What was your favourite food and drink when you were a child? Do you still like it? What food (or drink) do you deliberately eat (or drink) because you know it is good for your health? Is there any food (or drink) that you know you shouldn't eat (or drink), but which you find it hard to give up?

Listen to five people talking about different aspects of food and drink. At this first step, just listen for general comprehension, so don't worry if you don't understand every word they are saying.

Now, listen again to Marissa, Ronny, Pamela, Joe and Denis, while you check their comments with the audio transcriptions.

MARISSA: I've always loved fish. I was fortunate to be born near the sea and brought up in a home where we regularly ate fresh fish of all kinds. And by 'fresh fish', I mean really fresh - literally hours from the catch being landed and sorted. My father would march in with a box of whatever had caught his eye - mussels, skate wings, cod, herring, plaice, mackerel and so on. I can still smell them now.

RONNY: For thousands of years, from China to Viking Scandinavia, from the Greeks to the Bible, garlic has been recognised as a top healing plant. Its uses include treating stomach upsets, tackling asthma and other breathing difficulties, relieving colds and coughs, helping headaches, and most of all, strengthening resistance to infection.

PAMELA: And every morning I find myself stuck on Clapham Junction station waiting for a train and I go into the buffet and I drink their, their coffee. Sometimes it is really quite good and sometimes it is really pretty awful and they, they get to know me quite well in there because I, I make comments on their coffee on a daily basis! 

JOE: Smells are great memory joggers. One sniff of a lump of salt fish and I'm back in a small dark shop in Oporto; ground spices take me to a chaotic, irresistible market in south-west India; boiled cabbage takes me back to school. My jar of dried orange peel is the heart of Christmas for me, and this rosewater takes me down a narrow lane in Fez to a wonderful cake shop. 

DENIS: The world's most widely-known style of beer -Pilsner or Pils - originates from the town of Pilsen in Bohemia, in the present-day Czech Republic. In 1842, Pilsen's local brewery produced the world's first golden-coloured beer, thus 'inventing' pale lager. Until that time all the world's beers had been dark, or at least reddish in colour. It soon became popular throughout the German-speaking world... and the rest, as they say, is history. 

ACTIVITY 44: Finally, after listening to the five speakers, choose from the menus what he or she is doing, Use each name only once. There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use. Then check the answers.

This speaker is ...