Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
My name is Catherine and it's the holiday season Marco.
People are eating large meals with their families and I think often times when you cook a lot of food you have something extra at the end.
What do we call that?
That's right.
Today we're going to talk about leftovers.
Leftovers.
That's the extra food after your meal that you eat later.
Maybe the next day.
Exactly.
So you know during Christmas or during some holidays we cook so much food that obviously we can't eat it all.
So we put it back in the refrigerator and then we eat it later.
So those are called leftovers.
Alright so let's listen to this dialogue about leftovers and we'll be back in a moment to discuss what's happening in the dialogue.
What's for dinner?
Leftovers.
What?
Leftovers of what and from when?
From last night.
I took the leftover turkey, mixed it with some diced peppers and onions, added a little bit of mayonnaise and made some sandwiches.
Isn't that dangerous though?
I mean bacteria and germs reproducing on food that was left out or reheated.
Well I didn't leave the turkey at room temperature for more than an hour and I refrigerated soon after we finished eating.
Also when reheating I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius.
Well okay.
I'm just afraid of getting food poisoning.
Don't worry about it.
Making a new meal out of leftovers is almost an art.
Not only do you save money but you also get to be creative and have something different to eat.
Alright so a lot of vocab there.
Let's take a look at it in Language Takeaway.
Language Takeaway.
Alright so Marco there's one cooking term really in this dialogue that is a little bit different from the others.
So let's start with that.
It's diced.
That's right.
We were talking about taking some peppers or diced peppers.
So when you dice a vegetable or anything that you're cooking, basically you're making little pieces, little squares almost.
That's right.
So you can cut something many different ways.
You can cut big pieces and small pieces but diced peppers.
Diced is a specific way to cut something.
It's small like you say.
Small squares.
And so in recipes you will often see this instruction.
Dice the peppers or in this case the peppers are diced.
That's right.
Alright so we took some turkey, mixed it with diced peppers and a lot of things.
And the roommate was a little bit concerned about bacteria and germs.
Alright so bacteria and germs, these sound like very scientific words.
Bacteria is something that grows on, well everything really, but if you leave food out for example it gets bacteria.
Or germs are things that can make you sick.
That's right.
And so we need to avoid these things in the kitchen because they make us unhealthy.
And so that's why we wash our hands and things like that.
But when you have food that's left out the risk is what Marco?
Is that you get bacteria or germs on it.
Yeah so it's dangerous like especially with meat.
If you leave it out it's very very dangerous because you can get some bacteria that will make you sick.
And the reason why we're a little bit concerned is especially with meat is if you leave it out after cooking it at room temperature.
Alright so room temperature is the temperature of a normal room.
Maybe it's 65 degrees or what's 25 degrees?
Celsius.
It's the temperature of the inside of a room.
And so it's not cold, it's not hot, it's just normal.
And when we leave food out, especially meat like you're saying, we have to be careful.
You can't leave it out for very long if it's something like eggs or milk or what we call perishables.
That's right so actually here comes the other two words that are a little bit of a contrast.
We're going to talk about food that is reheated or refrigerated.
Alright so the roommate is explaining, don't worry we have done these things to this food so it's safe.
So one thing you can do to food to make it safe to kill germs is to reheat it.
That means, well you know the word heated right?
It's to make something hot.
But how is that different from reheated?
Well because you cooked it already so it was warm.
Now it went a little bit cold because it's at room temperature.
So in order to make sure that it's safe to eat and you kill that bacteria, you reheat it so you kind of cook it again a little bit.
Yeah you cook it again so with leftovers we often have to reheat things.
Because they were hot, then they were cold and now we want them hot again.
That's right.
So we reheat them.
The opposite of that would be refrigerate.
Right and this is what you should do if you take something and put it in the refrigerator.
What you are doing, the verb, the action is to refrigerate it.
That's right so to refrigerate something means to make it cold.
You know there are important things that we refrigerate.
We refrigerate eggs, we refrigerate milk, we refrigerate butter.
These are things that can make us sick if we don't make them cold.
Exactly.
So those are the two words.
Now obviously it's a little bit different because the prefix to reheat means to do it again.
While to refrigerate means you're just making it cold.
Yeah well there are important terms and again we also have the adjectives.
This is reheated or refrigerated.
But there are another couple of phrases that are really important so let's take a listen to those in Fluency Builder.
Alright so the first phrase we're going to take a look at is when one of the roommates says, Hey, what's for dinner?
What's for dinner?
Alright this is a very very standard phrase.
This is something you'll hear at home, you'll hear with your friends.
It's usually something we say when someone is cooking food for dinner.
That's right.
We're asking what are we going to eat for dinner?
Mom, what's for dinner?
Exactly.
I used to say that every single day when I came home from school.
Well obviously you don't want to say the long phrase.
What are we going to have for dinner tonight?
So you just say what's for dinner?
What's for dinner?
And then the answer would be lasagna or turkey sandwiches.
Right, exactly.
Now when they started talking about the leftover turkey, he was a little bit concerned as we said about bacteria and germs because it usually happens that you get this on food that was left out.
Alright so the verb here is to leave out, to leave something out.
It means to leave something or put something at room temperature.
Right.
So Marco you and I are eating turkey, it's Thanksgiving and we start to have coffee and dessert and the turkey is still in the room at room temperature.
We did not refrigerate it.
That means it was left out.
How long was it left out?
Well maybe two hours.
Right.
Okay that means it's not in a refrigerator.
That's right.
That's exactly what it means.
So maybe you go to sleep and you left the turkey out.
It's still on the table maybe at room temperature.
Oh no we can't eat it if we left it out for like 12 hours.
Exactly.
Alright so it's not good to leave food out.
And now what happens is if you do eat food that was left out for too long, you could get food poisoning.
Now this is very serious and it's something that you should be very careful about when you're cooking.
Food poisoning is getting sick from your food.
Right.
There are different kinds of food poisoning but usually it makes you throw up, it makes your stomach hurt, it's quite painful.
That's right.
And so this is why we say you should wash your hands before you cook, you should make sure that you refrigerate meat because you want to avoid food poisoning.
That's right.
And it comes from the noun poison, a poison, which is something that is harmful for your body.
That's right.
There are many different kinds of poison but food poisoning means becoming sick, your body getting sick after you eat something bad.
That's right.
Alright so a lot of great stuff here.
Here we can review everything one last time.
Alright, so this is actually good advice about leftovers, about how to eat food, about� Well, okay.
I'm just afraid of getting food poisoning.
Well, okay.
I'm just afraid of getting food poisoning.
Don't worry about it.
Making a new meal out of leftovers is almost an art.
Not only do you save money but you also get to be creative and have something different to eat.
All right, so this is actually good advice about leftovers, about having something to eat.
But at the same time, I don't know how many people actually are very careful with these things.
For example, pizza.
Sometimes you leave pizza out on the table all night and the next morning you have some pizza.
I always refrigerate my pizza.
I know people who leave their pizza out and then eat it, but there's cheese and sausage and you know, you want to refrigerate that stuff.
So I always wrap it in plastic and put it on a plate in the fridge.
Oh, okay, you wrap it in plastic.
Well because in the refrigerator there's also germs, so you need to make sure you cover your food.
Right, right, right.
And what about, have you ever had a bad case of food poisoning because of having leftovers?
No, I've had food poisoning but not because of leftovers because as I said before, you know, I wrap things, I put them in the refrigerator.
I'm very careful because I don't want to get sick or I don't want to get other people sick because you know, Thanksgiving or Christmas, you have to give food to many other people and you know, I don't want to make anyone sick.
And actually you can get food poisoning not only from leftovers but from maybe food that maybe was expired, like sometimes cheese maybe can be expired, you didn't realize it and you know, you get food poisoning.
Or from people who are cooking with things that are not clean.
So you have something that's not clean or food that's not fresh and it makes you very sick, that's food poisoning.
That's right.
So it's an interesting thing especially with like I said, so many holidays where you cook so much food that people have a lot of leftovers and not only that but even at restaurants, maybe you order too much so you have leftovers you want to take home to your dog or to have later.
I love leftovers.
Yeah.
Let us know, do you have leftovers in your country?
Are there things that you should and shouldn't do when cooking?
Let us know.
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