6 Minute English / Translating recipes

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Sam.

And I m Rob.

The British are not famous for their food, or rather they are famous for bad food! While French and Italian cooking is admired around the world, the UK has a reputation for overboiled vegetables, mushy peas, and black pudding a dish made from pig s blood!

Ugh, that doesn t sound very tasty, does it?! But I don t think our reputation for bad cooking is still true today, Sam. The last twenty years have seen big changes as Brits have fallen in love with international foods like Indian curry and Asian rice dishes, and with non-traditional cooking like vegetarian and vegan food.

Some of the most popular food in Britain comes from other countries, and includes the recipes, flavours and tastes of those faraway places. But how do recipes and cooking ideas from all over the world make their way onto the British dining table? In this programme, we ll be finding out.

We ll be meeting the recipe translators. These chefs translate recipes the instructions explaining how to combine the different items, the ingredients, they will cook - from their own language into English. And, of course, we ll be learning some new vocabulary as well.

Sounds good, Rob, but first I have a question for you. It may be true that British cooking is better than it used to be, but there s still some pretty bad food out there. So, according to a 2019 YouGov survey, which UK food was voted the worst? Was it:

a) steak and kidney pies?b) scotch eggs?c) haggis?

Hmm, I ll say scotch eggs I ve never liked them much!