黄瓜，想说爱你不容易

对于黄瓜这种索然无味的蔬菜，英国人从来没有抱怨过。我感到很奇怪。我们为何默默接受了这种乏味的蔬菜呢？黄瓜是否都是这么无味呢？

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

mutter喃喃自语，出怨言['mʌtər]

travesty滑稽模仿，歪曲['trævəsti]

habituated习惯于……的[həˈbɪtʃueɪtɪd]

bendy易弯的；多弯的['bendi]

truncheons警棍，警棒 ['trʌntʃən]

allotment分配，配给的土地，命运[ə'lɑːtmənt]

edible可食用的

omnivores不偏食的人，杂食动物['ɑːmnɪvɔːr]

bland乏味的；温和的[blænd]

Why don't we complain about cucumbers?（702 words）

By Bee Wilson

Slicing into a watery cucumber, it struck me that I have almost never heard anyone in Britain complain about the vegetable (or fruit). Every summer I can remember, people have been saying that tomatoes are not what they used to be. But cucumbers we just accept as they are: as insipid as watermelon without the sweetness. Like so many other foods, especially if they are cheap, cucumbers are something we don't even expect to be flavourful.

Tomatoes are unusual in that we still have a dim folk memory of something better. I've lost track of the times I've heard someone mutter that the average tomato — a squelchy red balloon bred for disease resistance not pleasure — is a travesty compared with the sun-ripe ones they remember from childhood or from holidays in Italy. This is true. And maybe our complaining has worked because tomatoes that actually taste of something — whether cherry ones on the vine or heirloom varieties from a farmers' market — are far easier to find than a few years ago.

Good mass-market cucumbers, on the other hand, are as rare as hen's teeth, yet even those of us who claim to be cucumber lovers seem unfussed by the situation. “We have forgotten the taste of a good cucumber,” writes Jessica Seaton in Gather Cook Feast: Recipes from Land and Water, a collection of recipes celebrating the connection between food and the land. Seaton notes that we have become “habituated” to the “hydroponically grown, ramrod-straight, selected-for-shelf-life versions”. Some years ago, Seaton visited Tusheti National Park in Georgia and tasted cucumbers that had been grown in “black, rich soil” and were “intensely cucumber-y, tasting like a memory of a cucumber I have never had”.

Our problem with cucumbers is that we have lost our knowledge of anything better. Gardeners are among the few who realise that those slightly bendy plastic-wrapped truncheons are not all that a cucumber can be. I have a friend who grows ridged cucumbers on her allotment that convinced me my previous notion of the vegetable was faulty. Her ones have a sweet-bitter flavour, subtle but noticeable, and the crunch is so loud it's as if you have suddenly turned up the volume. As for bought cucumbers, the most “cucumber-y” ones I have found are either the tiny ones in Asian grocers (which are more concentrated in taste, because they have less water) or the strong-tasting Italian ridge ones sold by Natoora (via Ocado). Yet the latter have very mixed reviews, with several unhappy shoppers finding them far too bitter. We are so brainwashed by watery hothouse cucumbers that a flavourful one can be shocking.

Does it matter if we have forgotten what certain foods should taste like if the not-good versions give us pleasure? Maybe not. But I can't shake the thought that keeping our senses awake to which foods are the most edible is a basic part of being human. This sensory awareness is how omnivores stay alive. A watery cucumber causes little damage, except to make a salad bland. But what happens when we stop recognising bad food when it is right in front of our noses?

It's not just cucumbers whose taste we have forgotten. Chef Dan Barber, in his 2014 book The Third Plate, argues that “we've lost the taste of wheat”. Ordinary consumers of bread a few centuries ago were so discerning they could tell when bread had been made from one type of wheat rather than another. To the average consumer now, wheat flour is not something that is even meant to have a taste. No wonder we can't always tell the difference between something dodgy marketed as a “health food” and something fresh and unpackaged that might actually do us good. Half the time, we don't have a clue what we are eating.

When we stop knowing what food should taste like and trust words on a label instead, we make ourselves easy prey. Cyrus Redding, an expert on wine fraud in the 19th century, said that the best protection against fraudulent wine was “a perfect acquaintance with that which is good”. The same is true of food. It's when we forget what we are even missing that we are in trouble.

1.Today tasteful tomatoes are far easy to find than a few years ago because____

A.it is easier to purchase sun-ripe tomatoes from Italy.

B.there are more tasty tomatoes on the market.

C.we haven't forgotten the taste of a good tomato.

D.now mass-market tomatoes are delicious.

答案(1)

2.From the article we can learn that____

A.cucumbers in Italy are more flavourful, because they have less water.

B.cucumbers in Asian have very mixed reviews.

C.watery hothouse cucumbers are usually tasteless.

D.nowadays people can no longer tell the difference between a tasteful cucumber and a flavourless one.

答案(2)

3.The author complains about cucumbers because____?

A.mass-market cucumbers are not so delicious as they used to be.

B.shoppers finding them far too bitter.

C.cucumbers are neither flavourful nor sweet.

D.cucumbers are not something that is even meant to have a taste.

答案(3)

4.The writer's purpose in writing this story is___?

A.to explain why cucumbers are insipid.

B.to introduce the history of breeding cucumber.

C.to indicate that we have gradually lost the discerning taste of food.

D.to show that he has a perfect acquaintance with flavourful food.

答案(4)

(1)答案：C.we haven't forgotten the taste of a good tomato.

解释：也许我们的抱怨有了效果，如今，无论是樱桃番茄还是原枝番茄，想买到美味的都比以前更容易。

(2)答案：C.watery hothouse cucumbers are usually tasteless.

解释：我们已经被潮湿的温室培育出的黄瓜完全洗脑，以至于在吃到美味的黄瓜时会深感震惊。

(3)答案：C.cucumbers are neither flavourful nor sweet.

解释：黄瓜像西瓜一样平淡无味，还没有西瓜的甜。

(4)答案：C.to indicate that we have gradually lost the discerning taste of food.

解释：我们已经失去了敏感的味觉，而是依靠标签上的文字来辨别食物的好坏。