Singaporeans love to eat! But can you describe your favourite dish?
In 2013 O Level English exam, students were asked to describe hawker centres and food courts. So, perhaps it's time for the Cambridge examiners to ask students to describe something uniquely Singapore - our local delicacies.
Everyone has a favourite dish, or at least, a preference for certain kind of cuisine. But if you can’t come up with an eloquent way to describe your favourite dish, here are some tips and questions for you!
P.S.: Remember to read till the end for the BONUS!
1. Flavour
Describing food wouldn’t be complete without describing how it tastes, of course. Besides the common tastes - sourness, sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, spiciness - you should try using other adjectives to stand out from your peers!
Examples: Tangy, savoury, zesty, mildly spicy, fiery
It helps if you distinguish between the depth of the taste. Is the sweetness a cloying chemical-laden sweetness like Oreos or a natural sweetness from fruit like bananas? Is the spiciness bad enough to numb your tongue or does it simply leave a tingling sensation?
2. Appearance
Of course, never forget to describe what your food looks like. The easiest way to do this is to describe its colours and shape. Of course, do take note of the connotations of your descriptions. You want to make the appearance as palatable as possible. So instead of describing the your chicken wing as simply ‘brown’, opt for phrases like ‘roasted to a glistening golden brown‘.
3. Texture and consistency
Appearance can be easily paired with descriptions about consistency and texture, especially for soups, sauces or liquid-based dishes. For example, corn soup can be described as a “rich creamy yellow” while pastries can have “golden brown skin like a flaking bubble”.
4. Reason
Besides it tasting good, is there a particular reason you like the particular dish? Maybe it’s something your mum used to cook for you when you were younger, or maybe it’s a dish you only get to taste on special occasions. A more personal and special reason may help your writing shine.
5. Ingredients and cooking
You may also want to talk about the ingredients used in making your favourite dish if you are familiar with the recipe. If not, try to mention any special ingredients that stand out from the rest. Certain restaurants often advertise particular ingredients or cooking methods they use to make their dish taste better, and it may be good to note down any decent ones to use.
Sample example 1:
My favourite dish is Japanese curry with rice. I have always been partial to Japanese cuisine due to my love for Japanese culture, but this particular dish holds a place close to my heart. As my mother rarely cooks, I could only enjoy it on special occasions or when I had an extremely tiring day in school. The effort she put into (reason). There was nothing more comforting than digging into a large bowl of thick golden curry, served over a warm bed of fluffy white rice, paired with a generous amount of diced chicken and colourful vegetables (appearance and texture).
While the school canteen also serves Japanese curry, I still prefer the way my mother cooks it. She never skimps on ingredients and would go early to the market to buy fresh vegetables and meat for the dish (ingredients). She also always makes sure that the curry is sufficiently spicy with a hint of sweetness (flavour) and even takes the effort to thicken the mixture with cornstarch slurry due to my fondness for it. When the curry is almost done cooking, my mother let's it simmer patiently for the vegetables and meat to become tender and flavourful (cooking) and just the smell of it can make my mouth water.
Bonus: We have compiled a table for you to describe food. Download it here!
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