In Search of Total Perfection - Test 1

B2 First · Multiple Choice Reading · Cambridge English First 3, Cambridge University Press

You are going to read part of the introduction to a cookery book called In Search of Total Perfection by Heston Blumenthal. For questions 1–6, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.

When my first cookery programme In Search of Perfection first came out, I had no idea how it would be received by the viewers and the press. There had been plenty of talk going round at the time about the food 'revolution' sweeping through Britain, and I was certain that we'd produced a series of programmes that made a genuinely innovative contribution to cooking that involved not just techniques but also history, nostalgia and science! I watched the first programme in a mixed state of joy and fear. I needn't have worried. The subsequent success of the show paved the way for all sorts of other fascinating projects, including a book based on my experiences at the restaurant I own. In each project there's a sense of being on a journey, be it into the past, into the mind, or into cookery techniques. I then wrote several books in a series called 'Perfection', each one accompanying its own TV programme of the same name. In these, however, the journey was often a very physical one, with passports and suitcases and itineraries. In Search of Total Perfection is the latest in the series, and in it you'll zigzag the globe in order to meet some extraordinary artisans, such as a man who finds his true purpose in creating a golden pasta that tastes better than any other. These people have spent decades pursuing their own ideals of perfection. Perfection is, of course, highly subjective. Even the seemingly simple task of choosing which dishes to include in the series turned out to be a nightmare, and I knew it was bound to upset many people by leaving out their particular favourite. 'Where's steak and kidney pie and bread and butter pudding?' I could imagine people saying. Nevertheless, after shutting ourselves away in a meeting room and agreeing not to emerge until we had come up with a suitable list, the TV production team and I eventually had something for everyone. This reinforced my opinion that each of us has our own idea of what constitutes perfection, drawing heavily on a highly personalised mix of emotions, memories and surroundings. Despite the book's title, In Search of Perfection, I knew from the outset that I wouldn't be claiming the recipes were in any way 'definitive'. But I reckoned that, by using my technical skill and scientific knowledge, by talking to food producers and artisans and chefs and their customers, I could pin down some of the things that made these dishes work. While the dictionary defines 'perfection' as the state of being perfect, it also offers a second definition of equal importance to this book: honing through gradual experimentation. Trying out ideas and then revising them until you arrive at something uniquely wonderful. The TV series gave me the opportunity to get out and look into all sorts of foods, people and places I'd never encountered before in any restaurant, and I was as excited about that as I was about the chance to explore memory and nostalgia in food because I started out in this business in exactly the same way. Searching out the best ingredients for the recipes took me all over the globe. Among my adventures were: being taken with great solemnity and assurance to a canning factory that turned out to be processing completely the wrong sort of tomato, and visiting a dairy farm whose standards fell so far short of perfection that we had to stop filming there! Refining the technique for each recipe, I ended up hand-milking a cow and then using dry ice to turn the milk into ice cream, cooking chicken breasts in a hospital scanning machine and nearly burning my house down in an effort to get the oven hot enough for a proper Neapolitan-style pizza.

had a more international focus than his first book.

strongly developed the psychological aspect of the subject.

feature some characters who re-appeared in different books.

were less successful than the TV programmes that went with them.

In the second paragraph, Heston implies that the books in the 'Perfection' series

It was useful in highlighting some practical problems.

It resulted in a very strange decision.

It should have been more productive.

It was demanding but efficient.

What did Heston think about the meeting to discuss the 'Perfection' series?

They vary considerably from the versions that inspired them.

They could be developed further in the future.

The final wording of them was easy to come up with.

The selection is not necessarily one he would have made himself.

What does Heston imply about the recipes in his new book?

They can never be completely perfect.

They are regarded by Heston as being experimental.

They serve another significant purpose in Heston's book.

They have been worked on and improved over a period of time.

What does 'honing' in line 62 tell us about the recipes?

being willing to try out new things

learning the trade in a particular restaurant

exploring the relationship between food and the past

wondering about the importance of food in people's lives

What does 'that' refer to in line 68?

had to be resourceful and adaptable.

narrowly avoided disaster on several occasions.

was forever solving problems caused by other people's incompetence.

had to respect an unusual local custom.

Heston says that during his travels around the globe, he

In Search of Total Perfection

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