Passage 2
Today, Chinese cooking is famous all over the world, but of course it did not become famous suddenly. China’s civilization is very ancient, and the art of cooking developed together with it over thousands of years.
In the distant past, our ancestors ate raw meat. They did not know how to cook their food. When they killed animals, they often did not even take the skin off them before they ate them. Some specialists believe that it was forest fires that first introduced man to the art of cooking. Forest fires were sometimes started by storms, and people ran away from the burning areas and returned when the fires had gone out. When they came back, they found that the animals which were caught in the fires and could not escape were “cooked”, and that the cooked meat tasted much better than raw meat . From this, man began to realize that cooking made his food more tasty. He discovered different methods of making a fire, and began to collect pieces of wood to burn.
Gradually, the cooking of food became a universally accepted idea. The Chinese word “peng” (from “peng tiao”, meaning the art of cooking)comes from the use of fire in cooking.
So, in this way people had learned how to cook their food. However, they still did not know how to flavour (调味) it.
How did man first learn to use salt on his food?
One theory is that many years ago some people who lived in a coastal area killed an animal on the seashore. They left the dead animal there for some time. The salt from the sea-water covered the animal and when, later, the meat was cooked, it had a very good taste. In time, man learned to collect salt to flavour his food. The word “ tiao” means “ flavouring ”, which began with the use of salt.
The discovery of cooking and flavouring played a very important part in the development of man and of human society. The fact that man no longer ate raw meat made him different from other animals. Cooking and flavouring killed bacteria(细菌)in food and made it more healthy. People began to eat meals at regular times of the day. Gradually, cooked food helped people to improve the condition of their minds and bodies, and finally it helped them to develop their productive abilities, and to move towards a state of civilization.
36．Chinese cooking __________________.
A．is known all over the world
B．became famous suddenly all over the world
C．did not become famous all over the world
D．is not as famous as before
37．Our ancestors ate their raw food because __________________.
A．raw food was more tasty than cooked food
B．they did not know how to cook
C．they liked to eat the skins of the animals they killed
D．they could not find any cooked food
38．Early man found out that __________________.
A．raw meat was much more tasty than cooked meat
B．his food tasted better when it was cooked
C．it was impossible to cook without the help of forest fires
D．it was difficult to learn how to cook
39．Before man could cook his food he had to __________________.
A．take the skins off the dead animals
B．wait for a forest fire
C．learn how to collect and use salt
D．learn how to make a fire
40．Some people believe that man first learned to use salt on his food __________________.
A．when he found salt on the sea-shore
B．when he cooked the meat from an animal killed in a forest fire
C．when he tasted an animal that had been in sea-water
D．when he cooked his food on the sea-shore
