On-Focus Questions
Food & Eating

• Are you a vegetarian?  Why?  If you are not a vegetarian, do you eat vegetables in your meals?  Give five of your favorite vegetables.
• At what times do you usually eat your meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner)?  What do you usually eat for dinner/lunch?
• Are you health conscious in eating?  What do you think a nutritious meal is?  What kind of food that you think is the least healthy?  What kind of food that you think is the most healthy?
• How often do you eat in a restaurant? (How often do you eat out?)
• How often do you eat fast food?  Do you consider it healthy?
• Do you usually want to eat dessert after dinner?
• Have you ever been on a special diet? If so, how long did you stayed on it?
• Do you tend to skip means?  Do you often eat between meals or at night?  What do you usually snack on?
• Is there any food whose temptation you cannot resist?  Are you addicted to any food?

II. Restaurants, Dishes and Recipes: (vocabulary 3)

• What's the best restaurant you've ever been to?  What restaurants in this city do you recommend?
• Why is it a good place?
• About how much does a meal cost?
• What is the cheapest place to eat that you know in Taipei or around campus?
• About how much is a meal?
• Where is it?
• How often do you go there?
• About how many different color foods did you eat for dinner last night?
• Do you think about color when you are preparing a meal?
• Are you a good cook?  If so, introduce one of your favorite recipes.  If not, introduce one dish you often eat.
• Ref. a recipe web site; Restaurant Conversation from Etweb.

• What's the strangest food you've ever eaten?
• Your favorites:
• What's your favorite food?  Dessert?  Drink in the summer?  Fruit?  Junk food or snack?  Cuisine?  Vegetable or Meat?
• Are there any foods that you wouldn't eat as a child that you eat now?  What food do you hate now?

• Which of the three meals is the most important one for you?  With whom do you usually eat dinner with?   What do you feel about it?
• What special foods do you eat on holidays? (Christmas, New Year's Day, etc.)
• Which Taiwanese food do you want to introduce to a foreign tourist visiting Taiwan, or to a foreigner having lived here for a while?
• What table manners do you observe?
• What are the differences between what we called "Western" restaurants and Chinese restaurants?  Or Taiwanese foods and cuisine of another place?
• Introduce the other cuisine (of a nation or a province in China) you know and how/whether you associate them with the people of that place.




Vocabulary

1. kinds of foods:

vegetables: snow pea, beans, carrot, turnip, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, egg plant, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, water chestnut, sea weed, kelp, bean curd, leek, asparagus, cucumber, zucchini, pepper
leafy greens: spinach, romaine lettuce, more . . .

2. health and dieting:
things to consider: nutritional value/information, expiration date, ingredients, calories, food pyramid & food groups (grains, fruit, vegetable, dairy products, meat and nuts group reference site)
positive: organic foods, whole grained bread,
negative: GM (genetically modified) foods, insecticide, chemical additives, artificial colorings/flavoring, artificial sweetener, processed food, styrofoam plate
eating mode: grab a bite, wolf down one's meal, be on a  diet, on a low-sugar diet.
3. food and culture:
Taiwanese food: stinky tofu, rice cake, sticky rice, hot pot,
The Other Chinese foods: Dim Sum, Shark fin,



Acknowledgment
 
1. This is a page for English majors on the intermediate level.  Please go to Daily English for English Conversation lessons for college students.
2. The questions are taken from the following two sources, and then revised and sorted out for the English majors at Fu Jen.
• Conversation Questions: Food and Eating (from Internet TESL journal),
• Good Chats: Guided Open Oral Discourse for Advanced Students of English.   Lynne Sandsberry & Paul Sorenson.  Bookman, 1994.
3. The vocabulary is made with reference to the following two books:
• Campus Talk.   Tracy Su.  Tung Hua Book Company, 2001.
• Good Chats: Guided Open Oral Discourse for Advanced Students of English.   Lynne Sandsberry & Paul Sorenson.  Bookman, 1994.

 

Related Websites:
Food -- from Dave's ESL Cafe's Idea Cookbook