Having Leftovers

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and it's the holiday season, Marco.

People are eating large meals with their families and I think oftentimes when you cook a lot

of food, you have something extra at the end.

What do we call that?

That's right.

Today we're going to talk about leftovers.

That's the extra food after your meal that you eat later, maybe the next day.

Exactly.

So, you know, during Christmas or during some holidays, we cook so much food that obviously

we can't eat it all.

So we put it back in the refrigerator and then we eat it later.

So those are called leftovers.

All right.

So let's listen to this dialogue about leftovers and we'll be back in a moment to discuss what's

happening in the dialogue.

What's for dinner?

Leftovers.

What?

Leftovers of what and from when?

From last night.

I took the leftover turkey, mixed it with some diced peppers and onions, add a little

bit of mayonnaise and made some sandwiches.

Isn't that dangerous though?

I mean, bacteria and germs reproducing on food that was left out or reheated.

Well, I didn't leave the turkey out at room temperature for more than an hour and I refrigerated

soon after we finished eating.

Also when reheating, I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius.

Well, okay.

I'm just afraid of getting food poisoning.

Don't worry about it.

Making a new meal out of leftovers is almost an art.

Not only do you save money, but you also get to be creative and have something different

to eat.

All right.

So a lot of vocab there.

Let's take a look at it in Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

All right.

So Marco, there's one cooking term really in this dialogue that is, it's a little bit

different from the others.

So let's start with that.

It's diced.

That's right.

We were talking about taking some peppers or diced peppers.

So when you dice a vegetable or anything that you're cooking, basically you're making little

pieces, little squares almost.

That's right.

So you can cut something many different ways.

You can cut big pieces and small pieces, but diced peppers, diced is a specific way to

cut something in small, like you say, small squares.

And so in recipes, you will often see this instruction, dice the peppers, or in this

case, the peppers are diced.

That's right.

All right.

So we took some turkey, mix it with diced peppers and a lot of things.

And the roommate was a little bit concerned about bacteria and germs.

All right.

So bacteria and germs, these sound like very scientific words.

Bacteria is something that grows on, well, everything really.

But if you leave food out, for example, it gets bacteria or germs are things that can

make you sick.

That's right.

So we need to avoid these things in the kitchen because they make us unhealthy.

And that's why we wash our hands and things like that.

But when you have food that's left out, the risk is what, Marco?

Is that you get bacteria or germs on it.

Yeah.

So it's dangerous, especially with meat.

If you leave it out, it's very, very dangerous because you can get some bacteria that will

make you sick.

And the reason why we're a little bit concerned, especially with meats, is if you leave it

out after cooking it at room temperature.

All right.

So room temperature is the temperature of a normal room.

Maybe it's 65 degrees or what's 25 degrees Celsius.

It's the temperature of the inside of a room.

And so it's not cold, it's not hot, it's just normal.

And when we leave food out, especially meat, like you're saying, we have to be careful.

You can't leave it out for very long if it's something like eggs or milk or what we call

perishables.

That's right.

So actually, here comes the other two words that are a little bit of a contrast.

We're going to talk about food that is reheated or refrigerated.

All right.

So the roommate is explaining, don't worry, we have done these things to this food so

it's safe.

So one thing you can do to food to make it safe to kill germs is to reheat it.

That means, well, you know the word heated, right?

It's to make something hot.

How is that different from reheated?

Well, because you cooked it already, so it was warm.

Now it went a little bit cold because it's at room temperature.

So in order to make sure that it's safe to eat and you kill that bacteria, you reheat

it so you kind of cook it again a little bit.

Yeah, you cook it again.

So with leftovers, we often have to reheat things because they were hot, then they were

cold and now we want them hot again.

That's right.

So we reheat them.

The opposite of that would be refrigerate.

Right, and this is what you should do.

If you take something and put it in the refrigerator, what you are doing, the verb, the action is

to refrigerate it.

That's right.

So to refrigerate something means to make it cold.

You know, there are important things that we refrigerate.

We refrigerate eggs, we refrigerate milk, we refrigerate butter.

These are things that can make us sick if we don't make them cold.

Exactly.

So those are the two words.

Now obviously, it's a little bit different because the prefix to reheat means to do it

again while to refrigerate means you're just making it cold.

Yeah.

Well, they're important terms and again, we also have the adjectives.

This is reheated or refrigerated.

But there are another couple of phrases that are really important so let's take a listen

to those in Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

All right, so the first phrase we're going to take a look at is when one of the roommates

says, hey, what's for dinner?

What's for dinner?

All right, this is a very, very standard phrase.

This is something you'll hear at home, you'll hear with your friends.

It's usually something we say that when someone is cooking food for dinner.

That's right.

We're asking what are we going to eat for dinner?

Mom, what's for dinner?

Exactly.

I used to say that every single day when I came home from school.

Well, obviously, you don't want to say the long phrase.

What are we going to have for dinner tonight?

So you just say, what's for dinner?

What's for dinner?

And then the answer would be lasagna or turkey sandwiches.

Right, exactly.

Now when they started talking about the leftover turkey, he was a little bit concerned as we

said about bacteria and germs because it usually happens that you get this on food that was

left out.

All right, so the verb here is to leave out, to leave something out.

It means to leave something or put something at room temperature.

So Marco, you and I are eating turkey, it's Thanksgiving, and we start to have coffee

and dessert and the turkey is still in the room, at room temperature.

We did not refrigerate it.

That means it was left out.

How long was it left out?

Well, maybe two hours.

That means so it's not in a refrigerator.

That's right.

That's exactly what it means.

So maybe you go to sleep and you left the turkey out.

It's still on the table maybe at room temperature.

Oh no, we can't eat it if we left it out for like 12 hours.

Exactly.

All right, so it's not good to leave food out.

And now what happens is if you do eat food that was left out for too long, you could

get food poisoning.

Now this is very serious and it's something that you should be very careful about when

you're cooking.

Food poisoning is getting sick from your food.

There are different kinds of food poisoning, but usually it makes you throw up, it makes

your stomach hurt, it's quite painful.

That's right.

And this is why we say you should wash your hands before you cook.

You should make sure that you refrigerate meat because you want to avoid food poisoning.

That's right.

And it comes from the noun poison, a poison, which is something that is harmful for your

body.

That's right.

There are many different kinds of poison, but food poisoning means becoming sick, your

body getting sick after you eat something bad.

That's right.

All right.

So with all this stuff here, we can review everything one last time.

What's for dinner?

Leftovers.

What?

Leftovers of what and from when?

From last night.

I took the leftover turkey, mixed it with some diced peppers and onions, add a little

bit of mayonnaise and made some sandwiches.

Isn't that dangerous though?

I mean, bacteria and germs reproducing on food that was left out or reheated.

Well I didn't leave the turkey at a room temperature for more than an hour and I refrigerated soon

after we finished eating.

Also when reheating, I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 100 degrees Celsius.

Well, okay.

I'm just afraid of getting food poisoning.

Don't worry about it.

Making a new meal out of leftovers is almost an art.

Not only do you save money, but you also get to be creative and have something different

to eat.

All right, so this is actually good advice about leftovers, about having something to

eat.

But at the same time, I don't know how many people actually are very careful with these

things.

For example, pizza.

Sometimes you leave pizza out on the table all night and the next morning you have some

pizza.

I always refrigerate my pizza.

I know people who leave their pizza out and then eat it, but there's cheese and sausage

and you want to refrigerate that stuff.

So I always wrap it in plastic and put it on a plate in the fridge.

Oh, okay.

You wrap it in plastic.

Well, because in the refrigerator there's also germs, so you need to make sure you cover

your food.

Right, right, right.

What about, have you ever had a bad case of food poisoning because of having leftovers?

No.

I've had food poisoning, but not because of leftovers.

Because as I said before, I wrap things, I put them in the refrigerator.

I'm very careful because I don't want to get sick or I don't want to get other people sick.

But Thanksgiving or Christmas, you have to give food to many other people.

I don't want to make anyone sick.

And actually, you can get food poisoning not only from leftovers, but from maybe food that

maybe was expired.

Sometimes cheese maybe can be expired, you didn't realize it, and you get food poisoning.

Or from people who are cooking with things that are not clean.

So you have something that's not clean or food that's not fresh and it makes you very

sick.

So it's not good for your health.

So you have to be careful.

That's right.

So it's an interesting thing, especially with, like I said, so many holidays where you cook

so much food that people have a lot of leftovers.

And not only that, but even at restaurants, maybe you order too much, so you have leftovers

you want to take home to your dog or to have later.

I love leftovers.

Let us know, do you have leftovers in your country?

Are there things that you should and shouldn't do when cooking?

Let us know.

Our website is EnglishPod.com.

All right, we'll see you guys there.

Bye for now.