Fast Food [A] Unless you’re in a particularly remote area, you can’t go far in most developed countries without finding a fa

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问题                                         Fast Food
    [A] Unless you’re in a particularly remote area, you can’t go far in most developed countries without finding a fast-food restaurant. You also can’t go far without seeing cars, even if most of those cars are taxis. Much of the time, fast-food restaurants and cars seem to be everywhere. This is really no coincidence—without cars, we wouldn’t have fast food.
    [B] The fast food phenomenon evolved from drive-in restaurants built in southern California in the early 1940s. Restaurateurs wanted to take advantage of the rising popularity of cars, so they designed restaurants that let people order and eat without leaving their vehicles. Drive-ins were busy and successful, but they generally used the same short-order style of food preparation that other restaurants did. The service wasn’t speedy, and the food wasn’t necessarily hot by the time a car hop delivered it. Mass-produced Food
    [C] Consistency has become a hallmark of fast food—in each chain, restaurants look alike and meals taste the same. Different regions might have special dishes on the menu, and different countries might have different items and recipes depending on the local culture. But in general, food from a particular chain tends to taste the same no matter which restaurant you visit. There are several reasons behind this: (1) The food itself is mass-produced in a factory and then frozen. Restaurants store this frozen food in large, walk-in freezers. Cooks reheat it rather than making it from scratch. (2) The factory adds artificial and natural flavors to the food to make sure it all tastes the same. These flavors are manufactured by separate factories. (3) The equipment in the kitchen cooks all of the food for the same amount of time. For example, in some chains, a conveyor belt carries hamburger patties through a broiler. The broiler cooks the patties on both sides simultaneously, and the conveyor belt makes sure they’re cooked for precisely the right amount of time. (4) The employees in different restaurants follow the same instructions for cooking, dressing and packaging the food.
    [D] The mass-production process requires each restaurant chain to have a distribution network to carry the food to every restaurant. Warehouses store enormous amounts of everything a restaurant needs, including food, paper products, utensils and cleaning supplies. The warehouses then ship supplies to each restaurant by truck. Warehousing and distribution, just like the management of the chain, is centralized rather than handled by each restaurant.
    [E] Often, this distribution process is the responsibility of a distribution company, not of the chain itself. Using this sort of network has several advantages. The chain can keep its entire inventory (库存) in several centralized distribution centers rather than in each individual restaurant. The chain can also purchase supplies for all of its restaurants at once rather than having each restaurant find its own suppliers. Since it’s buying in bulk, the chain can negotiate lower prices than restaurants could on their own.
    [F] In some chains, managers track the restaurants’ inventories of food, wrappers, cups, utensils, cleaning supplies and other necessary items. They then order everything the restaurant needs from the distribution center, which ships it to them. In other chains, this process is automated—a computer keeps track of what the restaurant has and should have on hand, or the distribution center ships the necessary items on a regular schedule instead of waiting for a request from the restaurant.
    Fast Food Safety and Nutrition
    [G] Mass-production is central to fast food. It allows restaurants to receive and store a large amount of food, then cook and serve it as needed. It also allows the companies that own the restaurants’ name and trademarks to control what the food looks, smells and tastes like. But, in general, mass-produced fast food is a little different from similar dishes prepared at home: (1) It’s higher in fat and lower in fiber. (2) It’s higher in calories and sugar. (3) It’s higher in salt.
    [H] The mass-production process involves sending lots of food through a factory in a short amount of time. For this reason, one sick animal or piece of waste can contaminate a large amount of food very quickly. Bacteria, viruses and parasites can spread to all of the food in a large mixing vat, or it can contaminate machinery used to process the food. This doesn’t mean that mass-produced food is less safe than home-cooked food. In fact, most foodborne illnesses come from food cooked in the home. Instead, it means that when contamination does occur, it’s likely to affect a lot of people at the same time.
    [I] Regardless of whether the processing plants in question have improved since the publication of Fast Food Nation, nearly every restaurant chain now gives its employees guidelines for food safety. These guidelines cover everything from proper hand washing to the proper order for cleaning surfaces in the restaurant. They also cover cooking times and temperatures, which would have lessened the severity of the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak. Some chains employ people whose only jobs are to clean and inspect their restaurants, or the chains purchase inspection services from other companies.
    The History of Fast Food
    [J] Restaurants have been around in some form for most of human civilization. But they usually catered to travelers. As far back as ancient Greece and Rome, inns generally served food to people who had a reason to be away from home. This trend continued until relatively recently. Although taverns and coffee houses were popular places to gather and share beverages in the 17th century, the idea of eating out for fun didn’t take off in Western society until the late 18th century.
    [K] Although McDonald’s was the first restaurant to use the assembly-line system, some people think of White Castle as the first fast-food chain. White Castle was founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. At the time, most people considered the burgers sold at fairs, circuses, lunch counters and carts to be low-quality. Many people thought hamburger came from slaughterhouse scraps and spoiled meat.
    [L] White Castle’s founders decided to change the public’s perception of hamburgers. They built their restaurants so that customers could see the food being prepared. They painted the buildings white and even chose a name that suggested cleanliness. White Castle was most popular in the American East and Midwest, but its success helped give hamburger meat a better reputation nationwide. So, like cars, White Castle played an important part in the development of fast food.
    [M] The McDonald brothers opened their redesigned restaurant in 1948, and several fast-food chains that exist today opened soon after. Burger King and Taco Bell got their start in the 1950s, and Wendy’s opened in 1969. Some chains, like Carl’s Jr., KFC and Jack in the Box, existed before the Speeded Service System, but modified their cooking techniques after its debut (初次使用). McDonald’s, which started it all, is now the world’s largest fast-food chain.
    [N] According to the National Restaurant Association, American sales of fast food totaled $163.5 billion in 2005. The industry is growing globally as well. Total sales for McDonald’s grew 5.6 percent in 2005, and the company now has 30,000 franchised stores in more than 120 countries.
    [O] However, McDonald’s—and fast food in general—does not always get a welcoming reception around the world. McDonald’s restaurants have been attacked in several countries, including the United States, China, Belgium, Holland, India, Russia, Sweden and the U.K. Protestors have accused McDonald’s and other chains of selling unhealthy food, marketing aggressively to children and undermining local values and culture.
Under the principle of consistency, each chain requires that its restaurants have similar design.

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答案C

解析 根据consistency和chain定位到C段。原文说到,一致性已经成为快餐的一个标记——在每个连锁快餐店,餐馆看起来都一样,饭菜吃起来也差不多。本题句子概括了原文的意思。
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