 Hello and welcome to another real conversation between two native English speakers. I am Adam Navas and I'm joined as always by Liz Wade. Hi Liz. Hi Adam. How are you? I'm good. Good. That's the typical English answer right? I'm fine. I'm fine. Well today we're going to be talking about our featured program which is Food Taboos. I am very excited to talk about this program because it is a program that makes me feel things. It makes me have reactions about would I eat that or not. But so stick around for that but before we get to the program I just want to tell you about something that I'm excited about. I know Liz is excited about as well is we have spotlight memberships which is on YouTube there's a little button that says join and when you click that button you can learn about different membership levels where you can get special emojis and badges on our YouTube channel for our live shows you can get comments that badge will show up and you can get at different levels you can request some PDFs of scripts which I think is a great thing we're offering and also extra content extra videos extra programs it's just our way of helping you take your English learning to the next level. If that's not for you just make sure you hit that like subscribe and the bell so you don't miss anything that we any of our content right? Did I miss anything Liz? You didn't and I do want to point out well I guess a little bit of a missed thing but we have a we have a special extra video for this program on for members who are advanced level and above so this actually this taboo food script program has an extra mini script for members. Yes featuring yours truly which is a fancy word saying me. So we're going to talk about this food taboos program and I think this is a fascinating program if you haven't if you haven't listened to it already please go do that because it really is going to help you understand what we're talking about. So food taboos are foods that have some kind of not like untouchable like it's you're not supposed to eat them for some reason either a religious reason or a social reason. I actually think it's really difficult to even as a native English speaker knowing what the word taboo means I think it's actually really difficult to wrap my mind around around what a taboo is and so I think it helps too to say that it's like taboos don't have to be just for foods they can be actions or things right like something that is that is taboo or not allowed or like in poor taste in your culture might not be taboo in a different culture and so then it goes along with food right and taboos even in a culture change right right they change over time yeah so it it starts with the program starts talking about fugu or it's a puffer fish a fish that it's defensive mechanism is it it blows up like a ball with little spikes on it yeah it looks really funny it looks it is really funny it's often in like if you see a movie with fish in it it will be often that kind of fish because it's a funny little character it's in finding Nemo exactly um so but if you eat the fish like if you or I Liz were to just say oh we caught a fish and we're going to prepare it it would probably kill us because it's it has poison in it yeah so you have to go through a long process of learning how to prepare the fish just right in order to make it not poisonous to people and so here's my question for you Liz as would you try this fish knowing that if it were prepared wrong it would kill you um okay like so and we're assuming that somebody else paid for it so I'm not paying like a million dollars to you're at a reputable restaurant where's where you would assume the chef I I think that if I were at a very uh like reputable high-end uh expensive restaurant and I knew that uh that the chef was like one of these experienced sushi chefs I might eat it I might eat it wrong I have a pretty adventurous palate like I will usually eat whatever like uh cultural food is in front of me I don't I'm guessing you would not eat it well okay so there's there's adventurous like oh I'm gonna try this octopus something that that is more that has a texture I might not be familiar with like I I just don't think it's worth it there's other there's other fish in the sea as they say like literally it's true I mean the thing is like I'm not gonna try like base jumping or free climbing right um but this is an acceptable or accessible uh like danger that I could that I could take on yeah okay so that that's fair I I could understand that appeal because I wouldn't I there's some riskier like actions that I think I would do that maybe you wouldn't so we'll we'll go with that yeah but but the taboo around fugu is that it could kill you if if it's prepared improperly there are other things well and in one second I what I loved um because I you know I did some reading on this program um is that there are still uh like this is still an issue it's not like something that you know oh 100 years ago if you prepared this fish wrong it could kill you or the things like that like um there were supermarkets just in the last few years that recalled fugu fish because they accidentally sold it and it could kill people so anyway I thought that doesn't make sense to me that doesn't make sense to me yeah and I thought that was an interesting little anecdote I get if a food tastes bad or if you're a food tastes like uniquely uh acquired taste right like maybe a food um like there's the program talks about the the shark meat that if you it has a bad smell but a good I definitely want to talk about this yes it has a bad smell but a good taste like I okay I could get but the risk of death just doesn't seem worth it to me okay so uh yeah I I could see that so let's talk about whether or not you would eat this shark right so just uh for people who maybe have not listened to the program yet um the shark is a fermented or or rotting shark meat that traditionally is made by burying it underground until all the juices come out of it and then it kind of like then they hang it up for a couple months and then it dries out and then um the description is um uh that it smells like liquid human waste so uh you know I feel like we all know what that smells like uh and uh it tastes like uh cheese just a mild cheese yeah so um this one I I would initially say I would first say you know that sounds interesting I might try that although I will say when I was in Vietnam uh oh man it was a year and a half ago now I did not try durian and that is one of those things have you tried durian I have had durian yeah see I have not had durian and I know that it smells terrible but apparently it tastes good and sweet nope it also tastes horrible okay I haven't had it before I like it is supposed to um taste taste good but when I was reading about this program and because all of these things you think oh I need to know more about this food why do people eat it yeah um uh two chefs that I have watched on tv are okay so one is Anthony Bourdain and I'm sure you know Anthony Bourdain okay uh he's very famous chef um and uh he had a travel show where he traveled all around the world and he would he would eat any anything put before he said it was literally the worst food that he had ever tasted in the whole world that from someone who's eaten a lot of different things that that is a hard hard to ignore yes so um that to me is like well should I try it I don't know um but the other one is Gordon Ramsey okay another famous yeah yeah he is also a tv chef um he has a bunch of cooking shows he's a very uh a decorated chef yeah um and a very big personality um I saw a youtube video where he and another man were trying this how Carl how Carl yeah and uh he took a bite and he literally he chewed it up and he spit it into a bucket because he couldn't even swallow it now the other guy was like I'd have another piece but yeah Gordon Ramsey spit it into a bucket and he wouldn't try it that's not um so if I and I have heard I have read that if you want to try this food you cannot smell it before you put it in your mouth I don't I don't so would you try this okay so before you told me all this I was like oh yeah I would be willing to try this now that you have you have I'm more informed I probably wouldn't I am not a super adventurous eater I want to be that's true like I want to be but I am a slow like it like I'm I'm even even in the foods that I'm familiar with I would rather have like one kind of cookie or biscuit however you want to say yeah and your favorite ice cream is vanilla yes uh so I will say I gave you a hard time in that ice cream program yeah uh and somebody in the comments was like hey lay off Adam yeah see I like this ice cream flavor is not yours everybody loves Liz but I got my crew you guys know who you are yeah um but you've made it through durian yeah when I when I tried durian I my expectations were quite low like people said it smelled and tasted like wet gym socks socks that you'd you'd work out in and be all sweaty and then stinky and that was pretty that was pretty accurate so I think I think I can't expect it to taste good like I see yeah for new foods if you're not familiar if they're if they're from a different culture it can be very spicy or it can be very um have a have a texture that you're just not familiar with and I think but it's good to be exposed to those things because it helps you understand other cultures and it helps those things that seem um odd to you to become more familiar yeah taboo um so there are there we there's a lot in this program we haven't gotten to yet yeah well I want to I want to make sure and um invite people who are listening or watching please tell us if you have ever eaten these foods so fugu or um how Carl um I would love to know if you have eaten these foods or uh it if you would well I can't leave this this conversation without talking about the fact that there are many people who eat different parts of an animal uh for uh because they believe it will have medical benefits or sexual health benefits uh so the the program talks about eating the uh sex organ of a bull or a male cow I cannot I would not I would not eat that yeah I don't I don't know like I don't I don't think I would either I don't think it's probably marketed to me though no I don't think I would I don't think it would be worth it I have eaten cow brain before when I was in Argentina and that wasn't too bad it was just see I feel like that's a pretty adventurous food I've never eaten that yeah well I just think the idea that it would have those benefits are yeah uh even when they've been proven not to I don't know well you know uh as this program says like food was the first medicine so you know if you if you eat something and then uh uh you know you have a you have a benefit it doesn't necessarily it isn't necessarily because of that food but it could feel that way and then you know you say hey when I was sick I ate blah blah blah and you should try it I just think it's it's crazy um you know there's um bird nest soup where people have to climb up into caves and and it's really expensive and there's you know people who try to chop rhinoceros horns off to make medicine uh it just feels odd to me that we live in a world where people don't have enough and then we're going to such extremes just to have food experiences right right um maybe maybe I'm not those people who want more yeah well uh speaking of wanting more uh if you want to hear about more taboo foods from different cultures um again we have a really great uh extra video for members only about different taboo foods and this is a feature that we're hoping to do for um yeah many programs coming up and so I hope that you click that join button and and check out what becoming a member could help you with hey Liz let me ask you a question if people join is it easy for them to un-join let's say they their situation changes and they they they don't want to and they everybody will want to support us yeah if they want to if they want to try it out for a while can they stop yes so you can first of all when you hit the join button you get to see all of the things that are offered you don't have to pay and I'm in at all right away unless you decide to join so if you decide to join then you can click whatever level you want and then your credit card or however you have um uh whatever you have hooked up through youtube yeah uh we'll start that and then you can see the membership page all of the resources that are there and you get access to all of the membership resources that were before um or that came before and then if you decide that the membership is just not for you that's okay we still love you and we still hope that you are recommending spotlight um but if you decide that membership is not for you or you can't pay for it anymore or or whatever your reason is um you can just really easily cancel on youtube um and as long as it's before your next billing cycle it just stops easy peasy yeah or as I like to say easy peasy lemon squeezy exactly well if you uh if you're new here make sure you check out our facebook page and our website if you're uh we have a lot of social media we have a lot of content that if this is if you're new please check it out um do all the things like subscribe follow and um that way you'll never miss any of this great wonderful content and until next time we hope that you continue to listen watch practice and learn spotlight out