"When England discards Roast Beef," wrote Dr. Hunter of York in 1806, "we ma

游客2023-11-01 61

问题 "When England discards Roast Beef," wrote Dr. Hunter of York in 1806, "we may fairly conclude that the nation is about to change its manly and national character."
In which case, we will soon be utterly unmanned. For the British are discarding not just beef, but all forms of animal flesh. A new report on the food-buying habits of the nation shows that we are cutting back greatly on meat, in response to rising food prices.
It’s not just about money. What has made the decline in meat consumption the headlines is that this troubles our national pride, for the British—and especially the English—have always been the most truculent(寻衅好斗的)of carnivores(食肉动物).
Meat-eating is written into our poetry, our collective consciousness. "Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel," observed Shakespeare of his countrymen, and "they will eat like wolves and fight like devils." Even the bookish Samuel Johnson declared that: "Any of us would kill a cow, rather than not have beef."
Like most stories of nationhood, this one has its origins in the land. As Bee Wilson explained in Consider the Fork—her wonderful history of culinary(厨房的)invention—the English became "Les Rosbif" because we had exactly the resources you need for roasting beef, the old fashioned way: turning an entire beast over a raging fire. England had plenty of grass for grazing cattle, as well as dense forests to be turned into firewood.
In truth, of course, roast beef was mostly the preserve of the rich: the poor, as ever, had to settle for off-cuts. But the idea took root that England’s strength derived from its meaty diet. Henry Fielding wrote a song about it, which Hogarth then turned into one of his most famous paintings. It showed a cook carrying a vast, glistening side of beef to an English tavern, while a group of cadaverous(形容枯槁的)French soldiers looked on in misery, knowing they would have only watery soup for their supper.
These days, of course, watery soup is what the doctor has ordered. The Defra figures show that, although most of us are eating less as prices rise, we are still consuming around 5 per cent more calories than we need.
Eating less meat will do most us no harm at all, especially if we replace it with those poor neglected beans. And yet, it seems faintly unpatriotic. For what is a nation but its mythology—the stories we pass down about what we are and how we became this way? In the words of Lord Peter Wimsey, that greediest of English detectives: "What? Sunday morning in an English family and no sausages? God bless my soul, what’s the world coming to?" [br] According to the author, discarding animal flesh indicates______.

选项 A、a collapse of the country
B、an alteration of ethnic traditions
C、a change of their consumption habit
D、a decline of human nature

答案 B

解析推断题。根据关键词定位至第二段。作者在该段指出，英国人开始放弃肉食的习惯，而在第三段中指出，这不仅是钱的问题，而是事关民族自豪感，并且在随后的段落中用很多英国文学作品来进行印证，可见放弃肉食是人文传统的改变，故[B]为答案。

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