I. Read the text and translate it in writing

Cuisine (from French cuisine, "cooking;

Culinary art; kitchen"; ultimately from Latin coquere, "to cook") is a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a specific culture. Religious food laws can also exercise a strong influence on cuisine. A cuisine is

primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade. For example, the American-Chinese dish chop suey clearly reflected the adaptation of Chinese cuisine to the ingredients available in North America.

The last century has produced enormous improvements in food production, preservation, storage and shipping. Today almost every locale in the world has access to not only its traditional cuisine, but also to many other world cuisines as well. New cuisines are constantly evolving, as certain aesthetics rise and fall in popularity among professional chefs and their clientèle. Nevertheless, French cooking techniques have been a major influence on virtually all Western cuisines.

In addition to food, a cuisine is also often held to include beverages, including wine, liquor, tea, coffee and other drinks. Increasingly, experts hold that it further includes the raw ingredients and original plants and animals from which they come. The Slow Food movement is a global effort to preserve local plants, animals, and techniques of food preparation. It has 70,000 adherents in 50 countries (mainly in the Latin countries of Europe).

There are also different cultural attitudes to food, for example:

· In India, consumption of food is regarded as an offering, a Yajna. Thus the stomach is considered to be a homakunda (holy fire) and all the food consumed is an offering to the holy fire.

· In Japan, tea drinking is a fine art and there is an elaborate ceremony about it. Not drinking tea in the right way is considered to be an act of barbarism.

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

It is interesting to know ….

Russian cuisine derives its rich and varied character from the vast and multicultural expanse of Russia. Its foundations were laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, with a combination of plentiful fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, berries, and honey. Crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet provided the ingredients for a plethora of breads, pancakes, cereals, kvass, beer, and vodka. Flavourful soups and stews centred on seasonal or storable produce, fish, and meats. This wholly native food remained the staples for the vast majority of Russians well into the 20th century. Lying on the northern reaches of the ancient Silk Road, as well as Russia's close proximity to the Caucasus, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire has provided an inescapable Eastern character to its cooking methods (not so much in European Russia but distinguishable in the North Caucasus).

Russia's great expansions of territory, influence, and interest during the 16th-18th centuries brought more refined foods and culinary techniques. It was during this period that smoked meats and fish, pastry cooking, salads and green vegetables, chocolate, ice cream, wines, and liquor were imported from abroad. At least for the urban aristocracy and provincial gentry, this opened the doors for the creative integration of these new foodstuffs with traditional Russian dishes. The result is extremely varied in technique, seasoning, and combination.

From the time of Catherine the Great, every family of influence imported both the products and personnel - mainly German, Austrian, and French - to bring the finest, most rare, and most creative foods to their table. This is nowhere more evident than in the exciting, elegant, highly nuanced, and decadent repertoire of the Franco-Russian chef. Many of the foods that are considered in the West to be traditionally Russian actually come from the Franco-Russian cuisine of the 18th and 19th centuries and include such widespread dishes as Veal Orloff, Beef Stroganoff, and Sharlotka (Charlotte Russe).