To be honest, I didn’t think there would be many big changes in my everyday lifestyle when I first came to China from Germany. This was mainly _________ I had watched many films based on Chinese culture. But I instantly changed my opinion when I got here. The civilisation and culture of China is very _________ from that of Germany.

As a big meat eater, the thing I found _________ to accept was the cuisine in China. _________ I first came here, I wasn’t very familiar with all the ingredients used in the dishes that I was _________. I was afraid of tasting something strange and being unable to swallow it, making me look like a complete _________.

Once my mother’s family held a party to welcome me to China. I was filled with _________ until I saw the food. I had never tried, or even seen, the food before. As I sat down, one family member asked me to try the food. You can’t imagine how _________ it is when the whole family are watching you, cheering you _________ to eat a dish you are scared to even taste.

But ____________ my mum encouraged me to try some food, I slowly started to ____________ Chinese cuisine. And after only a few months, I had tasted almost every traditional Chinese dish I could find. The totally strange but attractive ways they’re prepared in are much different from ____________ in Germany. In Germany, most dishes are very ____________ to make. But Chinese cuisine is not very convenient. For example, in Germany we eat very ____________ dishes like sandwiches for lunch, but in China sandwiches are considered a side dish. Having stayed in China for two years, I’ve gradually ____________ Chinese food. My goal is now to learn more about Chinese culture.

Turkey is not my thing, but one dish I cannot live without on Thanksgiving is my mom’s Snowy Mashed Potatoes. I start________these potatoes, my annual time release capsule of pure joy in early November. I’m pretty sure I’ve had them at every Thanksgiving since I was a kid, and bites often transport me back to different years and different dining rooms.

How and why is it that certain foods give us so much________ ? And what can be said about the kinds of foods we consider most comforting? Science tells us that taste and nutritional content affect how foods make us feel, but certain foods are especially________ satisfying for reasons that have little to do with their taste or nutritional content. Much of the happiness we get from our favorite foods comes from the memories they stimulate for us and the people we’re with while we________them. Past and present________shape the foods we find comforting.

Often, we love food because we have________ memories associated with it. My mom’s mashed potatoes (土豆泥) remind me of holiday joy and past reunions with extended family. We are also drawn to foods we were given early in life by people who cared for us, which can help explain our________ love for chicken noodle soup, which many parents feed their sick children to make them feel better.

The smell of food can________powerful memories, too. The part of the brain responsible for processing smell directly connects to the amygdala, a brain region that processes emotions, and the hippocampus, which handles memory. And our memory for smells is________and precise, especially when it comes to smell we were first exposed to in childhood. That’s why you might catch the smell of pumpkin pie baking in the oven and be transported back to the first tine you baked it with your grandmother.

These________can go the other way, too. Sometimes you might feel________when you eat foods that remind you of loved ones you miss. We may also________foods that we associate with bad experiences.

In addition to past memories, the________in which we eat foods shapes how much we enjoy them in the moment, and our gustatory (味觉的) experiences can be________by a sense of community, a sense of warmth and enjoying it together.I________my mom’s Snowy Mashed Potatoes that much more today because I got to eat them with my husband and two children, the three people I love most in the world.

A group of teenagers in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood were looking for a way to uplift their marginalized (被边缘化的) West Side community. With a little help from their friends, these young entrepreneurs (创业者) ______ an old store into Austin Harvest, a food market to ______ healthy food for their undeserved neighborhood.

For areas like Austin, classified as “food deserts”, fresh produce and healthy food are difficult to ______ even at the best of times. The situation ______ when several area grocery stores were forced to ______ temporarily after being destroyed. Thus, one of the ______ that concerned the teens most was the ______ of healthy food in the area, which was the ______ of years of racism. In their community, Austin Harvest has since sprung to life, where there were only two food markets.

“Food is a(n) ______ need,” Azariah Baker, one of the teens said, “but it’s also something ______ to us.”

Their project got ______ from a lot of professional athletes. “People care. It’s a time for people to show up. I think our world has ______ .” Baker said, “So for us, to be able to come together and say we’re going to lead that change is ______ .” Together, they raised $500,000.

The vision for Austin Harvest was shaped and implemented (实施) by the teens. “We’ve been behind the project ______ ,” Baker said. “We’ve ______ how we want to show our market — where we want our market to be, what we sell, and what we look like. It is we that ______ it.”

Taking a “teach someone to fish rather than give someone a fish” approach, The Hatchery Chicago, a food business incubator (孵化器), also helped to ______ lessons in real-world business skills including licensing and customer service, as well as cooking classes ______ helping interested teens work toward careers in the ______ industry.

This is a real entrepreneurship opportunity for the teens and also an opportunity for them to bring food ______ to their marginalized neighborhood.