Food and Meals
Learn 20 easy A1 English words for food and meals - bread, rice, chicken, spicy, delicious - with examples, a short story and a quiz.
Food is the safest subject in the world: everybody has an opinion and nobody gets angry. These 20 words give you the basics – what is on the table, how it is cooked, and how it tastes. Learn them, then come to my grandmother’s house for Friday lunch.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/fuːd/
Everything people eat. Uncountable – never foods at this level.
The food in this restaurant is very good.
/miːl/
The food you eat at one time: breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Dinner is my favourite meal of the day.
/bred/
Made from flour and water and cooked in an oven. Uncountable.
We eat bread with every meal.
/raɪs/
Small white or brown grains. You boil it in water.
I cooked rice and chicken.
/miːt/
Food that comes from an animal, like lamb or beef.
My sister does not eat meat.
/ˈtʃɪkɪn/
The bird, and also the meat from it.
We had chicken and rice for lunch.
/fɪʃ/
An animal that lives in water, and the food from it. Plural is also fish.
Fresh fish is expensive here.
/eɡ/
The round white or brown thing from a bird. You can boil or fry it.
I eat one egg for breakfast.
/tʃiːz/
A yellow or white food made from milk. Uncountable.
Bread and white cheese is a normal breakfast here.
/suːp/
Hot liquid food that you eat with a spoon.
My grandfather has soup every day, even in July.
/ˈsæləd/
A cold dish of vegetables, usually with oil and lemon.
Can you make the salad, please?
/sɔːlt/
The small white grains that make food less sweet and more tasty.
This soup needs a little more salt.
/ˈʃʊɡə(r)/
The sweet white grains you put in tea and cakes. Say SHUG-er.
No sugar in my coffee, thank you.
/ɔɪl/
The yellow liquid you cook with, from olives or seeds.
Put a little olive oil on the salad.
/dɪˈlɪʃəs/
Extremely good to eat.
Your cake was delicious.
/swiːt/
Tastes like sugar.
This tea is too sweet for me.
/ˈspaɪsi/
Has a hot, strong taste from pepper or chilli.
I like my food very spicy.
/freʃ/
New, not old. Made or picked today.
The fresh bread arrives at seven in the morning.
/fraɪ/
To cook something in hot oil.
My mother will fry the fish.
/bɔɪl/
To cook something in very hot water.
Boil the rice for twelve minutes.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Friday Lunch
In my family, Friday is not a day. It is a meal. At eleven o’clock my grandmother opens her door, and the whole building already smells of food.
My grandmother and my aunt start early. They boil the rice in the biggest pot in the house, and they fry the chicken in hot oil until it is golden brown. My uncle goes to the market at seven and comes back with fish, because he says the fresh fish is always finished by nine.
On the table there is warm bread, white cheese, a green salad with lemon, and one bowl of soup for my grandfather, who eats soup in July as well. There is also a small plate of boiled egg and tomato that nobody ever eats. My aunt does not cook meat any more, so there is one dish with vegetables only, and it is always the first dish to finish.
The rules of this table are simple. My grandmother puts too much salt in everything and tells everybody she put none. My cousin puts four spoons of sugar in his tea and looks at you while he does it. The youngest cousin wants his food very spicy; my grandfather wants nothing spicy at all, so there are two sauces on the table, one red and one white, and they never move.
At the end my grandmother asks the same question she asks every week: “Was it good?” And we all answer with the same word: delicious. Then she brings something very sweet with the coffee, and everybody says they have no space for it, and everybody eats it.
The big one: uncountable food. These words have no plural and never take a: bread, rice, cheese, meat, fish, food, soup, salt, sugar, oil. So we say:
I bought some bread. (not a bread or breads)
Would you like a piece of cheese?
There is a lot of rice.
To count them, use a container or a piece: a loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, a bowl of soup, a spoon of sugar.
Pronunciation: sugar begins with the ش sound: SHUG-er, not SOO-gar. And delicious has the stress on the middle: de-LI-shus.
On the table: food, meal, bread, rice, meat, chicken, fish, egg, cheese, soup, salad.
Added to it: salt, sugar, oil.
How you cook it: fry, boil.
How you describe it: delicious, sweet, spicy, fresh.
Say one sentence out loud: Last night I ate ______ , and it was ______ . Then say what you never eat and why.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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