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Your Daily English Programme #35 - The Invention of Potato Chips (Listening B1-B2) |
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Think Before You Listen |
Yummy, right?! But do you know what these are called in English? Do you know who invented them?
On August 24, 1853, Chef George Crum accidentally invented the first potato chips at Moon's Lake House, near Saratoga Springs, New York (that is why they were first called "Saratoga chips"). However, contrary to popular opinion, it is believed that "The Cook's Oracle", a cookbook written by William Kitchiner and published in 1817, contained the earliest documented recipe for the potato chip.
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Watch and Listen |
Watch This Short Video: According to legend, what led George Crum to invent the potato chip?
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Let's Practice |
Many problems in understanding a listening passage arise from the fact that in fast speech, words and their sounds become connected to each other. This sometimes creates an "auditory illusion", where you think you heard certain words being spoken, when actually those words were never there! The exercise in this section is intended to make you aware of how certain sounds at the end and beginning of words become connected in natural spoken language; and how you can make use of "context clues" (grammar patterns, word use, sentence structure, and general meaning) to sort them out.
Below Is the Video Transcript: Listen and find out what the 'correct words' for the boldface items are (use your knowledge of vocabulary, meaning, and structure to further help you):
Behold! Potato chips! But where the day come from? Meet George Crum.
Born in Saratoga, New York in 1822, George is father was an African-American
jockey and his Native American mother was a member of the Huron tribe. Before
he said old into adulthood, George roamed across the eastern United States
working as a mount in guide and a trader. During the summer of 1853,
he began cooking at Moon’s Lakehouse, a resort in Saratoga Springs where an irate
customer would sue nin spire him to create the stuff of genius. George
wasn't the first person in the United States to fry a potato. In fact, Andrew
John so nin countered fried potatoes more than a century
earlier in France. At the time, conventional fried potatoes in the US were
thicker and meant to bee tin with a fork. When a disappointed customer
sent George's potatoes back to the kitchen, calling them soggy and tooth ick,
he got under George's skin. George recut the potatoes, but the customer still
thought they were too thick and sent them back again. Furious, George sliced
some potatoes razor-thin, and fry dem until they were completely crisp.
However, George's revenge scheme didn't exactly go is plan. The
customer loved the crispy potatoes. In fact, everyone loved them, and the
dish became a how special tea called Saratoga chips. In 1860, George
opened up his own restaurant featuring, of course, potato chips!
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(click to compare your answers with the original transcript)
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Over to You |
Here's a Fun Speaking Activity1 Based on This Funny Video: Watch the video with the sound OFF. Can you retell the story from the sequence of pictures? (give it a try with your friends and tell us in the comments what it was like:)
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Would you like to learn more Vocabulary Related to Food and Cooking? See this link
(Here's the vocabulary from this post)
Teachers can Download a pdf Copy of the post HERE
1 This kind of exercise is certainly challenging, but also fun and rewarding. Using animated videos to retell a story 'in your own words' (and occasionally with help from the listening passage you've already heard) can contribute a great deal to improving your spoken English.↩
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