美国人吃午餐和晚餐之前通常要喝点鸡尾酒，但在加利福尼亚州，人们大都喝葡萄酒。吃主食之前，一般都要吃一盘色拉。炸蘑菇和炸洋葱圈可作为开胃食品，牛排、猪排和鸡(腿)为主食，龙虾、贝壳类动物以及各种鱼类甚至包括淡水鱼被统称为海鲜。炸土豆条是深受人们喜爱而且几乎成了必不可少的食物。另外应特别注意的一点，如有吃剩的食物，一定要打包带回家，以免浪费。

　　Cocktail鸡尾酒

　　It is quite usual to drink cocktails before lunch and dinner in America and somewhat less usual, except in California, to drink wine with a meal. You can either have a cocktail in the bar, if there is one, while you wait for a table or for friends, or you can have one served before your dinner comes. At some restaurants the waiter / waitress will come to your table as soon as you sit down to ask if you want a cocktail, and you can then drink this while deciding what to order to eat. At others, there may be a separate cocktail waiter or waitress. In this case, you do not normally order wine from him or her but from the normal waiter or the wine waiter if there is one.

　　Do not hesitate to order Californian wines. They can be excellent and in many parts of the country are cheap.

　　Salad 色拉

　　It is usual to have a salad with your meal, and a separate plate is provided for this purpose. The normal practice in America is to eat the salad before the main course. A wonderful American invention is the salad bar. In restaurants that have these salad bars the waiter does not bring you salad. You go to the salad bar and help yourself, usually to as much as you want. This is normally done after you have ordered your meal; you eat the salad while the main course is being cooked.

　　Choosing from the Menu 选菜

　　American menus can look rather confusing at first sight, for they may use some terms which are unfamiliar to most visitors. Here are some points which may be useful.

　　Fried mushrooms, fried onion rings[1] and fried zucchini[2] are sometimes served as starters[3] .

　　Potatoes most often come “French-fried” or baked. If you order a baked potato, the waiter will ask you what you want on it. The choice is butter and / or sour cream and sometimes chives[4].

　　Very often vegetables do not come automatically with the meal, and you have to pay extra for them.

　　“Scrod”[5] , “red snapper” [6] and “mahi hahi” are all name of fish. “Seafood” means lobster[7], shellfish and fish, including, funnily enough, freshwater fish! Prawns[8] are known as “shrimp”.

　　American beef is usually good and often wonderful.

　　American salt and pepper[9] pots are confusing until you realize that the salt pot may look like a pepper pot except that the salt pot's holes are bigger. Pepper is normally black rather than white. American mustard is mild and normally eaten with hot dogs or hamburgers rather than meat.

　　And that stuff in a dish that looks ice cream is actually whipped butter.

　　Leftovers 吃剩的食物

　　You have probably heard that in American restaurants, if you can't finish your meal, you can put the remains in a “doggy bag” and take them home. This is quite true. If you leave some meat, in particular, your waiter may ask you if you'd like him to put it into “a little bag”, or you can ask him to do this.

　　Notes: 1. 炸洋葱圈 2. 炸小胡瓜 3. 第一道菜 4. 细香葱 5. 小鳕鱼 6. 啮龟 7. 龙虾 8. 对虾 9. 胡椒粉

　　(文/单祝堂；英语辅导报 大学一年级版 04～05学年第26期； 版权归英语辅导报社所有，独家网络合作伙伴新浪教育，未经许可，不得以任何形式进行转载。)