Traditional Belarusian cuisine

 

In its development Belarusian cuisine has been influenced by the Russian, Lithuanian, Polish and some other traditions.

Belarusian cuisine is characterised by some general features. It should be mentioned that g eographical location and weather conditions in Belarus resulted in a wide use of such products as forest mushrooms and berries, herbs, apples, pears, river fish and crab, milk products.

Belarusian cuisine is known for a big choice of potato dishes. Potatoes play a very important role in the national cuisine and are called “the second bread” in Belarus. Climate conditions in Belarus are very good for growing the types of potatoes that contain high level of starch, are tender and really delicious. Dishes from potatoes are used as the main dish or garnish.

The most well known potato dish is draniki – pancakes from grated potatoes. Draniki come in many variants with various fillings such as mushrooms, meat, sour kraut, fish or with various toppings – creamy machanka (meat or mushrooms machanka), sour cream, cheese etc.

Various flour pancake dishes are popular in Belarusian cuisine.

Mushrooms are widely used in cooking but rarely as a separate dish and are mostly used to add taste to the main dish. Usually they are stewed or boiled.

Fish is also rarely fried and mostly baked, stewed or very often dried.

Belarusian cuisine is known for rich soups, often dressed with sour cream, as well as cold soups refreshing in summer. Jur is a very special unusual Belarusian soup. Its recipe goes back to the old traditional Belarusian cuisine. The basis of the soup is “oatmeal stock” that gives this soup a specific jelly consistency/texture and a specific souerish taste. There are several variants of this soup: Lenten, milk, meat jur. To cook jur you need first to prepare the basis. To prepare it take 150-200 g oatmeal flour (you can make it by grinding oatmeal flakes) and add it into 1 lt of warm previously boiled water. Store it in a non-metallic container such as earthware in a warm place for 8-12 hours. It should get a sourish taste and pleasant smell. Strain it to get rid of any lumps or oatmeal flakes. Now you have the Jur basis (tseja) and can cook various soups with it.

Marinated vegetables are widely used in Belarusian cuisine: marinated tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms etc. It is still traditional for Belarusian families to make marinated mushrooms and vegetables based on home recepies.

Belarusians eat lightly salted lard from pork to accompany boiled potatoes traditionally in winter. Pork is widely used in homemade sausages. Low fat pork and beef are mostly baked not fried. In traditional cuisine goose was widely used however nowadays it is mostly replaced by chicken.

Cooking methods characteristic for the old traditional Belarusian cuisine are stewing and boiling. In the old Belarusian cuisine ingredients were subjected to a long heat cooking and would become very soft and often shapeless. This softness can still be observed nowadays in traditional cooking.

Finally present day cooking in Belarus is characterized by great creativity of combining the old traditional dishes with features of other world cuisines and mixing varieties of ingredients for example in creative rich salads.

Belarusian salads are different than salads in the west. They tend to be quite creative as many unusual ingredients get mixed together. It is not unusual to find salads made of various nuts, fruits and meats. You will almost never be served a bunch of lettuce topped with 2 or 3 pieces of tomatoes. The idea of a Belarusian salad is to get the mix of tastes of all the ingredients. That is why salad ingredients are cut into small squares or finely chopped or grated. The ingredients never come in big chunks. You will never use you knife when eating a salad in Belarus. Third, Belarusian salads tend to be quite rich. The salad dressing is usually mayonnaise based, but it might also contain sour cream. Together with the finely chopped ingredients, the rich sauce blends the flavors together giving the salad a unique taste. I’d like to share the recipe of Fern Flower Salad. To prepare it you should take 250 g ham (fatty) (and in some variants ham with boiled veal); 3-4 pickled cucumbers; 4-5 fresh tomatoes; 2 tablespoons of vinegar; mayonnaise. Cut onion into rings, and marinate them for 2-3 hours in water with vinegar (mixed 3 to 1). Cut the meat, cucumbers and peeled tomatoes into long thin pieces. As soon as you are ready to serve, mix the ingredients together and season with mayonnaise. Keep all the ingredients separately till the last moment otherwise they will give juice.

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THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

 

The United States ranks first in the world in the total value of its economic production.

The United States economy is based largely on a free enterprise system. In such a system, individuals and companies are free to make their own economic decisions. Individuals and companies own the raw materials, equipment, factories, and other items necessary for production, and they decide how best to use them in order to earn a profit.

Even though the U.S. economy is based on free enterprise, the government has placed regulations on economic practices through the years. It has passed antitrust laws, which are designed to keep one company or a few firms from controlling entire industries. Such control, called a monopoly, does away with competition and enables controlling companies to charge high prices and reduce the quality of goods. Government regulations help protect consumers from unsafe merchandise. They also help protect workers from unsafe working conditions and unreasonably low wages. The government has also enacted regulations designed to reduce environmental pollution.

Still, the United States economy has faced problems from time to time. The problems include recessions (mild business slumps), depressions (severe business slumps), and inflation (rising prices).

The US economy consists of three main sectors - the primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Primary economic activities are those directly extracting goods from the natural environment, including agriculture, forestry, fishing, and mining. The primary sector usually contributes about 3 percent of annual GDP (gross domestic product).

Agriculture accounts for 2 percent of the US GDP and employs 3 percent of the nation's workers. Yet, the United States is a world leader in agriculture production. The country's farms turn out as much food as the nation needs, with enough left over to export food to other countries. About a third of the world's food exports come from the US farms.

Beef cattle rank as the most valuable product of American farms. Other leading farm products, in order of value, include milk, soybeans, chickens and eggs, hogs, wheat, and cotton. The US farms also produce large amounts of hay, tobacco, turkeys, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, and apples.

The United States has large deposits of coal, iron ore, natural gas, and petroleum, which are vital to the country's industrial strength. Its many other important minerals include copper, gold, phosphates, silver, and zinc. The United States ranks among the leading countries in the value of its mineral production. The United States ranks third, after Russia and Saudi Arabia, in the production of petroleum. It is second to Russia in natural gas production and to China in coal production. To meet its needs, however, the United States must import additional amounts of iron ore, petroleum, and other minerals.

The farms, factories, households, and motor vehicles of the United States consume vast amounts of energy annually. Various sources are used to generate the energy. Petroleum provides about 40 percent. It is the source of most of the energy used to power motor vehicles, and it heats millions of houses and factories. Natural gas generates about 25 percent of the energy used. Many industries use gas for heat and power and millions of households burn it for heat and cooking. Coal is the source of about 25 percent of all the energy. Its major uses are in the production of electricity and steel. Hydroelectric and nuclear power plants each generate about 5 percent of America's energy.

Secondary economic activities involve processing or combining materials into new products, and include manufacturing and construction. They account for 22 percent of the GDP and employ 20 percent of the workers. The leading categories of the US products are, in order of value, chemicals, transportation equipment, food products, non-electrical machinery, electrical machinery and equipment, printed materials, scientific and medical instruments, fabricated metal products, paper products, rubber and plastic products, and primary metals.

Construction accounts for 4 percent of the US GDP and provides jobs for 4 percent of the work force. This industry employs such workers as architects, engineers, contractors, bricklayers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, ironworkers, and plasterers.

Tertiary economic activities involve the output of services rather than goods. Examples of tertiary activities include wholesale and retail trade, banking, government, and transportation.

Service industries account for 75 percent of the US GDP and employ 76 percent of the country's workers. This industry group includes a wide variety of businesses that provide services rather than producing goods.

Community, social, and personal services rank first among the US service industries in terms of the gross domestic product. This industry includes such establishments as doctors' offices and private hospitals, hotels, law firms, computer programming and data processing companies, restaurants, repair shops, private research laboratories, and engineering companies.

Finance, insurance, and real estate rank next among U.S. service industries. Banks finance much of the economic activity in the United States by making loans to both individuals and businesses. American banks loan billions of dollars annually. Most of the loans to individuals are for the purchase of houses, automobiles, or other major items. Bank loans to businesses provide an important source of money for capital expansion - the construction of new factories and the purchase of new equipment. As a business expands, it hires more workers. These workers, in turn, produce more goods and services. In this way, the nation's level of employment and its economic output both increase.

Other important types of financial institutions include commodity and security exchanges. Commodities are basic goods, such as grains and precious metals. Securities are certificates of investment, such as stocks and bonds. The prices of commodities and securities are determined by the buying and selling that takes place at exchanges. The New York Stock Exchange is the nation's largest security exchange. The Chicago Board of Trade is the world's largest commodity exchange.

The United States has the world's largest private insurance industry. The country has about 2,000 life and health insurance companies and about 3,500 property and liability companies. Real estate is important to the economy because of the large sums of money involved in the buying and selling of property.

Wholesale and retail trade play major roles in the American economy. Wholesale trade, which includes foreign trade, takes place when a buyer purchases goods directly from a producer. The goods may then be sold to other businesses for resale to consumers. Retail trade involves selling products to the final consumer. Grocery stores, department stores, and automobile dealerships are examples of retail trade establishments.

Canada and Japan are the country's chief trading partners. Other major U.S. trading partners include Germany, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

Important U.S. exports include machinery and transportation equipment, such as aircraft, computers, electric power equipment, industrial machinery, and motor vehicles and parts; manufactured articles, especially scientific measuring equipment; chemical elements and compounds, including plastic materials; basic manufactures, such as metals and paper; and agricultural products, especially corn and wheat.

The leading U.S. imports are machinery and transport equipment, such as automobiles and parts, engines, office machines, and telecommunications equipment; manufactured articles, such as clothing, shoes, and toys; mineral fuels and lubricants, especially petroleum; basic manufactures, such as iron, steel, and other metals, and paper and newsprint; and chemical products, such as chemical compounds and medicines.

(from English: National Economies)

 

Answer the questions:

1. What are the peculiarities of the US free enterprise system?

2. What sectors does the US economy consist of?

3. What do the US farms produce?

4. What mineral resources is the USA rich in?

5. What are the leading categories of the US manufactured products?

6. What are the most important service industries of the USA?

7. What are the US trading partners?

8. What are the US imports?

9. What are the US exports?

10.  Does the US economy face any problems? What are they?

 

Text for annotation

 

E VOLUTION

Evolution is a process of change over a long period. The word evolution may refer to various types of change. For example, scientists generally describe the formation of the universe as having occurred through evolution. Many astronomers think that the stars and planets evolved from a huge cloud of hot gases. Anthropologists study the evolution of human culture from hunting and gathering societies to complex, industrialized societies.

Most common­ly, however, evolution refers to the formation and development of life on earth. The idea that all living things evolved from simple organisms and changed through the ages to produce millions of species is known as the theory of organic evolution. Most people call it simply the theory of evolution.

The French naturalist Chevalier de Lamarck proposed a theory of evolution in 1809. But evolution did not receive widespread scientific consideration until 1858, when the British naturalist Charles R. Darwin presented his theory of evolution. Since then, advances in various scientific fields have resulted in refinements of the the­ory. The main ideas of evolution, however, have re­mained largely unchanged.

 

 

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