Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

INTERVIEWER:
Do you cook for yourself a lot or . . . ?
MAN:
My wife cooks a lot. Uh, I cook on intervals, uh . . . 
When I cook, it’s an entire ceremony because I like to 
wear my hat, like a chef, have an apron and then cook 
about three dishes and so it’s, uh. She always loves it 
when I cook that—it’s always usually a surprise, by the 
time she returns from work and the chef has 
done his 
thing
, you know. But she cooks on a daily basis.
INTERVIEWER:
What’s your best or favorite dish you cook?
MAN:
Rice and stew.
INTERVIEWER:
Really?
MAN:
Yes. And stew is like a tomato base with, uh, like 
add a chicken or beef or gizzard or . . . So that’s what we 
call stew but you have to have tomatoes, uh. Th
at’s what I 
have in common with the Italians, is the tomato, yes, and, 
of course, rice. And then we have 
fufu
and 
eru
, which is 

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my traditional dish. Uh, a lot people in Cameroon, uh, 
love eating 
fufu
and 
eru
. It’s very, very delicious. I just 
don’t eat it on a regular basis as, uh, other people rather 
me do, you know. But, uh, I love 
fufu
and 
eru
, rice . . .
INTERVIEWER:
What are in, what are in those dishes?
MAN:
In 
fufu
and 
eru
? It’s, um, it’s a cassava-based, uh, 
substance. It’s like, uh, I would compare the texture to 
mashed potato only a little denser, that’s what a 
fufu
is, 
so you usually eat it with your hands. And then the 
eru 
is a vegetable, um, they have to slice it in very thin, uh, 
layers and then cook it with spinach or water leaf, as we 
call it, and they use, uh, red oil. It’s palm oil, not the-the 
vegetable oil. And this oil you can get from international 
stores, uh, and then cook it with whatever else—snails 
or beef or chicken or anything. But with snails, it’s even 
more delicious.
6. COOKING IN GUYANA