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Hi everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour.欢迎你又回到酒馆。

As we are getting into autumn, we are getting our appetite back, and maybe some of you have already started to put on a little autumnal weight. 在听节目的你有没有已经开始贴秋膘了？我想没有人会用健康的食物贴秋膘吧, so I can only assume you have been snacking, indulging in some much needed guilty pleasures.

So today we're going to do another episode dedicated to food. Yeah！One of my favorite topics. In the past, we have done a few food episodes, we talked about ice cream, bread, comfort food, street food, fruits. And today we're going to focus on one of the most popular snacks around the world.

今天的酒馆里璐璐就陪你聊聊全世界人民都喜闻乐见的一种零食-饼干。If I ask you how to say饼干in English, I'm sure I'll be getting different answers. Some of you would say biscuits, others would say cookies, maybe other words as well. So first of all, let's talk about the difference between biscuit and cookie.

In the UK, both biscuits and cookie can mean what we would consider饼干。However, when you talk about biscuits in British English, they usually harder, crunchier, 英式英语里面说的biscuit, 更类似于那种比较硬比较脆的饼干。

But when British people say cookie, they are mostly thinking about something more American style and just chewier. 而他们说的cookie更类似于这种美式的偏软偏甜的这种大曲奇。

But in general, British people would probably use the word biscuits a lot more. But in American English, things are different, most of the饼干in American English can be called cookies, and when Americans think about biscuit, they are usually thinking about a soft quick bread similar to the English scone, 而美国人说的biscuit更像是一个小圆面包，有点类似于咸版的英式司康饼。I know it's really confusing.

So why do Americans choose cookies over biscuits? When the early English and Dutch immigrants first introduced cookie to America in the 1600s while the English were calling these small cakes or biscuits, the Dutch immigrants were calling it cookies. So the word cookie was originally from Dutch, and also because back then Americans are trying to separate themselves from the English, so instead of using the word English people use, they chose the Dutch word cookie. 整体来讲就是英国人更喜欢用biscuit，美国人更喜欢用cookie.

But if you think that is it about饼干，you are much mistaken. There are so many different types of饼干。Let me walk you through some of them. See if you've had them.

The first time, perhaps one of the slightly healthier choices in this category is called cracker. In American English they are sometimes called soda cracker or saltine. This is flat, dry baked, typically made with flour and flavorings or seasonings such as salt, herbs, seeds or cheese may be added. cracker或者soda cracker, saltine就是我们说的苏打饼。首先它不会那么甜，甚至有的时候是咸味的。

One thing perhaps very cultural is when we eat crackers in China, we just eat them on their own. But in a lot of the English speaking countries, you would pair crackers with cheese, and this is a very common snack food. 朋友聚会的时候，苏打饼配各种各样的芝士是一种大家可以分享的很常见的小吃。And cheese and cracker can also be paired with wines.

So if you are adventurous, try those pairing out next time. If cracker goes well with cheese and wine, the next type of 饼干 goes very well with coffee. This is the Italian biscotti中文把它叫做意大利杏仁磨牙饼干。The reason why it's called that it's because it is twice baked to make it really hard. If you are more used to the soft cookies, you're gonna be in for a surprise if you eat biscotti, they're so hard that they are usually not just eaten as it is. Many people would choose to have a small piece of biscotti, dip it in coffee or even dunk it in coffee. 因为这个磨牙饼干实在是特别的硬，所以一般人都会 dip in coffee蘸着咖啡甚至是dunk in coffee直接整个泡在里面。

Interestingly, some people would also dip it in wine. Personally, I find it a little bit strange. Many cafes in China now also sell their own biscotti, as a great snack to go with coffee.

The next type of 饼干is a festive one. You often see them at Christmas, they are shaped like people or you can use it to make little houses. 圣诞节大家看到的那种姜饼人和姜饼屋，interestingly，they are not called biscuit or cookies, they are called gingerbread, although they're not really bread. So you can bake gingerbread man or gingerbread house. Last Christmas, I actually made my own Ginger bread Chinese tower.去年圣诞节宅在家里，实在没事做，我自己在家做了一个中国风的姜饼宝塔。I'm including the picture here, so you can check it out.

In English，many of these 饼干they're not actually called cookie or biscuits. So we just talked about gingerbread.

Now let's look at one of the souvenirs that you can buy if you ever go to the UK, the traditional short bread. A traditional treat from Scotland, short bread a basically buttery biscuits that are very nice but very fattening. Short bread就是苏格兰传统的黄油酥饼，去英国旅游的话可以买来作为很好的伴手礼。

So after a few of these 饼干 that are not called cookie or biscuits, let's come to one of the most popular cookies in the world. This is chocolate chip cookie, chocolate chip means little pieces of chocolate. They are super easy to make, you pretty much can't mess it up, and they taste great. I will include a classic recipe in today's keyword, but don't blame me if you put on weight.

One thing I do want to mention is when you bake these cookies, when you're mixing ingredients, you will have something called the cookie dough.在烤饼干的时候，所有的原料混合在一起烤之前，他们被叫做cookie dough，就是这种之后能烤成曲奇的生面团。

One thing that might surprise you is in America some people would prefer to eat that cookie dough directly. I guess it’s because when they're baking and they just wanted to taste the dough, and it tastes so nice, so they decide to forget about the baking process and just eat the dough.

Nowadays you also have cookie dough flavored ice cream. The next two types of 饼干that I want to mention I don't really eat them a lot, but I use them in baking.

The first one is digestive or digestive biscuit 消化饼。They're called digestive biscuits because they were developed in the 19th century by Scottish doctor to aid digestion. But I usually just crush them and use them as base for my cheese cake. The other饼干you can use in baking is something called ladyfingers. Ladyfingers are these low density dry egg based, spongy cake biscuits that are roughly shaped like a large finger.也不知道为什么会叫ladyfingers。总之如果哪位小姐姐手指长成那种形状还是有点闹心的。

Now ladyfingers are not really biscuits that you eat as a snack，but you often soak them in like coffee or espresso, and then you use them to make the famous dessert Tiramisu.浸泡了咖啡的lady fingers经常会被用在意大利的国民甜品提拉米苏里。

So after talking about all these饼干，what kind of adjectives would we use to describe them. From the texture, You can call them crispy or crunchy, 基本都是脆，不过crispy可能更多的是薄脆，crunchy更多的是松脆。If they are like large chocolate chip cookies, maybe they'll be chewy meaning that you can chew a lot and then they're softer. Some of them are crumbly酥的掉渣，crumbly. You might also say that they are buttery, which means you can taste the butter in it. After all, butter is what makes a lot of cookies taste great. After introducing all these biscuits and cookies, let us finish off with a few idioms in English with the word cookie.

For example, you can call someone a smart cookie or a tough cookie. A smart cookie is just someone smart, always with bright ideas. If you say to someone, aren't you a smart cookie? 就有点像，你可真是个小机灵鬼。You might also call someone a tough cookie, this is to describe someone who is very determined who will always pull through any tough situations. For example, Don't worry about her, she's one tough cookie，超有韧性，很坚强的这种狠角色, a tough cookie.

You can also catch someone with their hand in the cookie jar. Think about it, if you catch a kid with their hand in a cookie jar, after you told them not to eat cookies, this is catching someone doing something wrong, 被抓了现行, to catch someone with their hand in the cookie jar.

And the last one is cookie cutter. When you're making cookies, you might use molds to cut the dough, 做饼干的模具叫做cookie cutter。By using cookie cutter, you can make sure that every piece of cookie or biscuit look the same. That's why we use cookie cutter to mean same as everyone else. For example, if you are tired of living a life that is just like everyone else, you can say I’m so tired of this cookie cutter life. So that ends today's episode about cookies and biscuits and all those sweet sweet treats.

What is your favorite cookie or biscuit or snack? Leave us a comment in the common section. I'll see you next time.