Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1145, Using Herbs and Spices in Cooking.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1145.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
It's weird.
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This episode is a dialogue about cooking.
Mmm, makes me hungry.
Let's get started.
That smells wonderful.
This is my family's recipe.
The secret is in the combination of seasonings we use.
I can see that.
You must have 30 different dried and fresh herbs and spices on this counter.
To get a bold flavor, We use a lot of aromatic seeds, barks, and roots.
How much do you put in of each one?
Precise measurements aren't really necessary.
I put in a pinch of this and a dash of that.
I add them to taste.
So getting the recipe wouldn't do me any good, huh?
I'm afraid not.
I learned how to make this in my mother's kitchen.
Would you teach me if I volunteered to be your apprentice, doing all of your prep work?
That depends.
On what? on how quick you are with this potato peeler.
Gisela says to Danny, that smells wonderful.
Danny replies, this is my family's recipe.
A recipe, R-E-C-I-P-E, is a set of written instructions about how to make a particular kind of food.
Danny says the secret, that is the secret to the success of this recipe, is in the combination of seasonings we use.
Seasonings, S-E-A-S-O-N-I-N-G-S, refers to things you put in food to give it a certain flavor.
There are lots of different things that could be considered seasonings.
Kisela tells us a little bit about those.
She says, The most common kinds of seasonings are, in fact, herbs and spices.
That's why the title of this episode is Using Herbs and Spices in Cooking.
Herbs, H-E-R-B-S.
Notice that in American English, the H is silent.
You don't pronounce.
It are leaves or other green parts of a plant that are used for seasoning food, to give food a certain flavor.
You can also use herbs or at least some people do to make tea, or even to make a kind of medicine, something to help you if you are sick.
There are two different kinds of herbs.
There are dried herbs and fresh herbs.
Something that is dried is something that has been, we would say dehydrated, meaning all the water has been removed from it.
Fresh herbs then, would be plants or parts of plants that that still have some water in them, that still look and feel like they did when they were in the ground growing.
Dried herbs are herbs that don't have any water in them and that you can put in a jar, in a container and use many weeks or months later.
Herbs always come from the leafy or green parts of a plant.
Some examples of herbs include oregano, thyme, basil, parsley, and rosemary.
Those are all common herbs used in cooking.
Another kind of seasoning for food is what is called a spice, S-P-I-C-E.
Spices also come from plants, but they come from the non-green and non-leafy part of the plant.
In other words, any other part of the plant that isn't the leaf or the green part and is used for seasoning is called a spice.
Examples of spices include cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and pepper.
Those are all common spices.
Spices are usually used after they are dried.
That's the most common way of using spices in cooking.
Casella notes that Danny has 30 different dried and fresh herbs and spices on this counter.
A counter C-O-U-N-T-E-R in a kitchen is a flat surface, a flat place where you can put your bowls and your ingredients for your food.
Danny says to get a bold flavor...
We use lots of aromatic seeds, barks and roots.
Bold, B-O-L-D, means strong or forceful.
If we have a bold flavor F-L-A-V-O-R we have a taste that is very strong, a flavor that is very strong.
Danny says they use a lot of aromatic, A-R-O-M-A-T-I-C, seeds, S-E-E-D-S, barks, B-A-R-K-S, and roots, R-O-O-T-S.
Aromatic refers to something that has a very strong scent, a very strong but nice smell.
The seed of a plant is the small part that carries the necessary information in order to have a new plant come to life, a new plant to grow.
That's how plants typically reproduce themselves.
Humans reproduce themselves in a slightly different way.
I will not explain that to you here.
The term bark is usually associated with a tree, the outermost layer of a tree, something like a hard skin that goes around a tree.
That's bark.
Roots are the parts of the plants that are underneath the ground, typically.
Roots, barks and seeds are all ways of getting spices.
Places in a plant, if you will, where spices come from.
Casella says, how much do you put in each one?
How much of these seasonings, I'm guessing.
Danny says precise measurements aren't really necessary.
Something that is precise, P-R-E-C-I-S-E, is something that is exact.
One tablespoon, one teaspoon, one ounce, those are precise measures of something.
Danny says, however, that precise measurements aren't necessary.
He says, I put a pinch of this and a dash of that.
A pinch, P-I-N-C-H, of something means a small amount of something.
You'll sometimes see that in a recipe.
It'll say a pinch of salt.
That means just a little bit of salt.
Similarly, you will see the word dash, D-A-S-H, of some ingredient.
Dash here also means a small amount.
Usually it refers to a small amount of something that is in a container, what we would call a shaker S-H-A-K-E-R.
If you have salt and pepper in your kitchen, they are probably in what we would call in English shakers, small containers that have holes on the top of them.
A dash of salt would be to take the salt shaker and maybe move it once over the food.
A pinch of salt would be to take some salt in your fingers and put it into the food.
Often it can mean the same amount of salt.
It's just a different way of describing the manner or way in which you put the seasoning into the food.
Danny says, I add them, meaning the seasonings, to taste.
To add something to taste means to put it in and then to taste the food to see how it tastes and to determine whether you need more of that ingredient.
Gisela says, so getting the recipe wouldn't do me any good, huh?
Danny says, I'm afraid not.
Gisela is asking if she could get a copy of the recipe and then cook a the food herself.
Danny says, no, really you can't because he does so much to taste.
You would have to know what the taste is in order to make this recipe correctly.
He says he learned how to make it in his mother's kitchen.
Hisella says, would you teach me if I volunteered to be your apprentice doing all of your prep work?
An apprentice A-P-P-R-E-N-T-I-C-E is someone usually who is studying some sort of career, some sort of technical career or trade, learning how to do it by watching someone else.
There are many different kinds of jobs where you learn most of what you need to know by being an apprentice.
Plumbing, carpentry and, in some ways, Being a chef are all things that are learned best by being an apprentice, by working with an expert, someone who already knows what he's doing.
That's what Gisela wants to do.
She wants to volunteer, that is not be paid, to be Danny's apprentice.
She'll do all of his prep, P-R-E-P work.
Prep stands for preparation.
Prep work in a kitchen is doing all the things that you have to do to get the ingredients ready.
It may involve chopping up or slicing vegetables, getting meat or other kinds of protein prepared.
These are things you do before you put them all together in order to make the dish that you are making the food that you are making.
Danny answers Hisela's question by saying that depends.
Hisela says, on what?
Meaning, what does it depend on?
Danny says, on how quick you are with this potato peeler.
Danny says, he will give Hisela a job if she's good at using a potato peeler.
A potato peeler.
P-E-E-L-E-R is a small tool, almost like a knife, that is used to remove the skin from a potato.
A potato is a kind of plant that is usually white inside and is cooked in water or using some sort of heat in order to make the inside of the plant soft in order to eat it.
Potatoes can be eaten with or without the covering that goes around the potato.
We call that covering the skin, S-K-I-N, just like you have skin on your body.
Peeling potatoes means taking the skin off of the potato.
It is often considered a very dull and uninteresting job.
When I was growing up, I would often peel potatoes for my mother.
I come from an Irish-American family.
Potatoes are a popular dish with Irish-Americans because they were popular and still are in Ireland.
So it's no surprise they continue to be popular with Irish families living in the United States.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
This is my family's recipe.
The secret is in the combination of seasonings we use.
I can see that.
You must have 30 different dried and fresh herbs and spices on this counter.
To get a bold flavor, we use a lot of aromatic seeds, barks, and roots.
How much do you put in of each one?
Precise measurements aren't really necessary.
I put in a pinch of this and a dash of that.
I add them to taste.
So getting the recipe wouldn't do me any good, huh?
I'm afraid not.
I learned how to make this in my mother's kitchen.
Would you teach me if I volunteered to be your apprentice doing all of your prep work?
That depends.
On what?
On how quick you are with this potato peeler.
We consider our dialogues to have bold flavors and wonderful seasoning.
That's because they're written by the master cook of the English language, our very own, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks 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 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
