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A bao in every steamer

一籠一乾坤

英文部分選自經(jīng)濟學(xué)人191221books and arts版塊

A bao in every steamer

一籠一乾坤

The apotheosis of Chinese cuisine in America

中餐在美國大受追捧

Its upward trajectory reflects that of the Chinese-American community

中餐的地位上升趨勢反映了美籍華人社區(qū)的發(fā)展軌跡

FOR SEVERAL years, beginning in the mid-2000s, devotees of Chinese food on America’s east coast obsessed over a mystery: Where was Peter Chang? A prodigiously talented—and peripatetic—chef, Mr Chang bounced around eateries in the south-east. One day diners at a strip-mall restaurant in suburban Richmond or Atlanta might be eating standard egg rolls and orange chicken; the next, their table would be graced by exquisite pieces of aubergine the size of an index finger, greaselessly fried and dusted with cumin, dried chillies and Sichuan peppercorns. Or by a soup made of pickled mustard greens and fresh sea bass, in its way as hauntingly perfect and austere as a Bach cello suite. A few months later, Mr Chang would move on.

從本世紀最初的十年中的某個時間開始，美國東海岸的中餐愛好者一連好幾年都沉迷于一個問題：張鵬亮（Peter Chang）在哪？張鵬亮是一位天賦秉異的流動廚師，穿梭于美國東南各地的餐廳之間。這也就是說一家位于里士滿或亞特蘭大郊區(qū)的街邊餐館，前一天可提供的還是（菜單上）標準的雞蛋卷和橙汁雞，第二天店里的餐桌上就出現(xiàn)了做工精致的非油炸茄子，只有食指般大小，還撒上了孜然粉、干辣椒片和花椒粒；亦或是腌芥菜鮮鱸魚湯，整個菜式如巴赫大提琴組曲般樸實又完美。幾個月之后，張大廚就會繼續(xù)轉(zhuǎn)場下一處。

He now seems to have settled down, running a string of restaurants bearing his name between Rockville, Maryland, and Virginia Beach. His latest—Q by Peter Chang—in the smart Washington suburb of Bethesda, may be his finest. The space is vast and quasi-industrial, with brushed concrete floors, massive pillars and not a winking dragon in sight. Order a scallion pancake, and what appears is not the typical greasy disc but an airy, volleyball-sized dough sphere. Jade shrimp with crispy rice comes under what looks like an upturned wooden bowl (perhaps, you think, for the shells). On inspection the bowl turns out to be the rice. Thumping through it with a spoon reveals perfectly cooked shrimp floating in shamrock-green sauce.

張大廚現(xiàn)在似乎已經(jīng)安頓下來了，在羅克維爾、馬里蘭和弗吉尼亞海灘經(jīng)營多家以他名字命名的餐館。他最近在華盛頓的繁華郊區(qū)貝塞斯達開了或許是他最好的一家餐館——張鵬亮的Q餐館（Q by Peter Chang）。店內(nèi)空間寬敞，以準工業(yè)化風格裝修，地板和高大的立柱進行了粉刷，一眼望去，店內(nèi)看不到任何龍的圖案。如果你點一份蔥油餅，端上來的并不是尋常的油乎乎的圓形盤狀油餅，而是一個排球大小的空心面球。鍋巴翡翠蝦仁這道菜像是蓋在一個倒扣的木碗下面（可能你會以為是貝殼），但細細觀察你會發(fā)現(xiàn)這個碗狀物是大米做的。等到你用勺子把這層殼敲碎，浸滿三葉草醬的熟蝦肉就進入了你的眼簾。

注：蔥油泡餅

A tab for two at Q can easily top three figures—several times the outlay on an average Chinese meal. Nor is Mr Chang’s the only such restaurant in the area: like many big American cities, Washington has seen a rise in high-end Chinese cuisine. That is good news, and not just for well-heeled gourmands who can tell shuijiao from shuizhu. The culinary trend is underpinned by two benign social ones. Chinese-Americans are becoming wealthier and more self-confident; and customers are shedding old stereotypes about Chinese food. To put it another way: sometimes a dumpling is more than just a dumpling.

在Q餐館，兩人消費很容易上3位數(shù)——價格是普通中餐的好幾倍。該地區(qū)也并非只此一家像Q餐館這樣的店鋪。和許多美國大城市一樣，華盛頓的高端中餐廳數(shù)量多了起來。這種現(xiàn)象對大家以及那些能夠區(qū)分“水餃”和“水煮”的有錢美食家來說，都是個好消息。支撐著這一餐飲業(yè)潮流的是兩種良性的social趨勢。其一，美籍華人逐漸變得富有和自信；其二，顧客們也正在擺脫對中國食物的刻板印象。換句話說：有時候，餃子不僅僅只是餃子。

The comfort of strangers 

外鄉(xiāng)人的慰藉

Chinese restaurants began to open in America in the mid-19th century, clustering on the west coast where the first immigrants landed. They mostly served an Americanised version of Cantonese cuisine—chop suey, egg fu yung and the like. In that century and much of the 20th, the immigrants largely came from China’s southeast, mainly Guangdong province.

19世紀中葉，美國開始有了中餐館，它們大多聚集在最早期移民居住的美國西海岸。這些餐館賣的大多是美國化的粵菜——炒雜碎、芙蓉蛋等等。在19世紀和20世紀的大部分時間里，中國移民都主要來自中國東南部，尤以廣東省移民居多。

After the immigration reforms of 1965 removed ethnic quotas that limited non-European inflows, Chinese migrants from other regions started to arrive. Restaurants began calling their food “Hunan” and “Sichuan”, and though it rarely bore much resemblance to what was actually eaten in those regions, it was more diverse and boldly spiced than the sweet, fried stuff that defined the earliest Chinese menus. By the 1990s adventurous diners in cities with sizeable Chinese populations could choose from an array of regional cuisines. A particular favourite was Sichuan food, with its addictively numbing fire (the Sichuan peppercorn has a slightly anaesthetising, tongue-buzzing effect).

1965年，美國進行了移民改革，取消了限制非歐洲地區(qū)移民的配額制度。自此，中國其他地區(qū)的人也紛紛開始移民美國，接著打著湘菜、川菜旗號的餐館也陸續(xù)出現(xiàn)。盡管這些餐館的味道和真正的湘菜、川菜相差甚遠，但相比于那些以甜口和油炸為主要特征的早期中餐菜式，它們的菜品更豐富，用辣也更大膽。到20世紀90年代，在華人人口已達到一定規(guī)模的城市，愛嘗鮮的食客就可以吃到中國各個地區(qū)口味的菜品了，其中川菜因其麻辣的口味尤為火爆（四川的花椒會讓人的舌頭有麻木感）。

Yet over the decades, as Chinese food became ubiquitous, it also— beyond the niche world of connoisseurs—came to be standardised. There are almost three times as many Chinese restaurants in America (41,000) as McDonald’s. Virtually every small town has one and, generally, the menus are consistent: pork dumplings (steamed or fried); the same two soups (hot and sour, wonton); stir-fries listed by main ingredient, with a pepper icon or star indicating a meagre trace of chilli-flakes. Dishes over $10 are grouped under “chef’s specials”. There are modest variations: in Boston, takeaways often come with bread and feature a dark, molasses-sweetened sauce; a Chinese-Latino creole cuisine developed in upper Manhattan. But mostly you can, as at McDonald’s, order the same thing in Minneapolis as in Fort Lauderdale.

在過去的幾十年里，中餐館不再僅僅在小范圍內(nèi)流行，而是遍地開花，并漸漸有了一套標準。如今在美國，中餐廳的數(shù)量達41000家，幾乎是麥當勞的三倍?；旧厦總€鎮(zhèn)都會有一家中餐館，菜單也基本一致：豬肉餃子（蒸餃或煎餃）、兩種湯（酸辣湯或者餛飩）和用辣椒圖案或星級表示辣度的爆炒類菜品，超過10美元的菜肴則被歸進“主廚推薦”一欄。但不同地區(qū)也略有差異：在波士頓，外賣餐通常都配有面包，并附送深色的甜醬；在曼哈頓上城，出現(xiàn)了中國混拉丁克里奧爾風味的餐品。但總體來說，就像麥當勞一樣，你可以在全國各地吃到相同的中餐菜品。

注：

1. 熟詞僻意：

niche:relating to selling goods to a particular small group of people who have similar needs, interests etc。

2. Minneapolis：明尼阿波利斯，明尼蘇達州首府，位于美國北部地區(qū)，是美國的寒極。

3. Fort Lauderdale：勞德代爾堡，佛羅里達州城市，位于美國南部沿海。

Until recently, the prices varied as little as the menus—and they were low. Eddie Huang, a Taiwanese-American restaurateur turned author and presenter, recounts how his newly arrived father kept his prices down because “immigrants can’t sell anything full-price in America.”

直到最近，中餐的價格和菜單一樣幾乎沒有變化——而且價格很低。艾迪·黃祖籍臺灣，是一名餐館老板，后轉(zhuǎn)行兼做作家和主持人。他講述了他父親來到美國后一直把菜價保持在低位的原因是“移民做的東西哪能賣得出高價？”。

That, in truth, was a consoling simplification. Americans have traditionally been willing to pay through the nose at French or Italian joints (where, in fact, Latinos often do most of the cooking). And every city has its pricey sushi bars and exorbitant tapas restaurants (tapas, as one joke goes, is Spanish for “$96 and still hungry”).

事實上，這句話是一種簡短的安慰。美國人習(xí)慣在法國或意大利餐館高價消費（事實上，這些餐廳大多由拉丁美洲人掌勺）。每個城市都有昂貴的壽司店和塔帕斯餐館（塔帕斯，西班牙餐前小吃，被戲稱為西班牙語的“掏了96美元還不夠墊飽肚子”）。

注：

Pay through the nose：大筆開銷

But Mr Huang is right that Americans have long expected Chinese food to be cheap and filling. One step up from the urban takeaway, with its fluorescent lighting and chipped formica counter, is the stripmall bistro with its imposing red doors and fake lions standing guard —sufficiently exotic to be special, but still affordable enough for a family to visit once a week when nobody feels like cooking.

黃先生的想法有一點是對的，那就是美國人一直認為中餐既便宜又能填肚子。通常中餐館位于距城中心外賣店一步之遙的路邊商業(yè)區(qū)內(nèi)，閃爍著霓虹燈，放置著缺了一角的膠木柜臺，擁有氣派的紅色大門，還有石獅子蹲著守門——既充滿異國風情，又價格實惠，能讓一家人每周在不想做飯的時候光顧一次。

American dreams

美國夢

Even the superior outlets were cheap for what they served (and often still are). Consider the hand-ripped noodles with lamb at Xi‘a(chǎn)n Famous Foods in lower Manhattan. A tangle of long noodles, each about the width of Elvis Costello’s ties in the late 1970s, is tossed with curls of braised lamb and a complex, incendiary sauce laced with cumin and chillies—all for just over $10, a fraction of the price of comparably accomplished dishes at smart restaurants nearby. True, Xi‘a(chǎn)n Famous Foods has no waiters (diners carry their plates on plastic trays to bench seating). But its noodles are handmade, and the lamb dish may be the single best thing to eat in New York at any price.

曾經(jīng)就算高檔中餐廳也是物超所值（現(xiàn)在依舊如此）。拿下曼哈頓區(qū)的“西安名小吃”出售的手撕羊肉面舉例，一卷長面條，寬度接近埃爾維斯?科斯特洛在20世紀70年代末戴的領(lǐng)帶，拌著燉熟的羊肉卷和配料豐富的辣醬，再撒上孜然和辣椒——只需要10美金多一點，價格是附近高檔餐廳招牌菜的零頭。確實，“西安名小吃”沒有服務(wù)員（顧客把碗放在托盤上，然后端到長凳上吃），但面條是手工做的，而且羊肉可能是全紐約最美味的。

But now things are changing. Mr Huang sells deliciously pillowy stuffed buns in New York and Los Angeles for $5.50 each—or, as he puts it, “full fucking price”—and encourages other immigrants not to undervalue their work. Restaurants in Q’s bracket are cropping up not just in America’s Chinatowns but in the suburbs, where Chinese immigrants and their families have settled, following the classic strivers’ path. The median income of Chinese-Americans’ households is nearly 30% higher than the average. They are more than twice as likely as other Americans to have an advanced degree.

但是現(xiàn)在情況有所改變。黃先生在紐約和洛杉磯經(jīng)營的餐館賣一種松軟的含餡包子，一個賣到了5.5美元——用他的話講就是“他媽的全價”，并且他還呼吁其他移民者不要低估自己的勞動成果。與Q餐館同等級的餐館不僅開在美國的唐人街，還出現(xiàn)在有中國移民及其家人定居的郊區(qū)，與當年第一批中餐館的奮斗軌跡如出一轍。美籍華人家庭的中位收入比平均水平高出30%，高學(xué)歷人數(shù)占比是其他美國人的兩倍多。

Chef’s special relationship

廚師的特殊關(guān)系

Meanwhile, although racism persists, the pervasive discrimination of earlier ages has waned. Witness the presidential campaign of Andrew Yang, in which his ethnicity has scarcely been mentioned. Since the Chinese-American population is six times as big as 40 years ago, Americans overall are much more familiar with Chinese people and their cooking. All of which means that, in your correspondent’s fairly extensive experience, the new fancy breed of Chinese restaurants draws a heartening mix of Chinese and non-Chinese diners.

與此同時，盡管種族主義依然存在，但是早年間泛濫的歧視現(xiàn)象已經(jīng)減少。比如，在楊安澤(Andrew Yang)參加總統(tǒng)競選時，很少有人提及他的種族。如今美籍華人的數(shù)量是40年前的6倍，美國人也因此普遍更加了解中國人和中國美食。根據(jù)本文作者相對豐富的經(jīng)驗，所有這些都意味著新型中餐館能同時吸引中外食客，令人欣慰。

Not everyone is enticed. The same cult of authenticity which decrees that good tacos only come from trucks posits that the best Chinese food is found in humble settings. That is as inaccurate as the snobbery that Mr Huang decries. Chinese chefs are as ambitious as any others; a bowl of noodle soup no more stands for all of Chinese cuisine than a slice of pizza does for Italian.

并非每個人都買賬。就像有人認為好吃的玉米卷（tacos）都來自于流動餐車一樣，有人堅持認為在樸素的環(huán)境中才能品嘗到最正宗的中國菜。這種看法和黃先生一直嗤之以鼻的偏見一樣，并不準確。中餐廚師和其他廚師同樣雄心勃勃；一片披薩難以代表意大利菜，一碗面湯也不足以代表所有中國菜。

注：

Taco：玉米卷，原產(chǎn)于墨西哥，與我國西安地區(qū)的肉夾饃有相似之處。進入美國后，為適應(yīng)當?shù)厝丝谖?，開發(fā)出了硬皮玉米卷（hard taco），后逐漸演變成美國特有的墨西哥雞肉卷（burrito）。

In any case, authenticity is a slippery commodity. Recipes constantly evolve as people move and mingle. The chillies now considered essential to Sichuan dishes were actually brought to China by Iberian traders in the late 16th century. Hot dogs were originally German, pizza Neapolitan, bagels Polish—but now they are all American, and like America, infinitely varied.

無論如何，正宗的口味都是眾說紛紜。菜譜隨著人們的遷移和交往而演變。現(xiàn)在公認的川菜標配辣椒，實際上是在16世紀晚期被伊比利亞半島的貿(mào)易商傳入中國的。源于德國的熱狗、那不勒斯的披薩和波蘭的百吉餅現(xiàn)在都成了美式菜，它們就像美國一樣，一直在變。

注：

Slippery: elusive in meaning because changing according to one's point of view

The goat ribs at Duck, Duck Goat, in Chicago’s trendy meatpacking district, are more Chinese-ish than Chinese. So is the place itself— headed by a non-Chinese chef and kitschily decorated with paper lanterns and bright red walls. The ribs come as a mesh of burnished meat stilettos with a wonderful chew, the sweetness of the glaze giving way to the goat’s irresistible gaminess. They spark fights over who gets the last one. They are as inauthentic, and as imaginative and lovingly created, as Mr Chang’s scallion dough sphere—and as delicious, which in the end, is what counts.

在芝加哥繁華的肉庫區(qū)（meatpacking district），Duck Duck Goat店里的羊排比中餐廳的羊排更具有中國特色。店面本身也是如此——廚師是非華裔，店內(nèi)掛著艷麗的紙燈籠，墻壁也染成了大紅色。羊排端上來的時候，表面發(fā)亮，如同一只高跟鞋，嚼起來很香，表皮的甜味也遮不住羊肉那難以抵擋的野味，令人們?yōu)檎l能吃最后一塊而爭執(zhí)不休。這些菜像張先生的蔥油面餅一樣，雖然不那么正宗，但富有想象力和充滿愛意，而且美味至極，這才是最重要的。

注：

Kitschily: considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic or knowing way.

Gaminess: the taste or odor of game (wild mammals or birds), especially when slightly tainted

翻譯組：   

Frank，男，小碩，經(jīng)濟學(xué)人的死侍

Helga，女，筆譯民工，經(jīng)濟學(xué)人愛好者

Chao，愛讀書思考的DPhil Candidate，TE粉絲

校核組：

Nikolai，子承父業(yè)，蛋糕廠員工，AKB49

Rachel，學(xué)理工科，愛跳芭蕾，熱愛文藝的非典型翻譯

Helen，女，坐標武漢，職業(yè)翻譯，翻碩已畢業(yè)英語二筆二口，愛好陶笛洞簫古詩詞

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