Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1165, Eating Spicy Foods.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1165.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between Akeem and Wendy about eating food that is spicy.
Let's get started.
Oh, this is so good.
Why are your eyes watering?
It's so spicy.
When you invited me over for curry, I didn't know it'd be so hot.
This is mild or maybe medium.
I make another version of this that's much hotter.
In fact I like mine with some extra peppers and some hot sauce.
Do you want any?
Are you kidding me?
The roof of my mouth is on fire.
You must have very sensitive taste buds.
This has a little kick to it, and it's pungent and zesty, but it's not too spicy.
You must have no taste buds at all if you think this is mild.
My mouth needs to cool down from all that heat.
I need more water.
Now.
All right, but you don't want to fill up on water.
I've made a special dessert.
Is that supposed to be mild, too?
No, that really is spicy.
This episode is about eating spicy food.
The adjective spicy S-P-I-C-Y refers to a very strong flavor in your mouth, that That feels like your mouth is on fire, that your mouth is burning.
When you eat spicy food, you might have to immediately drink some water, because it's as if your mouth were on fire.
Of course, it isn't actually on fire, but that's the meaning of this adjective spicy when describing food.
Akeem says, oh, this is so good.
Then he asks Wendy, why are your eyes watering?
If your eyes water, your eyes begin to fill with what we call tears T-E-A-R-S, which is basically fluid that is in your eye.
That is more than what your eye needs.
And, of course, if there's more fluid there, then the the tears come out of your eyes and go down your face.
Usually, people have their eyes water when they are sad, when they are in pain or, as in the case of our dialogue, perhaps when the food is very spicy.
Wendy says, it's so spicy, referring to the food.
Curry C-U-R-R-Y is a dish usually associated with India, in which you cook meat and or vegetables in a spicy sauce.
There are other kinds of curry as well.
There's Japanese curry, which I really like.
I also like Indian curry, just to be fair.
However, here it appears that Wendy and Akeem are eating Indian curry.
Wendy was invited over by Akeem, meaning Akeem said, come to my house and we will eat a meal.
Curry can also be one of those foods that is very hot because of the what we would call spices S-P-I-C-E-S.
The word spicy, of course, comes from the word spice.
We usually describe spicy food as being hot.
The word hot can be used to describe food in two different ways.
A food or a dish of is hot when it is physically at a high temperature.
The opposite of hot in that case would be cold.
So if food can be hot, food can be cold.
Here, however, hot means very spicy.
The opposite of spicy food is not cold, but mild, M-I-L-D.
So we have hot and cold food referring to temperature.
We have hot and mild food referring to the spiciness of the food.
Akeem says this is mild or maybe medium.
In between hot and mild food, in terms of spiciness, is medium.
M-E-D-I-U-M.
Medium spicy is a little spicy, but not too spicy.
Of course, that really depends on your taste for food, whether you think something is mild or medium.
Lots of other kinds of dishes can be spicy.
Mexican food, for example, can often be spicy, so can food from Thailand and many other countries.
I know there are many different types of food out there.
I could spend all day mentioning the different kinds of food, but today we're using, as an example, Indian curry as being hot, mild or medium.
Akeem says...
I make another dish of this, that is of curry, that's much hotter.
In fact, I like mine, meaning my curry, with some extra peppers and some hot sauce.
Peppers P-E-P-E-R-S are vegetables that can often make food very spicy, especially the seeds inside of the peppers.
Peppers come in different colors and many peppers aren't spicy at all, but some of them can be very spicy.
Akeem also mentions hot sauce.
Hot sauce is a liquid that some people put on their food that is usually made from spicy peppers.
Akeem says, do you want any, meaning any extra peppers and hot sauce?
Wendy says, are you kidding me?
That expression, are you kidding me, when said in a certain way, means are you joking with me?
Are you crazy?
In other words, it's said in disbelief.
You can't believe the person is actually telling you what he's telling you.
In this case, Wendy can't believe Akeem actually thinks she wants her food to be even spicier.
She says, The roof of my mouth is on fire.
The roof, R-O-O-F, of your mouth is the top part of your mouth, the part above your tongue.
You have a roof on your house, of course.
That's the top of your house.
The roof of your mouth is the top of your mouth.
To be on fire...
There's another meaning of the expression on fire that's a little more recent now terms of its use.
To be on fire can also mean to be doing something very well, to really be excelling or performing in a way that is the best that you can do, perhaps the best that anyone around you is doing.
For example, If you're a basketball player and you're scoring a lot of points in a single game, we might describe you as being on fire, meaning you're doing really, really well.
We could also say that you're hot.
In baseball, a hot hitter is someone who's getting a lot of hits, especially in a short period of time.
There is also the song you might have heard by Alicia Keys a few years ago.
This girl is on fire.
Well, she sang it a little better than I did.
I'm not really on fire when it comes to my singing right now.
Back to the dialogue.
Akeem says, you must have very sensitive taste buds.
Taste buds B-U-D-S are those points on your tongue and in the inside of your mouth that can sense the taste of food.
We call those taste buds.
Akeem says, this, meaning this curry, has a little kick to it.
When we describe food as having a little kick, K-I-C-K, to it, we mean it's a little bit spicy.
It's not very spicy.
Hakim says the food is pungent and zesty, but it's not too spicy.
Pungent, P-U-N-G-E-N-T, means having a very strong smell or taste.
Zesty, Z-E-S-T-Y, usually refers to food that has a slightly spicy flavor.
It's mild, but it's a little bit spicy.
Wendy says, jokingly perhaps to Akeem, My mouth needs to cool down from all that heat.
I need more water now.
Wendy says that Akeem says, must not have any taste buds if he doesn't think this food is spicy.
She says, my mouth needs to cool down from all that heat.
To cool down means to lower the temperature of something.
Here it just means to feel less of the burning sensation.
Heat, H-E-A-T, again means here something that is caused by very spicy food.
People often drink water after they eat spicy food, thinking that that will cool down their mouth and make the sensation of the burning disappear.
I'm not sure if that actually happens, but people do it.
I heard somewhere that if you put salt in your mouth, that will help with the burning sensation.
I don't know.
Don't ask me.
I'm not an expert.
Anyway, Akeem tells Wendy not to fill up on water because he's made a special dessert.
To fill up on something means to eat or drink a lot of something, so much so that you're no longer hungry.
If you are going to someone's house for dinner and you have say, a bag of macadamia nuts which are my favorite kind of nuts, by the way, in case anyone's looking for a Christmas present to buy me you don't want to eat all of your bag of nuts, You don't want to fill up on the macadamia nuts because then you won't be hungry for the dinner that you are going to go and eat or are supposed to eat.
Akeem says, I've made a special dessert, D-E-S-S-E-R-T.
A dessert is usually, in the United States anyway, a sweet food that is served at the end of a meal.
Wendy says, is that supposed to be mild too?
She wants to know if the dessert is going to be mild.
Akeem says, no, that's really spicy.
Akeem, of course, thinks his curry is mild, so if the dessert is supposed to be spicy, well then it will be really spicy for Wendy.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Oh, this is so good.
Why are your eyes watering?
It's so spicy.
When you invited me over for curry, I didn't know it'd be so hot.
This is mild or maybe medium.
I make another version of this that's much hotter.
In fact, I like mine with some extra peppers and some hot sauce.
Do you want any?
Are you kidding me?
The roof of my mouth is on fire.
You must have very sensitive taste buds.
This has a little kick to it and it's pungent and zesty, but it's not too spicy.
You must have no taste buds at all.
If you think this is mild, my mouth needs to cool down from all that heat.
I need more water now.
All right, but you don't want to fill up on water?
I've made a special dessert.
Is that supposed to be mild too?
No, that really is spicy.
We serve our English spicy here at ESL Podcast.
That's because our script writer is on fire.
Dr. Lucy Say, of course.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm a very mild Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
