C1 Food & Eating Vocabulary: Figurative Language, Register and Scarcity
This C1 Food and Eating Vocabulary module covers 50 low-frequency and figurative words built out of food — the ones that have left the kitchen completely (an unpalatable truth, a half-baked plan, an indigestible report, ruminate on a decision), plus the formal register of gastronomy, provisions, sustenance and subsistence. Ten words come back from the A2 food module in senses you would not expect. Every word comes with flashcards, a word-formation drill, a collocations match and a twelve-question quiz, free and self-scoring.
- 50 words
- 5 practice modes
- 12-question quiz
- Free progress tracking
- No sign-up
What’s inside this module
Five stages: revisit what you know, meet the new words, build other forms from them, pair them with the words they normally go with, then test yourself.
Words you already know
A warm-up deck of eight words you first met at A2 — taste, meal, cook, fresh, rich, sweet, bitter, appetite. By this level they have moved a long way: cook up a scheme, cook up an excuse, a voracious appetite. Each card shows what you knew before and where the word has gone since.
Flashcards
Fifty cards, each with the word, its part of speech, a precise C1 definition, an example sentence, and two typical collocations on the back — an unpalatable truth, an indigestible report, indigenous ingredients. Rate each card “I knew it” or “Still learning” and your ratings are saved automatically.
Word formation
Eight gap sentences that ask for a different form of a word you have just met: gastronomy becomes gastronomic, voracious becomes voracity, subsistence becomes subsist, discerning becomes discernment, abundance becomes abundant.
Collocations & phrases
Ten pairs that show how far the topic has moved from the dinner table: a voracious appetite, traditional fare, the last morsel, food scarcity, in abundance, culinary fusion, emergency provisions.
12-question quiz
A mix of multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank, with an explanation after every answer, right or wrong. Your best score is saved automatically.
How to get the most from it
Five habits that make C1 vocabulary stick, not just pass a quiz.
Most of these are not about eating
An unpalatable truth, a half-baked plan, an indigestible report, ruminate on a decision — the food is a metaphor and the sentence is about something else entirely. That is the C1 step in this topic, and it is why the definitions matter more than any picture would.
Scarcity and abundance are the serious half
Subsistence, deprivation, malnourished, scarcity, glut and self-sufficient belong to writing about food supply and poverty, not to restaurant reviews. These are the words an academic or news text about food actually needs.
Precise is not the same as fancy
Gastronomy, terroir, umami and culinary have exact meanings and no simpler equivalent. Using one because it sounds sophisticated is a mistake; using one because it is the only word that fits is what C1 actually looks like.
Come back for the re-deal
After you finish the flashcard deck, it automatically rebuilds itself from just the words marked “still learning.” A short second pass on the hard ones is worth more than repeating the whole deck.
Use one this week
Take one of the figurative entries — half-baked, unpalatable, indigestible, ruminate — and use it about something with no connection to food: a plan, a report, a decision. That is the only context most of them will ever appear in.
More food vocabulary
Four levels of one topic, built so that nothing repeats: A2 names the food, B1 orders it, B2 cooks and reviews it, and C1 leaves the kitchen behind.