隨著美國人生活節奏的加快，快餐食品便應運而生．其快餐連鎖店遍及世界各地，其中影響最大的當屬麥當勞快餐連鎖店．供應的快餐食品有：漢堡包、烤牛肉、牛排、火腿、三明治、肯德雞、油炸土豆片、烘餡餅、冰淇淋以及各種碳酸飲料等．

Fast Food 快餐食品

Fast-food chains，American-style， are currently on the increase all over the world．Most of these places work on a similar principle． There is a long counter ， above which is displayed a list（often with pictures） of the items available， and behind which several people（often students   working for the minimum wage）are serving． Individual queues form in front of each assistant ．You receive what you order more or less immediately and take it on a tray to a table， picking up thing like straws（吸管）， pepper， salt， ketchup（蕃茄醬），pickles（泡菜）and napkins（usually paper napkins） on the way．If you can’t see any knives and forks ， this means you are supposed to eat with your hands．If you can’t see any straws， that’s because they are hiding in the straw dispenser（分配器） that you have to fiddle（撥弄） with the bottom of it to get a straw（one at a time）to emerge．When you’ve finished， you yourself throw away everything except the tray．

Many fast-food places have drive-in facilities．You place your order from your car via （通過） a microphone and then drive round to a special window to pay and pick it up ．You may even encounter places where a waitress bring your meal out， and you sit and eat it in the car from a tray hooked over the door through the open window．

You may be asked if your order is “for here” or “to go ”（i．e．to take away）．In some states there is no sales tax on food consumed．

Types of Fast Food Restaurants 快餐店的種類

The most widespread type of fast-food restaurant is that serving hamburgers， such   as the chains of MacDonald．All the different chains have their own specialties ．Arby’s restaurants serve large roast beef， ham and cheese， and turkey（火雞） “sandwiches”． Some restaurant chains specialize in serving steaks quickly and cheaply． And then there’s Kentucky Fried Chicken．

Chips 油炸土豆片

Chips in America are called “French fries” or “fries ”for short．（Note that in the USA “ chips” mean crisps）．“French fries” are normally thinner than chips．Americans generally   put ketchup on their chips ，and you will not normally find vinegar（醋）．

Pizzas（意大利式）烘焰餅

There are many specialty pizza restaurants in America， and many of them take telephone orders and deliver pizzas to your home， which can often be convenient．They come   in different sizes， and a large one can be big enough for a party of four people．If you want to share a pizza but can’t agree on the ingredients ， it is possible to order two different  sets of toppings ，one set on each half．

Ice-Cream 冰淇淋

Shops selling large number of different flavors of ice-cream are very common in America． If you are not sure what flavor you want ，generally you can sample a small spoonful of a particular flavor to see if you like it． You can either have your ice-cream in a “plain cone”（普通型錐形物） or in a “sugar cone”（甜脆型錐形物）．

Soft Drinks 軟飲料

Fast-food restaurants do not serve alcohol．The soft drinks most often sold are Coca-Cola and Pepsi——Cola， plus fizzy drinks （which are like lemonade）and root beer （which is like cough medicine）．Fizzy drinks are known as “carbonated beverages”（碳酸飲料） or ，more colloquially，“soda”，“pop”，“soda pop”，and “soft drinks”．

All these drinks come with lost of ice． In fact， you will probably find as much ice as drink in your drink．If you ask for a soft drink without ice， they will think you are funny but will probably oblige．（They may charge you a bit extra， for ice is cheaper than Coke．）

美國人吃飯用刀叉，而且他們的用餐方式是很有講究的。因此，在應邀與美國朋友一起吃飯時，應特別注意他們的用餐習慣。一般情況下，餐桌上擺放有一幅餐刀和兩幅餐叉，外邊的餐叉供你吃色拉，里邊的餐叉用于吃主食和其它點心食品，餐刀用來切肉食。如果你兩手并用，應左手握叉，右手握刀，而且一次握刀時間不能太長。美國人的早餐有：炒或煮雞蛋、香腸、油炸土豆片、薄煎餅、果子凍、烤面包、松餅、桔子汁以及咖啡等。

Eating Custom and Practice 用餐習慣

American eating is funny. They eat almost everything with a fork, and it appears that holding a knife in one's right hand longer than a few seconds is considered to be against good table manners.

The system is that if it is absolutely necessary to use a knife, people take the fork in their left hand, and cut off a piece of meat or whatever it is in the normal manner. Then they put the knife down, transfer the fork to their right hand, and only then do they transport the food to their mouth. This is clearly ludicrous(滑稽可笑), but it is considered good manners.

There are several results of this system. First, if it is not absolutely necessary to use a knife, Americans don't use one, because obviously this greatly complicates(使復雜化) things, and you will therefore see them trying to cut things like potatoes, fish and even bacon(熏豬肉) with a fork. Second, towards the end of a course, since only one implement(器具) is being used, food has to be chased around the plate with the fork — and for the last mouthful the thumb has to be used to keep the food in place, although one is not supposed to do this.

Third, tables are generally laid with one knife and two forks, the outside fork being for the salad. There is no need for foreign visitors to follow the American system and try to eat the salad with only a fork, but if you do use your knife, remember to save it for the meat course. Even desserts(甜食) (except ice cream) are eaten with a fork if at all possible, and the spoon you see by your dessert is meant to be for coffee (but if you use it for your dessert no one will say anything).

Some Breakfast Dishes 早餐食譜

Breakfast in a restaurant is a very enjoyable experience. If you order eggs in a restaurant, the waiter/waitress will ask you how you want them . You can reply that you want them "scrambled(炒)" or "boiled". It is not sufficient, however, to ask for them "fried"; you will have to specify whether you would prefer them "sunny-side-up" (煎一面), "over"(兩面煎), "over-easy/easy-over"(兩面煎，但蛋黃仍然呈流體狀). American sausage(香腸) comes in slices and is quite spicy. But you can also have link sausage.　　American bacon comes in small strips, can be rather fat, and is served crispy. It is usually very tasty, and you can eat it with your fingers.　"Hash brows"(油炸土豆片) are shredded(切成碎片的) and fried potatoes. They are wonderful, especially with fried eggs and ketchup(蕃茄醬).

"Pancakes", sometimes called "hot cakes", are made with baking power. They are normally served in a pile, and you are supposed to put butter and syrup(果漿) on them.

"Jelly"(果子凍) is jam and includes grape jelly, which is very tasty.

Toast is often served already buttered.

"English muffins(松餅)" are like small crumpets(烤餅) without the holes and are served toasted. You put jam on them.

A "biscuit"(軟餅) is a small, scone-like bread roll, often served hot.

Orange juice and coffee are often served with breakfast.

美國人吃午餐和吃晚餐之前通常要喝點雞尾酒，但在加利福尼亞州，人們大都喝葡萄酒。吃主食之前，一般都要吃一盤色拉。炸磨茹和炸洋蔥圈可作為開胃食品，牛排、豬排和雞（腿）為主食，龍蝦、貝殼類動物以及各種魚類甚至包括淡水魚被統稱為海鮮。炸土豆條是深受人們喜愛而且幾乎成了必不可少的食物。另外應特別注意的一點，如有吃剩的食物，一定要打包帶回家，以免浪費。

Cocktail雞尾酒

It is quite usual to drink cocktails before lunch and dinner in America and somewhat less usual, except in California, to drink wine with a meal. You can either have a cocktail in the bar, if there is one, while you wait for a table or for friends, or you can have one served before your dinner comes. At some restaurants the waiter/waitress will come to your table as soon as you sit down to ask if you want a cocktail, and you can then drink this while deciding what to order to eat. At others, there may be a separate cocktail waiter or waitress. In this case, you do not normally order wine from him or her but from the normal waiter- or the wine waiter is there is one.

Do not hesitate to order Californian wines. They can be excellent and in many parts of the country are cheap.

Salad　色拉

It is usual to have a salad with your meal, and a separate plate is provided for this purpose. The normal practice in America is to eat the salad before the main course. A wonderful American invention is the salad bar. In restaurants that have these salad bars the waiter does not bring your salad. You go to the salad bar and help yourself, usually to as much as you want. This is normally done after you have ordered your meal; you eat the salad while the main course is being cooked.

Choosing from the Menu　選菜

American menus can look rather confusing at first sight, for they may use some terms which are unfamiliar to most visitors. Here are some points which may be useful.

Fried mushrooms, fried onion rings (洋蔥圈) and fried zucchini (小胡瓜) are sometimes served as starters (第一道菜).

Potatoes most often come "French-fried" or baked. If you order a baked potato, the waiter will ask you what you want on it. The choice is butter and/or sour cream and sometimes chives (細香蔥).

Very often vegetables do not come automatically with the meal, and you have to pay extra for them.

"Scrod" (小鱈魚), "red snapper" (嚙龜) and "mahi hahi" are all name of fish. "Seafood” means lobster (龍蝦), shellfish and fish, including, funnily enough, freshwater fish! Prawns (對蝦) are known as "shrimp".

American beef is usually good and often wonderful.

American salt and pepper (糊椒粉) pots are confusing until you realize that the salt pot may look like a pepper pot except that the salt pot's holes are bigger. Pepper is normally black rather than white. American mustard (芥末) is mild and normally eaten with hot dogs or hamburgers rather than meat.

And that stuff in a dish that looks ice cream is actually whipped (攪拌過的) butter.

You have probably heard that in American restaurants, if you can't finish your meal, you can put the remains in a "doggy bag" and take them home. This is quite true. If you leave some meat, in particular, your waiter may ask you if you'd like him to put it into "a little bag", or you can ask him to do this.

生活在美國(四) 美國用餐常識

中國菜著重色、香、味， 西餐講究實惠。初到美國餐館用餐，應該注意如下事項：

1）選擇合適的餐館（如：家庭式餐館、特色餐館以及自助式餐館等）；

2）餐館營業時間（上午11：30開門營業，直到夜晚）；

3）一般都應事先預訂餐位：

4）到達餐館后，不能徑直地到餐桌旁入桌，除非餐廳有“隨意就坐”的告示；

5）付款時，別忘了留給服務員一定比例的小費（一般為實際總額的10%～15%）。

Eating out is one of the joy of being in the USA. The food is usually good and often excellent; the prices are reasonable ; and the service is mostly fine.

Choosing a Restaurant 選擇餐館

Some restaurants are open for breakfast; others are open twenty-four hours a day. A number of restaurants call themselves "family restaurants". Many of these serve no alcohol and have fairly restricted menus which include steaks, hamburgers, novelettes(炒蛋) and sandwiches, and all are at very reasonable prices. They may also serve smaller and cheaper children's portions(份餐). Note that many American restaurants are "specialty" restaurants . They may serve only, or mainly , steaks , seafood, etc.

When to Eat 供餐時間

Many restaurants, especially the more expensive ones, open at about 11：30 a.m.(midday, rather than 1 p.m. , is the most normal time for lunch in the USA), and some remain open until the evening, so it is possible to order a meal throughout the afternoon.

In many areas it is usual for people to leave work and go out for an evening meal at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. , than waiting until later.

Reserving a Table 預訂餐位

Eating out is rather popular in the USA. And it is often necessary to make a reservation. You will sometimes see short queues of people waiting for tables at restaurants-it's more pleasant to wait in the bar , of course, if there is one-but there queues more quickly.

Arriving at Restaurant 到達餐館

When you arrive at most restaurant, you should not just go in and sit down-unless you see a sign saying "Please seat yourself" . Usually you will have to wait for a "hostess" or "captain"(領班) to escort(陪同) you to a table . Often there will be a sign that reads "Please wait to be seated".

Do not expect to share a table with other parties, even if the restaurant is crowed . It just isn't done.

Many restaurant have a no-smoking section, in some place by lows.

One excellent American custom is that after you have sat down your waiter or waitress will often bring you a glass or water(with ice naturally) and will keep on refilling it throughout the meal. (Most American are incapable of eating a meal without drinking something at the same time.)

When your waiter or waitress takes your order, it is not very normal for one person to order for the whole table. Each person orders separately , except in the most expensive restaurants.

Summoning a waiter 召喚侍者

You may find your waiter unusually friendly. He may ask you how you are (You're supposed just to say "Fine"), inquire whether you have a good day and , later on say that he hopes you will enjoy your meal.

To summon a waiter in a American restaurant you may call "Bill", or "Mary", or "Claude", or whatever. Waiters and waitresses often actually introduce themselves when they first come to your table or wear name tags, you are permitted to use their first names.

Paying the Bill 付款

The bill (often called the "check") comes usually with tax added but no service chare-though some restaurant do now add a service charge. The etiquette(規矩) books say that you should leave a ten per cent tip(小費) for lunch, fifteen per cent for dinner. The tip should be calculated on the basis of the total before the addition of tax.

At many restaurant you can ask the waiter to bring the bill and than pay at a cash desk on the way out.

生活在美國(五) 美國人的酒

酒的種類

美國的酒大致可分為啤酒、雞尾酒、威士忌和葡萄酒。啤酒有淡啤酒和濃啤酒之別；包裝采用瓶裝、聽裝和壺裝。雞尾酒和“混合飲料”含有很濃的酒精成分，飲用方式一般有加冰和不加冰兩種，其配制方式各種各樣。威士忌也是一種烈性酒，而且呈油狀，分為黑麥威士忌和蘇格蘭威士忌。葡萄酒分為紅、白兩種，但值得注意的是：標有“Chablis”商標的葡萄酒并非法國所產的無甜味的白葡萄酒，而是美國加利弗尼亞州生產的白葡萄酒，該酒在美國享有盛譽。

Beer

American beer, with very few exceptions, varies from the mediocre(普通的) to the terrible. There are not many types of beer in the US—"light" and "dark" are two terms commonly used.

It is therefore normal to order beer simply by brand name. In a restaurant, in fact, it is quite all right to order "a beer", and they will tell you what they have.

It is not necessary, either, to specify quantity when ordering beer. If it comes in bottles or cans, you will get a bottle or can, and if it's "on tap"(可以隨時取用的) you will get a glass, unless you order a "pitcher"(有嘴和柄的大酒罐 i.e. a jug). The latter is very convenient thing to do, since you can then take the jug and glasses to your table and keep filling up without going back to the bar. (It is harder, however, to know how much you have drunk.)

Some beer comes in bottles with tops that look as if they need an opener, but you can, in fact, screw(擰開) them off by hand—though you have to be very careful not to hurt yourself. It is possible, in some stores and bars, to find a wide selection of beer from all over the world, especially Western Europe and Australia, and it is good fun to experiment with these.

Cocktails

Cocktails and "mixed drinks" are much more popular and rather stronger in the USA than in Europe, and visitors may not be familiar with some of the terminology(術語). "On the rocks", as you probably know, means with ice, while "straight up" or "up" means neat and without ice.

There are hundreds of different cocktails, and there is no space here to list all the different names.

The Hard Stuff

In America "whiskey" means bourbon(一種烈性威士忌酒，最初為美國肯塔基州Bourbon地區所產) unless otherwise indicated. Bourbon is a rather oily spirit made from maize(玉米). Rye(黑麥威士忌酒) whiskey is called "rye" and Scotch whiskey "Scotch".

Wine

In bars wine can often be bought by the glass. Don't be misled by names such as "Chablis" is used to refer to white wine, and "Burgundy" to red—Americans seem never to have heard of white Burgundy..

飲酒與法律

在美國及各州、市、縣對飲酒都制定了相關的法律。顧客要飲酒必須達到法定的年齡，一般規定在18至21歲以上。顧客進酒吧時，常需接受保安人員對其年齡進行核實。此時，只需出示自己的駕照或其他有效證件即可，因為這些證件上注有持證人的出生日期。

Alcohol(含酒精的飲料) and the law

It is difficult to give a description of American laws concerning alcohol because they vary from state to state and city to city. The following, though, may be noted.

Some towns, even state are totally is sold at all except that they allow the sale of very weak (3.2 percent alcohol) beer, known as "three-two" beer. Some places do not allow the sale of alcohol on Sundays, even in shops—you may find a bar locked over the alcohol shelves. You can see it but not buy it! Other places permit alcohol to be sold on Sunday afternoons and evenings, but not on Sunday mornings. (Note that this means sales have to stop at midnight on Saturday.)In many parts of America, you are not allowed to drink alcohol in a public place. That is, you may not sit in a parlor walk along a street drinking beer, and you cannot even take a nice bottle of wine on your picnic. In some places, people can be seen taking drinks in public places from cans wrapped in brown-paper bags. These are not cans of Coca-Cola. And in many states you are not allowed to drink alcohol while driving, or even have an opened alcohol container in the car. Some bars have a license(執照) only for beer and wine. Others are also allowed to sell spirits(烈性酒) and thus, as Americans say, "mixed drinks".

Many bars have a period known as "happy hour", often longer than an hour, when they sell drinks at lower-than-usual prices. This is usually around 5 p.m. and may be only on certain days of the week.

The Legal Drinking Age

Legal drinking age varies from place to place but is generally between 18 to 21. Some places permit the consumption(消費) of beer at 18 but spirits only at 21. Others permit the consumption only of "three-two" beer from 18 to 21. (Young people therefore often drive from one place to another with more liberal drinking laws.) In any case, in some parts of the USA young people are allowed to vote, marry, raise children, keep full-time jobs, be tried in courts as adults, join the army and even buy guns—but NOT have a glass of beer. In some places people aged between 18 to 21 are allowed to go into bars but not allowed to drink. Another even more interesting aspect of American drinking-age laws is that in some places people below legal drinking age are not even allowed to sell alcohol.

Providing Proof of Your Age

In most places these drinking laws are fairly rigidly enforced(嚴格地實施). You may, for example, find people lining up to get into a bar and discover that the queue is caused by a guard on the door who is asking everybody for ID(身份證). If you ask him why he wants to know who you are, he will inform you that he actually wants confirmation(確認) of how old you are. On such occasions Americans often show their driving licenses, which have their date of birth written on them.