Foreigners enjoy a piece of cake – Answers
France goes all sweet on Britain’s exceedingly good cakes
‘Exceedingly good cakes’ is a phrase used from an early advertisement for the brand of cakes called ‘Mr Kipling’s cakes’. It was used to conjure up an image of an old-fashioned, good-quality brand of homemade cakes, perhaps made by a local baker. The man who did the voiceover for the advertisement had a warm, kind voice, and spoke like a man from the olden days, including this use of ‘exceedingly‘, a slightly olde-worlde choice. In fact the factory that produced Mr Kipling’s cakes was only built in 1967!
In the title you see an expression based on to go / be sweet on sb – rather an old-fashioned way of saying to like someone very much in a romantic way.
Exercise 1
a) £13.6 billion.
b) It is called ‘the home of pâtisserie from the chocolate éclair to the profiterole’.
c) "It’s amazing to sell soufflés to the French…"
d) Poland – export sales earn £116.4 million.
e) Between £37 and 38 million pounds.
f) Italy.
Exercise 2
1. What is the expression used meaning ‘become keen on / fond of’? acquire something of an appetite for
2. from Britain – from these shores
3. change from how things usually are, or change in the way in which something happens – twist
4. improve or increase – boost
5. rise very quickly to a high level – soar
6. caused to happen – driven
7. things that make life more pleasant, such as good food, convenient gadgets, warmth and good facilities – home comforts
8. small square chocolate cakes, often with nuts in them – brownies
9. filling made from bananas, cream, toffee and condensed milk – banoffie
10. topping for a fruit pudding made from a mixture of flour, butter and sugar rubbed together into small pieces, which is baked and eaten hot, usually with custard – crumble
to sell like hot cakes – informal – to be bought quickly and in large numbers
11. fondness for cakes, chocolate, biscuits and sweets – sweet tooth
12. planned or focused attack – offensive
13. charges or list of charges either for services or on goods entering a country – tariffs
14. increased the amount, size or value of something – bumped up
bump up – phrasal verb INFORMAL – increase the amount or size of something. Eg He’s bumped up the number of hours he’s revising since he got his last set of exam results
15. having an effect – at work
16. resourceful or imaginative approach – inventiveness
17. at the top of the market – high-end
18. old-fashioned, or literary for quickly – apace
19. unexpected – surprise
20. over in the USA / over in America – across the Atlantic
21. large shops – stores