快餐业简史
文章来源: 文章作者: 发布时间:2009-04-11 02:00 字体: [ ]  进入论坛
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)

大街小巷,似乎随处都能看到快餐店。生活的节奏越来越快,人们有时不得不在快餐店将就一下。快餐因其美味,颇受孩子的青睐。在吃快餐的时候,你有想过它是怎样发展起来的吗?下文就为您简单介绍一下。

 

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.

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 hop1 delivered it.

Richard and Maurice McDonald owned such a restaurant. After running it successfully for 11 years, they decided2 to improve it. They wanted to make food faster, sell it cheaper and spend less time worrying about replacing cooks and car hops3. The brothers closed the restaurant and redesigned its food-preparation area to work less like a restaurant and more like an automobile4 assembly line.

Their old drive-in had already made them rich, but the new restaurant - which became McDonald's - made the brothers famous. Restaurateurs traveled from all over the country to copy their system of fast food preparation, which they called the Speedee Service System. Without cars, Carl and Maurice would not have had a drive-in restaurant to tinker with. Without assembly lines, they would not have had a basis for their method of preparing food.

Before the McDonald brothers invented their fast-food production system, some restaurants did make food pretty quickly. These restaurants employed short-order cooks, who specialized5 in making food that didn't require a lot of preparation time. Being a short-order cook took skill and training, and good cooks were in high demand. The Speedee system, however, was completely different. Instead of using a skilled cook to make food quickly, it used lots of unskilled workers, each of whom did one small, specific step in the food-preparation process.

The McDonald brothers' changes also applied6 to the design of the restaurant kitchen. Instead of having lots of different equipment and stations for preparing a wide variety of food, the Speedee kitchen had:

A very large grill7 where one person could cook lots of burgers simultaneously8

A dressing9 station where people added the same condiments10 to every burger

A fryer where one person made french fries

A soda11 fountain and milkshake machine for desserts and beverages12

A counter where customers placed and received their orders

Instead of being designed to facilitate the preparation of a variety of food relatively13 quickly, the kitchen's purpose was to make a very large amount of a very few items. For example, when Ray Kroc, who founded the McDonald's corporation, visited the restaurant for the first time in 1954, he was selling milkshake machines that could make five shakes at once. The McDonald brothers wanted eight of them.

Copies of the Speedee Service System spread throughout California and the rest of the United States as restaurateurs adapted the techniques for their own restaurants. Many of the chains that copied the McDonald brothers' ideas still exist - they serve everything from tacos to chicken. Even though they serve vastly different types of food, they have some basic traits in common:

When you visit one of them and go inside, you almost always place your order and collect your food at a counter

When you drive through, you place your order at a speaker or a window, and someone hands it to you through a window

The food arrives individually wrapped and in a bag or on a tray

You can eat most of the food without using a knife or fork

The food is relatively inexpensive

Individual restaurants in the same chain physically resemble or are identical to one another

When you visit different restaurants from the same chain, the menu and food are pretty much the same



点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 hop vdJzL     
n.单脚跳,跳跃;vi.单脚跳,跳跃;着手做某事;vt.跳跃,跃过
参考例句:
  • The children had a competition to see who could hop the fastest.孩子们举行比赛,看谁单足跳跃最快。
  • How long can you hop on your right foot?你用右脚能跳多远?
2 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
3 hops a6b9236bf6c7a3dfafdbc0709208acc0     
跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 ); 单足蹦跳; 齐足(或双足)跳行; 摘葎草花
参考例句:
  • The sparrow crossed the lawn in a series of hops. 那麻雀一蹦一跳地穿过草坪。
  • It is brewed from malt and hops. 它用麦精和蛇麻草酿成。
4 automobile rP1yv     
n.汽车,机动车
参考例句:
  • He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
  • The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。
5 specialized Chuzwe     
adj.专门的,专业化的
参考例句:
  • There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
  • These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。
6 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
7 grill wQ8zb     
n.烤架,铁格子,烤肉;v.烧,烤,严加盘问
参考例句:
  • Put it under the grill for a minute to brown the top.放在烤架下烤一分钟把上面烤成金黄色。
  • I'll grill you some mutton.我来给你烤一些羊肉吃。
8 simultaneously 4iBz1o     
adv.同时发生地,同时进行地
参考例句:
  • The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
  • The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。
9 dressing 1uOzJG     
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料
参考例句:
  • Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
  • The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。
10 condiments a632be4317089bb19457274e84060853     
n.调味品
参考例句:
  • Refill and clean all salt and peppers, sugar bowls, and other condiments. 清洁并续满所有的胡椒瓶、盐瓶、糖缸及其他调料。
  • Go easy on condiments, they tend to be salty. 别放太多调味品,这样往往会太咸。
11 soda cr3ye     
n.苏打水;汽水
参考例句:
  • She doesn't enjoy drinking chocolate soda.她不喜欢喝巧克力汽水。
  • I will freshen your drink with more soda and ice cubes.我给你的饮料重加一些苏打水和冰块。
12 beverages eb693dc3e09666bb339be2c419d0478e     
n.饮料( beverage的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • laws governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 控制酒类销售的法规
  • regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 含酒精饮料的销售管理条例
13 relatively bkqzS3     
adv.比较...地,相对地
参考例句:
  • The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
  • The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。
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