第40課 甘蔗
Have you "a sweet tooth"? Do you like things with sugar in them? If you do (and I am almost sure that you do),you will like this lesson, for it will tell you where sugar comes from, and all about it.
小朋友,你愛吃甜食嗎?你喜歡加糖的東西嗎?要是你喜歡(我差不多肯定你會喜歡),你也會喜歡這一課,因為這一課告訴你的,正是糖的來源,以及關于糖的一切!
Sugar is found in the juice or sap of many plants. You cannot see the sugar, because it is dissolved in the water of the juice. Sugar dissolves so well that one pound of water can dissolve three pounds of sugar.
很多植物的汁液,或者樹汁,里面都有糖。但是這種糖是看不見的,因為它溶解在汁液的水分里面了。糖的可溶性非常好,一磅水能溶解三磅糖呢!
The sweetness of most fruits is caused by a kind of sugar called grape-sugar. You know that grapes taste sweet. Now raisins are just dried grapes; and if you cut open some raisins, you will be sure to find inside them many little hard grains of this grape-sugar.
多數(shù)水果的甜味,來自一種叫做“葡萄糖”的糖。你知道葡萄吃起來是甜的。曬干了的葡萄叫葡萄干;把葡萄干切開,就肯定能在里面,找到很多這種葡萄糖粒。
But the sugar which we use to sweeten our tea, and which is sold in all the grocers’shops as "lump-sugar" or "brown sugar," is made either from the juice of the plant called the sugar-cane, or from that of another plantcalled the beet.
不過,我們放在茶里的糖,在所有雜貨店里賣的糖,叫做“方糖”或者“紅糖”,這種糖要么是一種叫“甘蔗”的植物的汁制造的,要么是另一種叫“甜菜”的植物制造的。
The sugar-cane grows in very hot countries. It is a tall kind of grass, about twice the height of a man. Its smooth, shining stems are about two inches thick, and they have knots or joints at every five or six inches.
甘蔗生長在非常炎熱的地區(qū),是一種長得很高的草,差不多有成年人高度的兩倍。甘蔗的莖很光滑,有光澤,直徑大概有兩英寸;每5-6英寸就分一個“節(jié)”。