YES, it's possible - Food & Drink at C1/C2 (Advanced) Level of English!

C1 food and drink, captions

Hello lovely students and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Here's a question for you.

When you learn another language, when you start to learn English, what is one

of the first topics you want to learn about, apart from swear words?

Food and drink, obviously.

You take them off, you learn the basic vocabulary and then you forget about them.

I want to bring them back.

Today we're going to learn food and drink, C1 to C2 advanced level.

You may have seen I've just done this with daily routines.

That was so fun.

We're going to do it again, but with food and drink.

In the daily routine video, we focus more on grammar.

Today we're going to focus more on vocabulary.

I'm going to tell you a story and in this story, this very advanced story,

there are 22 vocabulary words and phrases that are of a C1 to C2 level of English.

As always, there's a free PDF that goes with this lesson.

It will contain everything we discussed today, plus lots of extra information

and a quiz to test your understanding.

I'm also going to give you my C1 ebook that contains everything you need to

know to master the C1 level of English, all of the grammar, all of the vocabulary.

If you would like to download the PDF and the ebook, just click on the link

in the description box.

You enter your name and your email address.

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It's a free service and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Let's get started with the lesson.

And I must say, when you get to a really advanced level of English,

people like to say in the comments section, but

people don't talk like this in real life.

I agree with you.

Lots of people don't, and it's not necessary.

I would say reaching B2 is the level that allows you to really exist in

English.

C1 is when you are completely fluent to the point where you can have very

nuanced conversations.

The vocabulary we'll discuss today is the kind of vocabulary you might find

in a piece of creative writing or you might use

with someone who is a real foodie or cooking enthusiast.

Okay, let's start.

I consider myself a bit of a foodie, but I'm definitely not a food snob.

I'm just as happy tucking into a simple homemade meal as I am polishing off a

Michelin-starred work of art.

On a normal day, when I wake up, I force myself to

gulp down a big glass of water before I indulge my caffeine addiction and brew

an aromatic cup of coffee.

That first swig always hits the spot.

Fellow caffeine addicts, raise your hands.

Sometimes I like to work up an appetite before breakfast by going for a run.

Other times I can't wait and I gobble down

a steaming bowl of porridge immediately.

Okay, here are some of the vocabulary I want to pick out.

The first is the phrasal verb, to tuck in or to tuck into.

This means to start eating enthusiastically.

After hours of preparation, everyone was ready to tuck into the roast dinner.

The next one, to polish off, another phrasal verb.

This means to finish all of something, especially food.

I always imagine polishing a plate because it's so clean because you've

eaten everything.

I can't believe you polished off that entire pizza by yourself.

And next, to gulp down, another phrasal verb.

This means to drink very quickly.

After a run, I often gulp down a big glass of juice.

And to gulp is to swallow.

It sounds the same, gulp.

The next is a verb, to brew, which means to make coffee or tea by adding

hot water to the beans or the bag.

The highlight of my morning is the fresh pot of coffee my husband brews every

day.

Sometimes we will call a cup of coffee or a cup of tea a brew.

Do you fancy a brew, as a noun?

Next, we had an adjective, aromatic.

Aromatic.

And please focus on the pronunciation here.

Aroma as a noun, aromatic.

This means having a pleasant and distinctive smell.

Spices like cardamom and cinnamon make curry an aromatic dish.

Note that we can use it sarcastically.

If I smell a dirty sock, I might say, very aromatic, meaning it stinks.

Number six, this is a noun, a swig.

It means an amount of something that you drink quickly.

And it can also be used as a verb, meaning to have a large, quick mouthful

of a liquid or gulp of a drink.

After reaching the peak of the mountain, he took a big swig from his

flask of iced tea.

We take a swig.

You can say to have a swig, but take is the stronger collocation.

We could also say he swigged from his flask of iced tea, slightly less common.

Number seven, nice phrase here, to work up an appetite.

To work up an appetite.

This means to do something, normally strenuous, that makes you feel hungry.

I was gardening all morning and I really worked up an appetite.

And the final one, a nice slang phrasal verb, to gobble down, to gobble down.

So to gobble means to eat quickly, to

gobble down, to eat very quickly with lots of swallowing.

It's just an emphasis here.

This particle doesn't really change the meaning of

the verb.

A bit like with to sit and to sit down.

There's no real changing.

We're just emphasising the direction of the action.

The food is going down.

We sit down.

An example, my dog always gobbles down his dinner as soon as I give it to him.

That is so true.

He really does gobble down.

There's no better verbal phrasal verb to describe it.

Okay.

Next part of the story.

When I have time, I love nothing more than whipping up some dishes in the kitchen.

When I was in Tuscany recently, I learnt to make this incredibly

flavoursome pasta sauce.

The ingredients are so simple, but fresh and it's mouthwatering.

I love cooking one-pot meals too, because they're so easy and there's

minimal clean-up.

Speaking of, we're very lucky to have a dog who hoovers up any stray crumbs, so

our kitchen is usually pretty clean.

Okay.

That was a lot of good vocab in that passage.

So let's have a look.

Number nine, we have to whip up, to whip up.

This is a nice slang phrasal verb.

It means to cook something quickly, especially using whatever ingredients

you have to hand.

Don't worry, everyone.

I'm going to whip up a gourmet feast of beans on toast.

Beans on toast is a really typical

British meal when you don't have any food in the house.

We nearly always have a tin of Heinz baked beans, or actually now with

inflation, we're buying supermarket brand ones and toast.

So beans on toast is a very common.

Oh, I don't know what to make.

I don't have anything.

I'll make beans on toast.

Next, number 10 is flavoursome.

Flavoursome, which means delicious and full of flavour.

Notice the pronunciation, two schwa sounds there.

Flavoursome.

Flavoursome.

The source proved incredibly flavoursome, transforming the mundane

dish into a culinary masterpiece.

Next, we have the adjective mouthwatering.

Mouthwatering, which describes food that looks so good, you want to eat it

right then.

They served up a mouthwatering dish that tasted just as good

as it looked.

Next, something I love to make, a one- pot meal.

A one-pot meal.

This is a meal that can be cooked in one pot, and I want to draw your

attention to how I pronounced it.

Instead of saying one pot, I said one-pot.

This is a feature of connected speech called assimilation.

We cover pronunciation in great detail in my C1 programme too.

So you get lots of vocabulary grammar, but we also really focus on the

speaking skills, conversation, pronunciation.

An example, the beauty of a one-pot meal is that there's barely any washing

up to do afterwards.

And the final one for this section is crumb, usually seen in the plural

because there's almost always more than one.

A crumb is a very small piece of bread, cake, or biscuit, or food in general,

that has fallen off.

Get a plate, you're dropping crumbs everywhere.

Next part.

According to my husband, Will, my best dish is a chicken recipe by Ottolenghi,

one of my favourite chefs.

Whenever I make it, Will practically inhales it.

It's incredibly moreish, too, so we never have leftovers.

What about my favourite foods?

Some of you may know that I adore fruit, especially watermelon, but I

also love blue cheese, especially some good Stilton.

It's got quite a pungent smell, and I would say it's an acquired taste, but

it's really yummy.

I always put it out when I do nibbles, when guests are coming over.

Okay, let's have a look at the vocabulary.

First up, number 14, to inhale, to inhale.

This means to breathe in, literally.

However, in the context of food, it means to eat very quickly.

He was so hungry, he seemed to inhale his sandwich.

The next is a lovely adjective, moreish, moreish.

This describes something that is so delicious, you want more of it.

This cake is so moreish; I can't stop eating it.

Next, I love this one, the adjective pungent, pungent.

I love the phonemes ng, ng together, pungent.

I feel it's so descriptive.

It's not normally a very positive adjective, because it means having a

very strong smell or taste, normally smell.

When we're talking about blue cheese, though, that's a good thing, that's

what we pay for.

An example, the durian fruit has quite a pungent smell.

Next, I talked about something being an acquired taste, which means something

that you might not like at first, but you start to enjoy over time.

Olives are an acquired taste, and children often don't like them.

I used to pretend to like olives as a child, because I wanted to sit with the

adults and have nibbles, and that was often the only thing on offer.

And if I stopped eating, they'd send me to bed.

And the final word was the noun nibbles, which means small items of

food that are normally eaten with your fingers.

You will often see them on restaurant menus.

Nibbles, then starters, mains, desserts.

We also have the verb to nibble, which means to take a small bite of something.

And if you have a nibble of something, again, you take a small bite.

But nibbles in general, little snacks, you normally eat with your fingers.

I put out some nibbles like cheese and crackers before dinner.

Okay, last part of the story.

Will and I also love eating out.

If I know we're going somewhere special, I make sure to not spoil my

appetite beforehand.

Even so, my eyes are often bigger than my stomach, and I end up with too much food.

Doggy bags aren't much of a thing in the UK, but I wish they were.

I always walk out of a completely stuffed.

Okay, finally, here are four more words and phrases to finish off this video.

Number 19 is to spoil one's appetite, to spoil one's appetite.

And this means to eat something before a meal that causes you to fill up or

not feel hungry.

Don't have that chocolate bar, it'll spoil your appetite.

Next, one's eyes are bigger than one's stomach.

If your eyes are bigger than your stomach, it means you order or put too

much food on your plate and you can't finish it.

I always have eyes bigger than my stomach at a buffet.

I want to pile my plate with absolutely everything, and then when I start

eating, I realise I've taken way too much.

An example, sorry, I really can't finish this.

My eyes were bigger than my stomach.

The next phrase, and this one might surprise you, is doggy bag, doggy bag.

And this is a bag or a box you get from a restaurant to take home your

leftovers in.

And it's more common in the US.

It's becoming more of a thing in the UK.

When I went to the US, I was really shocked at how big their portions were.

But when I mentioned it to my American friends, they said, don't judge us

because we take almost everything home with us at the end of the meal and we

have it as leftovers in our fridge.

And it made perfect sense for me.

In the UK, I would say we are more inclined and often pushed by our

parents to finish everything on our plate.

An example, could I have a doggy bag, please?

It was delicious, just a huge portion.

And the final word I want to talk about is the adjective stuffed, which means

very full.

I couldn't eat another bite;

I'm absolutely stuffed.

Okay, that's it for your C1 food and drink lesson.

I really hope you enjoyed it.

I hope you learnt something new.

Don't forget to download the PDF and the C1 ebook.

The link is in the description box.

If you're interested in taking a C1 level course with me, visit

englishwithlucy.com.

All of my course information is there.

It is a really cool course.

Our first cohort of students have just finished.

They've taken their final exams.

Their results have been amazing and so has their feedback.

It's starting to come in.

It's been an awesome journey with them.

If you'd like to join them, englishwithlucy.com.

That's it from me today.

I will see you soon for another lesson.