Unit 3  Reading for writing 2

Food across borders

1  The history of foods is never simple. Think of ice cream. Many people see it as a Western dessert. However, this sweet treat actually came from China! In the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese people began to store winter ice to enjoy in summer. In the Song Dynasty, people started to make binglao — it just means “ice cream” in English. It was a lot like modern ice cream. Folk tales have it that Emperor Huizong suffered from stomach pains after eating too much ice. In the Yuan Dynasty, Marco Polo tasted binglao and carried the idea all the way back to Europe. People there added heavy cream and new tastes. The rest is history!                       

2  Sometimes, totally different cultures have similar dishes. Iranians love a kind of flat bread, sangak. People in Shaanxi, China, love stone pancakes. These two look almost the same! People often compare roujiamo to hamburgers, a symbol of American food. Many people call it the “Chinese hamburger”. But in fact, arepas of Venezuela look more like the twin brother of roujiamo!

3  Food is a bridge between cultures. When foods cross borders, sweet things can happen.