Задание 10 из ЕГЭ по английскому языку: задача 31

2. Used for many purposes

3. Discovered by chance

4. Threat of getting poisoned

5. Selected for decoration

6. Several names for one fruit

7. Acquired by a spy

8. Nutritious varieties

A. Kiwifruit, shortened as kiwi, was named after the bird of the same name due to its fuzzy brown resemblance. The curiously shaped birds are endemic to New Zealand, and you’d expect the fruits to be, too. However, kiwifruit actually originated in China under a name that translates to ‘macaque peach’ due to its popularity with the local monkeys. First, New Zealand changed the name to ‘melonettes’, but that failed. Finally, the goose was reasonably replaced with New Zealand’s national bird and the berry broadened into fruit.

B. For centuries, everyone involved in the pineapple’s colonial trade absolutely adored it. The earliest records involve Carib Indians, expert navigators who traded and raided across the islands to collect all manner of bounty. When it was brought back to Europe, the pineapple was regarded as nature’s culinary masterpiece, a tropical delight reserved for English royalty. The women of colonial America competed with each other in arranging creative displays of food on their tabletops, with the sharp pineapple being king of the decorations and undeniable proof of wealth.

C. By now, it is common knowledge that the tomato has a tainted past. Being a member of the notoriously poisonous nightshade family, the bright red tomato was thought by wary Europeans to be toxic for over two centuries. But this was no simple assumption on appearance. Affluent Europeans did die of poisoning after eating tomatoes on their pewter plates. The acidity from the fruit released lead, a component metal of pewter alloy at the time, producing a deadly combination of tableware and tomato.

D. Humans raised and ate chili peppers specifically for their natural flame, producing varieties so intense that they blister skin and blind if exposed to the eye. In the records of conquistadors, the Aztecs and Maya ate chilies with anything and everything. Chilies were believed to have medicinal properties to cure various sicknesses. The smoke was used as a highly effective pest deterrent. If not practicing abstinence from chilies for religious or health reasons, a person who didn’t eat chili peppers would straightaway be presumed a witch!

E. Uniquely, ancestral strawberries originated in both Europe and North America. The French selected wild strawberries for sweetness, but the fruit was still small. King Louis XIV of France desired the Spanish throne, so he assigned a spy, Frezier, to study Chilean and Peruvian fortifications. But Frezier’s duty was not only to discover the military strength of the colonial Spanish. Previously, another dispatch had found unexpectedly large Chilean strawberries. A military engineer posing as a merchant, Frezier purchased the strawberries and brought them back to France.

F. Our favourite squash, the pumpkin wasn’t always able to be carved into sturdy, smiling Halloween decorations. However, even Pilgrims praised the pumpkin’s long storage time and sweetly nutritious flesh. Europeans were incremental to the creation of the modern pumpkin. The earliest jack-o’-lanterns were made from lit coals placed in hollow root vegetables such as turnips and potatoes. As Celtic tradition arrived in America, the pumpkin was grown through artificial selection to become the greatest carrier of fire and light.

G. Breadfruit was discovered by a scientific crew in Tahiti, an island located in the centre of the South Pacific. Eighteenth-century Europeans had gathered to witness the transit of Venus, an extremely rare astronomical event which is similar in nature to a solar eclipse by the Moon. With them was botanist Joseph Banks, who correctly and impressively identified the breadfruit as a cheap and nutritious fruit, albeit for the mistreated slaves of the sugar plantations. King George III directed Lieutenant William Bligh to gather this poten- tially valuable fruit.