase that you will hear at the end of a meal when you've eaten and eaten and eaten and it just means I'm full.

I'm full. I can't eat anymore.

Yeah, I'm stuffed. So uh stuffed means that uh I'm full of things.

Now it's it's a very informal way of saying I'm full, right? Because if somebody says, would you like some more soup? You say, no thank you, I'm full.

Right, but if you're with friends, you can say, oh, I just had so much pizza, I'm stuffed.

That's right. So it's a little bit more informal, but a lot more native-like.

That's right.

All right, so let's take a listen to our dialogue one last time.

What did you cook?

Great idea. As long as I don't get food poisoning. So what is on the menu tonight?

Now, this next dish is one of the most famous. Foreigners call it papaya salad, but the proper name is Tom Sum. It is a spicy salad made from a mix of fresh vegetables including shredded unripened papaya and tomato.

This is called Pad Thai. It's stir-fried noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind juice, red chili pepper plus bean sprouts, shrimp and tofu, garnished with crushed peanuts and coriander. It's practically Thailand's national dish.

Want some more?

I'm stuffed.

All right, so speaking of Thai food, uh it's very famous around the world, but it's very spicy.

It can be very spicy, and what always surprises me about Thai food is that the salads might be the spiciest things on the menu.

You know, people like to eat many different salads. You have like a Chiang Mai chicken salad or you have a papaya salad, but these are really, really spicy.

Yeah, that's right. We saw in our dialogue that we're eating papaya salad and it's very interesting because it has this fruit, papaya, and it has some other vegetables as well, but the salad is very, very spicy itself.

That's right. And you would never think of a fruit salad as being something that's spicy in America. You think of it as being pretty tame, pretty boring.

But that's the uh kind of what gives it a certain attraction to it, right?

Yeah, it's very, very good. And speaking of national dishes, this is actually a very interesting question because as we mentioned, a couple of countries have national dishes, like Italy and and different places, but what about in your country? Do you have a national dish or what would you consider to be your national dish?

That's right. So we'd love to hear from you guys. What's your national dish? Tell us all about it, what it tastes like, and even if there's some history, tell us about that too. Our website is englishpod.com.

All right, we'll see you guys there. Bye.

The English audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

The result of mixing two or more things together.

Combination.

Filled with food, no longer hungry.

Stuff.

Having the ability to think of new ideas.

Creative.

A person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.

Foreigner.

Tasty.

Delicious.

Food.

Dish.

Let's try that faster.

The result of mixing two or more things together.

Combination.

Having the ability to think of new ideas.

Creative.

Filled with food, no longer hungry.

Stuff.

Tasty.

Delicious.

A person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.

Foreigner.

Food.

Dish.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Stuff.

I ate so much last night. I'm so stuffed.

Stuff.

Don't stuff yourself with too much candy. We still have dinner left.

Stuff.

My friend stuffed himself with cake. Now he can't move.

Creative.

Creative.

Creative.

Combination.

Combination.

Yuck, I don't like the combination of salt and pepper.

Combination.

I wonder if the coach has thought of any new combinations for the match.

Foreigner.

Foreigner.

It is important as a foreigner living overseas to at least attempt to learn the local language.

Foreigner.

We should make foreigners feel welcome and safe in our home country.

Delicious.

Delicious.

Delicious.