Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1207, gauging the doneness of meat.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1207.
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 talking about meat and how it is cooked, giving you some important words to describe how meat is cooked.
That will become very useful to you if you ever go to a restaurant and need to order meat in English.
Well, I'm hungry.
Let's get started.
How do you like your steak?
Well done.
I don't like any pink showing and I don't mind if it's a little charred.
I'll cook it the way you want it, but it'll be dry and tough.
Yes, but a longer cooking time kills foodborne illnesses.
I don't want to eat anything that's undercooked.
It doesn't have to be burnt to be safe to eat.
It's easy to gauge when meat is done.
How about if I brown each side to seal in the juices and then cook it to medium doneness?
No, I don't want to take any chances.
I'd rather the steak is overcooked than undercooked.
Are you going to eat that?
Yes, I like my steak juicy.
But that's raw.
No, it's cooked rare, not raw.
I'll cut into it so you can see that it's cooked.
It's oozing red.
That is definitely not cooked.
I'll prove it to you.
Don't put that in your mouth.
You're risking your health.
I think I'll survive.
Chris begins our dialogue by saying to Ruth...
How do you like your steak?
A steak, S-T-E-A-K, here refers to a thick slice or piece of beef, B-E-E-F.
Beef is meat from a cow.
There are many different kinds of steak that come from a cow.
We're not sure exactly what kind Chris is asking Ruth about.
Ruth answers, however, that she wants her steak well done.
A piece of beef that is cooked well done is cooked so that there is no longer any red or pink in it.
That is, there's no longer any sign of the red meat.
That is typically what you see when you have a piece of beef.
Ruth says, I don't like any pink showing.
And I don't mind if it's a little charred, C-H-A-R-R-E-D.
Charred meat is meat that has become black from being cooked too long or from being too close to a source of heat.
Now, people who like their beef charred, Char don't think there's anything wrong with that.
That's the way they like it.
But that's not the way Chris likes it.
Chris says, I'll cook it the way you want it, but it will be dry and tough.
T-O-U-G-H.
When we describe meat as being tough, we're saying that it is difficult to chew.
Tough is the opposite of tender T-E-N-D-E-R, which is when the meat is soft and often full of juices, full of liquid.
Chris says that cooking the beef well done will make it dry and tough.
However, not all meat that is cooked well done is dry and tough.
Apparently however, that's what Chris believes will happen if he cooks this steak the way Ruth wants it.
Ruth says yes, she oddly agrees with him, but a longer cooking time kills food-borne illnesses.
Cooking time is how long something is cooked.
Cooked how long something is put in or over a source of heat.
Illnesses describe diseases that your body can get that make you sick.
Foodborne, F-O-O-D-B-O-R-N-E, refers to things that are present in food.
Foodborne illnesses are illnesses you can get from eating food that is in a certain condition.
Perhaps the food was left out too long outside of a refrigerator.
You might get sick from eating food like that.
That would be a food-borne illness, a disease or illness that is passed through or transferred through food.
Ruth says, I don't want to eat anything that's undercooked.
Something that is undercooked is something that is not cooked long enough, something that is not cooked enough.
The opposite of undercooked would be overcooked, something that is cooked for too long.
Chris says it doesn't have to be burnt to be safe to eat.
Chris is describing the steak when he uses the word it here.
It, that is, the steak, doesn't have to be burnt, B-U-R-N-T, to be safe to eat.
Burnt comes from the verb to burn, B-U-R-N.
If you burn food, you cook it too long so that it often becomes black.
Chris thinks cooking the food... to the point of being well done, means that it will be burnt.
Perhaps Chris hasn't cooked very many steaks.
I'm not sure.
He believes, however, that a piece of food doesn't have to be burnt to be safe to eat.
He says it's easy to gauge when meat is done.
To gauge, G-A-U-G-E, is to measure something, to determine how much of something there is.
The name of this episode is Gaging the Doneness of Meat.
Doneness, D-O-N-E-N-E-S-S, refers to how long or how much a piece of meat has been cooked.
Just as we have the words undercooked and overcooked, we have the terms underdone and overdone.
Meat that is underdone hasn't been cooked long enough.
Meat that is overdone has been cooked too long.
Chris says it's easy to gauge the doneness of meat.
He says, how about if I brown each side to seal in the juices and then cook it to medium doneness?
To brown B-R-O-W-N meat is to cook it for a short time, often at a high temperature, so that the outside of the meat gets cooked and turns the color brown.
Sometimes a cook will do this to seal, S-E-A-L, in the juices, J-U-I-C-E-S.
To seal in the juices means to cook something quickly on the outside so that the liquid inside of the It stays in the meat, so that when you eat the meat it has more flavor.
That's why Chris is suggesting to brown each side and then cook it to medium, M-E-D-I-U-M doneness.
Medium doneness is cooking meat evenly. so that there is a little bit of pink inside.
The terms we use in describing meat, as they relate to how much the meat is cooked, are rare R-A-R-E, which is when the meat is still very red.
Medium rare, which means it's a little more cooked but still fairly red.
Medium rare, which is in between being completely cooked.
No red and rare.
Medium well, which is when there's a little bit of pink, but not very much.
And finally, well done, when there's no pinkness, when the meat is completely cooked through.
Chris is suggesting cooking the steak to medium doneness.
Ruth says, no, I don't want to take any chances.
That is, I don't want to have any risks of getting sick.
I'd rather the steak is overcooked than undercooked.
She then looks at Chris's steak and says, are you going to eat that?
Chris says, yes, I like my steak juicy with lots of liquid that comes out of the steak.
Ruth says, but that's raw, R-A-W.
Meat that is raw is not cooked at all.
That's not the same as rare where the meat is cooked, but there's still a lot of redness in the middle.
Chris corrects Ruth and says, no, it's cooked rare, not raw.
I'll cut into it so you can see that it's cooked.
Ruth says, however, it's oozing red.
To ooze is for liquid to slowly come out of something.
In this case, the liquid is the blood from the meat that is coming out.
Ruth says, I'll prove it to you.
I'll eat this piece and live to tell about it.
The expression to live to tell about something means to...
Do something dangerous and then be able to survive it, not to be killed by that experience.
Chris is making a joke here.
He doesn't really think that he's going to die by eating this piece of meat.
So he's sort of making fun of Ruth, who thinks that it is unsafe, that it is dangerous for him to eat this meat that is cooked rare instead of well done.
He is going to eat it and then live to tell about it.
Ruth says, don't put that in your mouth.
You're risking your health, meaning you could get sick.
Chris doesn't think so.
He says, I think I'll survive.
S-U-R-V-I-V-E.
To survive is to go through a dangerous situation and still live and still be okay.
It's the opposite here of to die.
Chris doesn't think he's going to die from eating meat that is not well done.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
How do you like your steak?
Well done.
I don't like any pink showing, and I don't mind if it's a little charred.
I'll cook it the way you want it, but it'll be dry and tough.
It doesn't have to be burnt to be safe to eat.
It's easy to gauge when meat is done.
How about if I brown each side to seal in the juices and then cook it to medium doneness?
No, I don't want to take any chances.
I'd rather the steak is overcooked than undercooked.
Are you going to eat that?
Yes, I like my steak juicy.
But that's raw.
No, it's cooked rare, not raw.
I'll cut into it so you can see that it's cooked.
It's oozing red.
That is definitely not cooked.
I'll prove it to you.
I'll eat this piece and live to tell about it.
Don't put that in your mouth.
You're risking your health.
I think I'll survive.
We thank our scriptwriter Dr. Lucy Say for her perfectly cooked scripts.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
