A. Calories in Filipino Foods
Calories in Filipino Foods by Dr. Philip S. Chua is about how people today are more conscious of their health and find it helpful to know the amount of calories they consume when eating certain foods and burn when doing certain tasks, and in explaining so he has mentioned many numbers and specifics. The author makes use of this to describes the topic concretely and specifically, and the situations and objects he uses are very concrete. For example, when explaining the concept of burning calories, he creates a concrete explanation by using an example we are constantly acquainted with: cooking. He tells us that we can burn eighty-six calories when cooking for thirty minutes, showing us a task that we can concretely envision because we know what it feels like to cook and know what the task of cooking looks like. We also acknowledge cooking with our sense of sound, thinking of the sound of the fire burning and the bubbling of water and sauces, and our sense of smell. He then maintains the continuous arrays of explanations by being specific, and creates a specific description when he speaks of the calorie consumption in eating fruits. He starts off by introducing fruits as the new subtopic of calorie consumption, but then continues by mentioning specific fruits, making the topic more specific than it first was. He doesn't state that you can gain forty calories by eating 'fruits', but instead states that you can gain forty calories from eating half an apple, ten grapes, one slice of melon and so on, also keeping specific by mentioning exact values in terms of calories. Therefore he starts off and ends up his topic in concrete and specific terms, engaging readers with health consciousness through calorie-awareness.
B. Indian Food
The author of Indian Food starts off immediately by setting the standard visual: "Indian food is different from the rest of the world not only in taste but also in cooking methods." He (assuming it is a he) manages to be both concrete and specific all at once. He is concrete by mentioning 'taste' and 'cooking methods', two words that lead to very clear sensory imagination. And interestingly enough, he is also specific because of the exact same words. He had mentioned that Indian food was "different", and yet he braved beyond that generalization to mention what it was that exactly made it so - the taste and cooking methods. The author then continues on with the same concrete and specific touch as he describes the different Indian foods. Again he is specific by going past just 'Indian food' to speaking of 'North Indian Food', 'West Indian Food', 'East Indian Food' and 'South Indian Food'. Furthermore, when he describes each type of Indian food, he alerts man's five senses by bringing forth examples of, say, West Indian food in Goa, like the sweet and sour Vindaloo, duck baffad, etc; he mentions examples of the chapatis found under the North Indian food category by giving a detailed description of how it is prepared, all in all staying very concrete and specific throughout his topic, and giving readers a very vivid insight and explanation on the many variations of Indian food.
