Heinz has launched a 12 days of ‘saucemas’ Advent calendar.

Buyers are told: “It’s the season to drizzle and dip!

“Get ready to celebrate the festive season with Heinz 12 Days of Saucemas Calendar, a calendar for the truly obsauced!

“Behind each door lies a full-sized Heinz 220ml sauce, ready to add a special touch to your festive culinary creations.

” Elevate your pigs in blankets with Heinz Tomato Ketchup or add a kick to your leftover sandwiches with Heinz [Seriously Good] Mayonnaise.

“Transform your holiday burgers with our rich and herby Burger Sauce and bring your party platters to life with the sweet heat of Heinz Sweet Chilli Sauce.

“Whether you’re hosting a festive gathering or enjoying cozy meals with family or friends, this calendar offers endless possibilities to make your dishes truly memorable.”

One person said on social media: “This is all I want for Christmas Day.”

“And every single day.”

source: The Sun

Fill in the gaps with the words from the table. There is one extra.

elevate, unveil, dip, launch, host, offer

1. The company will ………….. new models next year.
2. The university is planning to ………… an international conference.
3. She wanted to ……….. strawberries into melted chocolate.
4. The store manager decided to ……… discount on all autumn clothing.
5. The artist will ………….. his new painting at the gallery opening.

key: 1. launch 2. host 3. dip 4. offer 5. unveil;

I’ve got an idea for a Heinz ketchup commercial. I was at this super posh restaurant. Super posh. The type of place that has chandeliers and paintings on the wall and way too many forks. I think classical music was playing. Maybe it was jazz. Nah, definitely classical.

The hostess walks up to me and she says, Mr. Sheeran, is this your first time dining with us? And I say, yep. The waiter comes over. He’s telling me about the specials.

Super fancy. Fancy vegetables, fancy sauces. It sounds fancy. So fast forward. And the food comes.

The waiter goes on to tell me, we are proud to present this farm to table blah, blah, blah, posh and fancy, blah, blah, blah, with a side. Blah, blah, blah.

You know, the food looked good. I just thought there was something missing. So I reach into my bag and I take out the only thing that can complete me. And at that point, the whole world came to a stop in the way to screaming through his eyes. So that’s my idea. Do you want to do it?

posh – menő, elegáns
chandelier – csillár
definitely – határozottan
fancy – előkelő, elegáns

You know it’s a hamburger’s best friend, but do you know these tasty nuggets about the king of condiments?

1. TOMATOES HAVEN’T ALWAYS BEEN A KEY PLAYER.

The first recorded recipe for ketchup hails from 544 A.D. China (where the fish-based sauce was referred to by sailors as ke-tchup), which calls for “the intestine, stomach, and bladder of the yellow fish, shark and mullet,” and 20 days of incubation under summer sunlight before it’s ready for consumption. In the spring or fall, increase that incubation period to 50 days—or 100 days during winter.

2. EUROPEAN EXPLORERS TOOK IT HOME.

According to The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, British travelers developed a taste for the sauce and tried to replicate it back home, but they ran into a snag: soybeans were crucial ingredients in the Asian version, and they weren’t grown in Europe. In place of soy, European chefs experimented with oysters, walnuts, and mushrooms as bases, none of which sound like tasty accompaniments for fries. (Jane Austen, a mushroom ketchup devotee, would disagree.)

3. AMERICANS MAY HAVE ADDED THE TOMATOES.

Despite the difficulty Europeans had in replicating soy-based ketchup, they weren’t ready to take the plunge into tomato ketchup. The major stumbling block: for centuries, Europeans labored under the misconception that tomatoes were poisonous.

Americans were more willing to dabble with the fruit. The first known written recipe for tomato ketchup came from Philadelphia horticulturist James Mease in 1812. Mease’s recipe included spices, brandy, and, of course, tomatoes, which the scientist referred to as “love apples.”

4. KETCHUP WAS A MIRACLE DRUG.

In 1834, Ohio physician Dr. John Cook Bennett took to the newspapers to herald tomatoes as a cure-all for “just about everything from dyspepsia to cholera.” As part of this campaign, the good doctor published recipes for tomato-based ketchup.

5. THE EARLY GOING WAS ROUGH.

Ketchup earned a nasty reputation in the 1860s when unscrupulous makers used excessive preservatives to give the condiment its iconic red coloring. In 1866, French cookbook author Pierre Blot penned a warning against ketchup, calling it “filthy, decomposed, and putrid,” and stating his convictions that “many cases of debility and consumption” come from “eating such stuff.”  

You can’t keep a good condiment down, though. The Oxford Companion points out that by the close of the 19th century, tomato ketchup had become an American staple. A 1901 study found that Connecticut shoppers had access to a whopping 94 brands of ketchup.

6. HEINZ MADE WAY MORE THAN 57 VARIETIES.

Henry J. Heinz saw an advertisement for 21 styles of shoes while riding a New York City train in 1896 and was inspired to create similar branding for his own company. Even though Heinz’s company manufactured more than 60 products, the condiment entrepreneur went with “57 Varieties,” an amalgam of his own lucky number, 5, and his wife’s, 7.

7. HEINZ’S 57 HAS ANOTHER NON-MARKETING USE.

That “57” isn’t just clever branding—it’s also a key component of a life hack for easing more ketchup out of the classic Heinz glass bottles. According to the company, applying a “firm tap to the sweet spot on the bottle—the 57” is the trick for getting ketchup to flow. Don’t feel left out if this is news to you; Heinz claims only 11 percent of ketchup connoisseurs are clued in to the trick.

8. KETCHUP ISN’T GOING TO WIN ANY RACES.

Speaking of the classic glass Heinz bottle: ketchup flows out of the vessel at a rate of 0.028 miles per hour. For comparison, a typical garden snail moves at a zippy 0.03 miles per hour.

9. ILLINOIS IS A HOTBED OF KETCHUP WORLD RECORDS.  

Collinsville, Illinoisproudly boasts two ketchup-related world records: the world’s largest ketchup bottle sits within the city’s confines. The behemoth bottle is 170 feet tall and was built in 1949 for Collinsville’s G.S. Suppiger ketchup-bottling plant. The city also made the world’s largest ketchup packet in 2007; Heinz donated 4,000 glass ketchup bottles for the mammoth packet, which held 127 gallons of ketchup.  

10. AMERICANS REALLY, REALLY LOVE KETCHUP.

According to The Oxford Companion, Americans slather 10 billion ounces of ketchup on their food each year—that’s roughly three bottles of ketchup for every man, woman, and child.

10 tény, 10 kérdés. Ismételjük át, hogy mit is tudtunk meg a ketchupról. Válaszolj a kérdésekre magyarul!

1. Honnan származik a ketchup?

2. Melyik összetevőjét nem tudták pótolni Európában?

3. Mit használtak helyette az amerikaiak?

4. Miért nem próbálkoztak az európaiak ezzel az összetevővel?

5. Miért tett szert rossz hírnévre a ketchup a 19. században?

6. Miért lett 57 változata a Heinz ketchupnak?

7. Hogyan lehet a legjobban a Heinz ketchupot kiszedni az üvegből?

8. Mihez hasonlítható sebességgel folyik ki a Heinz ketchup az üvegből?

9. Mekkora a világ legmagasabb ketchupos üvege?

10. Mennyi ketchupot fogyaszt el egy átlagos amerikai évente?

Válaszok:

1. Kínából.

2. A szójababot.

3. Paradicsomot.

4. Mert mérgezőnek gondolták.

5. Túl sok tartósítószert használtak fel hozzá.

6. Henry Heinz szerencseszáma 5 volt, a feleségéé pedig 7.

7. Az üvegen levő 57-es számot kell megütögetni.

8. A csiga sebességénél éppen csak egy kicsit lassabb.

9. 170 láb (51 méter) magas.

10. Három üvegnyit.

Ketchup is one of America’s favorite condiments, but its history and acceptance over the years isn’t as straightforward as its current popularity would have you believe.

Here are 10 things you may not know about ketchup.

Number 10. It didn’t always contain tomatoes. The origins of the condiment are believed to hail from a Chinese fish sauce that dates back to about 300 BCE. Tomatoes didn’t enter the picture until the early 1800’s, when a few recipes started showing up.

Number 9. Its status was upgraded during the Great Depression. During those very lean years, ketchup was elevated from topping and dip to main course. It was common to mix it with hot water and serve it as a soup.

Number 8. Ketchup makes a good household cleaner. That is, as long as you stick to putting it on things prone to staining. It’s particularly effective for removing tarnish, cleaning silverware, and polishing up pennies.

Number 7. The condiment was once more trusted than fresh tomatoes. In the 1800s people still believed that if eaten raw, the fresh fruit-slash-vegetable could be deadly. Eating ones that had been heated and loaded up with vinegar and spices was deemed a much safer route.

Number 6. Only about 10 percent of the ketchup-eating world knows the ‘57’ trick. If you’re one of the remaining 90, here it is. Next time you’re having trouble getting a glass bottle of Heinz to give up its contents, tap the neck right where the raised 5 and 7 are. Applying the ideal amount of force may take some practice so don’t give up too soon.

Number 5. The world’s largest bottle is in Collinsville, Illinois. There’s no ketchup in it, but if there were it would probably amount to around 640 thousand bottles. The 70-foot tall container was used as a water tower for many years.

Number 4. Ketchup and garden snails move at the same pace. When the condiment, specifically of the Heinz variety, is making its way out of a traditional glass bottle it travels at a speed of .028 miles per hour. That’s also the snail’s average rate of travel.

Number 3. Heinz invented its own tomato. Through the use of traditional techniques, the company created a special hybrid that stays ripe longer and is resistant to a number of diseases. Each year they provide over 4 and a half billion of the seeds to farmers around the world.

Number 2. Banana ketchup is more than a fad. It was first made in the Philippines during World War 2. At the time, tomatoes were scarce in the area, so condiment makers reached instead for something plentiful – bananas. The version has been popular there since and is now making the rounds among American foodies.

Number 1. Putting ketchup on hot dogs is frowned upon in Chicago. At some highly regarded dining establishments it’s flat-out prohibited. The no-ketchup argument is fueled mostly by the belief that a good-quality dog doesn’t need it. Tomatoes, however, are perfectly acceptable as a topping.

source: Geobeats

Teacher receives £230,000 after slipping on ketchup at secondary school

A teacher who slipped on a discarded ketchup sachet has been awarded £230,000 (about 86.5 million HUF) in compensation. The man was walking towards the staff room when he lost his footing on an ‘unspecified gooey substance’, suffering a severe injury. It has now emerged the substance was tomato ketchup.

The settlement was paid by Essex county council. It was revealed in a freedom of information request, although the secondary school where the incident took place has yet to be named. The sum was part of more than £1million of compensation payments made to injured teachers by the council over the past three years.

A teachers’ union spokesman rejected suggestions of a ‘compensation culture’ in schools. Jerry Glazier said: ‘As a union we will support members who pursue claims for personal injury when we feel they have been poorly treated by management in schools. Schools are generally very safe environments but employers have a duty of care to protect both teachers and pupils.’

The incident occurred on March 18, 2008, but a claim was not submitted until March 10, 2011. That was just eight days before the legal time limit for personal injury claims was due to run out on the case. Experts advised the council the claim could have cost up to £500,000 if taken to trial. Other deals revealed included a £110,000 settlement to a member of staff who suffered a spinal injury after slipping on a wet floor twice in one day.

source: www.metro.co.uk

discarded – eldobott
sachet – kis zacsi (cukor, ketchup, majonéz)
compensation – kártérítés
staff room – tanári
to lose one’s footing – elveszti a lába alól a talajt
gooey – trutymós
county council – megyei tanács
freedom of information request – információszabadsági kérelem
teachers’ union – tanári szakszervezet
to support – támogatni
claim – reklamáció, igénybejelentés, kárigény
poorly treated – rosszul bánnak velük
to occur – megtörténik, bekövetkezik
to submit – leadni (kérelmet, jelentkezést)
time limit – időkorlát
to take to trial – perre vinni
spinal injury – gerincsérülés

Match the words with the definitions.

answers: 1-c 2-e 3-a 4-b 5-d

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-GB
X-NONE
X-NONE

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