Page 40 - index

2023 ‫מועד אביב‬ - 39 - ‫ פרק ראשון‬- ‫אנגלית‬

Reading Comprehension

This part consists of two passages, each followed by several related questions. For each
question, choose the most appropriate answer based on the text.

Text I (Questions 13-17)

(1) Auguste Escoffier, the foremost chef in Paris in the late 1800s, ran the most
glamorous and expensive restaurant in the city. There he created meals that surpassed
anything his customers had ever experienced. The wonderful taste was attributed to
veal stock, the innovative basis of most of Escoffier's scrumptious dishes. It deepened

(5) and enriched the flavor of everything it touched. So extraordinary was his cooking that
it defied the accepted notion that humans could taste only four flavors: salty, sweet,
sour, and bitter. In fact, Escoffier believed he had discovered a new category of taste,
though he lacked the scientific means to prove it.

In 1907, a Japanese chemist named Kikunae Ikeda had a similar insight.
(10) Enjoying a bowl of dashi, a classic Japanese soup made from seaweed, Ikeda sensed

that the flavor was not one of the four recognized tastes. He went into his laboratory,
determined to find the mysterious component. A year later his findings were published
in the Journal of the Chemical Society of Tokyo. Claiming that the elusive flavor came
from glutamic acid, he called this fifth taste "umami", a name derived from the
(15) Japanese word umai, meaning "delicious". Unlike Escoffier, Ikeda had offered
scientific proof. Still, nobody believed him.

Almost a hundred years later, a new generation of scientists took a closer look at the
human tongue. Their findings confirmed the claims of Escoffier and Ikeda. Apparently,
humans have taste receptors for a substance called L-glutamate. When we eat

(20) something that is particularly delicious in a way not identifiable as sweet, sour, bitter, or
salty, what we are tasting is umami.

Questions

13. An appropriate title for this text would be -

(1) Great Chefs, Great Discoveries
(2) From Veal Stock to Dashi: A World of Extraordinary Cooking
(3) Umami: The Four Categories of Taste
(4) In Search of the Fifth Flavor

)‫© כל הזכויות שמורות למרכז ארצי לבחינות ולהערכה (ע"ר‬
.‫ בלא אישור בכתב מהמרכז הארצי לבחינות ולהערכה‬- ‫ כולה או חלקים ממנה‬- ‫ או ללמדה‬,‫אין להעתיק או להפיץ בחינה זו או קטעים ממנה בכל צורה ובכל אמצעי‬