CHAPTER 8
Food and Drink
Comida y bebida

¿Cómo?—
Say What?

Be careful with the word sopa. It looks and sounds a lot like “soap,” but it really means “soup.” The last thing you want to do is order soap when you’re at a restaurant!

Meals and Courses—Comidas y platos

Eating new foods is one of the best things about traveling. If you go to Spain, Mexico, or another Spanish-speaking country, you’ll definitely want to know how to talk about food. Here are some useful words to know:

English	Spanish
meal	la comida
breakfast	el desayuno
lunch	el almuerzo
dinner	la cena
appetizer	el aperitivo
soup	la sopa
sandwich	el bocadillo, el sándwich
main course	el plato principal
salad	la ensalada
dessert	el postre

Here is some general food vocabulary that you might find helpful:

English	Spanish
bread	el pan
French fries	las papas fritas
jam	la mermelada
mayonnaise	la mayonesa
mustard	la mostaza
oil	el aceite
omelet	la tortilla (in Spain)
pepper	la pimienta
rice	el arroz
salt	la sal
sugar	el azúcar
toast	el pan tostado

And here are some useful verbs related to eating and drinking.

English	Spanish
to be hungry	tener hambre
to eat	comer
to be thirsty	tener sed
to drink	beber

Fruit and Vegetables—Frutas y vegetales

Fruit and vegetables are good for you, but they taste good too! Here are the Spanish words for some delicious fruits:

English	Spanish
apple	una manzana
apricot	un albaricoque
banana	un plátano, una banana
blackberry	una zarzamora
blueberry, cranberry	un arándano
cherry	una cereza
grape	una uva

Gramática —
Additional Grammar

The Spanish verb tomar is often used with food and drink. It means “to take,” but you can use it to mean “eat” or “drink.”

Diversión—Fun Stuff

What are your favorite fruits and vegetables? Draw a garden with all of your favorites, and label them in Spanish. If you want to, you can use color, too. Use crayons or markers to draw the garden and then label the different fruits and vegetables with their names and colors. For example, for red strawberries, just write fresas rojas.

English	Spanish
grapefruit	una toronja, un pomelo
lemon	un limón
lime	una lima
orange	una naranja
peach	un melocotón
pear	una pera
plum	una ciruela
raspberry	una frambuesa
strawberry	una fresa

Don’t forget the vegetables!

English	Spanish
artichoke	la alcachofa
asparagus	los espárragos
beans	las judías
carrot	la zanahoria
celery	el apio
corn	la mazorca, el maíz
cucumber	el pepino
eggplant	la berenjena
garlic	el ajo
lettuce	la lechuga
mushroom	el champiñón
olives	las aceitunas
onion	la cebolla
peas	los guisantes
potato	la papa, la patata
radish	el rábano
spinach	las espinacas
tomato	el tomate

For a fun way to learn all the names of the different vegetables in Spanish, pretend you’re making a big pot of soup. What kind of soup would you like to make? What ingredients would you include? Fill in the following blank spaces with some of the veggies you’d like to put in your soup.

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Meat and Dairy—Carne y productos lácteos

Here are some different kinds of meat and seafood. You’ll want to know how to say all of these words in Spanish so you know what you’re ordering when you go out to eat at a restaurant in a Spanish-speaking country.

English	Spanish
anchovy	la anchoa
beef	la carne de res
chicken	el pollo
fish	el pescado
ham	el jamón
lamb	el cordero
pork	el cerdo
rabbit	el conejo
roast beef	el rosbif
sausage	la salchicha
seafood	el marisco
steak	el bistec
turkey	el pavo
veal	la ternera

Diversión—Fun Stuff

Draw a big picture of a pizza and then add a whole bunch of vegetable toppings. Don’t forget to label all the veggies in Spanish! Some favorite combinations are spinach and mushroom, peppers and onions, or garlic and tomato. What are your favorites?

Consejo
IMPORTANT TIP

Do you remember learning that “fish” is un pez in the section on pets in Chapter 5? Well, pez is the word for a live fish, but when you talk about a fish that you’re going to eat, it’s called pescado.