2024-06-03
20 分钟This is an all ears english podcast episode 22 ten what is qq how to connect over asian food in english.
Welcome to the all ears english podcast downloaded more than 200 million times are you feeling stuck with your english we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your american host aubrey carter the ielts wiz and lindsay mcmahon the english adventurer coming to you from arizona and colorado usa and to get your transcripts delivered by email every week go to allearsenglish.com subscribe in today's episode you'll learn why qq describes food in asia and how we talk about this worldwide phenomenon in english prepare for excellent english connections about food and culture today hello aubrey how's it going today i'm great lindsey.
How are you i am feeling good.
I have a question for you today on allergies english you ready yeah okay so how do you feel about the snack called mochi do you like it.
I love mochi there is this soft serve place called swirlit near our home that one of the toppings is these little mochi balls and i have to have them i love the chewiness that texture and then you can also get at costco now mochi it's like ice cream that has mochi on the outside and trader joe's oh i love that chewiness what about you lindsey yeah i.
Got really into mochi when i lived in japan and i remember thinking the first time i tried it like the the true mochi just the snack wrapped up in plastic i thought ooh it's not sweet enough and i was still coming off of my american taste and then after a year and a half there i loved it loved it yes.
Yes it makes sense that in america often mochi is paired with ice cream because we want it to be sweeter but we also love that chewy texture.
Right yeah it's good stuff so all right what are we getting into today aubrey i'm excited to talk about sweet.
Sweets yes this is so fun this is something jessica was sharing with us that was new to me and i love it it's the letter q in english q is a food texture that's very popular in asia and now becoming very popular in the states as well it's that combination of chewy elastic like in mochi and you know boba those little tapioca balls and boba tea and like perfectly cooked udon noodles i love that texture it's so good and i had never heard of this that that's how how it's described q and then if it's especially q then they call it qq it's so fun i'm gonna start using this all the time i.
Love it i love what you learn when you travel the world and you know you're on the ground talking to local people you learn so much it is fantastic yes and i love that.
All of our listeners in asia are like yes q we love q cute qq it's so fun and so this term it originated in asia meaning chewy but it's evolved to mean a little more than that and you know it's widely used used in chinese speaking communities you likely will be introducing this to someone in the states if you talk about it they will be familiar with boba and mochi but if you call it q they might not be familiar but they are going to love to learn this about asian culture asian language i was so excited when jessica shared this with me yeah it's a good.
Opportunity for a connection moment right totally sharing flavors experiences yeah right yes absolutely.
We love talking about food we love sharing new things we discover about other cultures and other foods so i agree i think this is a fantastic connection.
Topic so today we're going to give our listeners some new vocab to talk about is it like a mouth feeling is that what we're showing our listeners.
Aubrey yes right like all of the words that we would use in english to describe q because if you want to share this with someone like what is q you're going to need some terms in english especially if they haven't tried mochi or boba and so we're going to share that vocab and also some great phrases for starting conversations about.
This oh okay all right so let's go into the first one so the first vocabulary word aubrey is chewy right so when you think of the word chewy what comes to mind yeah often.
Like candy chewy candies right sometimes you'll call meat chewy if it's like overcooked sort of it means it needs to be chewed a lot before you swallow it noodles sticky rice mochi dumplings those are cue all of those things i also think of like cooked shiitake mushrooms okay really i love how those get chewy and like a soup got it.
Yeah i love that i think of caramel or taffy is extremely chewy right saltwater taffy i don't know if that's common in arizona on the east coast especially the mid atlantic people love that.
Stuff california too whenever we go sometimes we'll go to balboa island in southern california and there's a really good like a top taffy candy store there so far barrels of taffy i keep saying.
Toffee taffy taffy right salt water taffy yes love it okay so chewy is the first word that our listeners should write down then right aubrey yes because.