But China was a hard habit to break, and I had signed a contract for this book, one that I had wanted to write for a very long time. ‘Another month,’ I told myself, ‘and then you can say goodbye.’ So I packed my bags, dragged myself to the airport, and flew to Shanghai, where my kind friend Gwen had offered me a room of my own, in her lovely flat in the French Concession. There, in businesslike fashion, I set about exploring the food traditions of eastern China.
但中国已经成了我多年的“积习”，实在很难改掉。而且我也签了这本书的合同，这是很长时间以来的夙愿。“再多一个月，”我告诉自己，“然后就告别吧。”于是我收拾好东西，鼓起勇气来到机场，飞到上海。好朋友格温在她旧时法租界漂亮的公寓里给我留了个单独的房间。然后我就在那里公事公办地开始探索华东的饮食传统。
In January 2007, I went back to China again for more than a month. My heart was not in it. I did wonder if I had reached the end of the road. Would it not be more honest, I asked myself, to admit that the gluttonous China phase of my life was over? It had been an incredible journey, for sure, and one that I wouldn’t have missed for anything. But the joy of it had faded. Years before, I had abandoned one career based on other people’s expectations of me, and it had been a liberation. Perhaps it was time to do the same thing again. Often, people were asking me, ‘Which Chinese regional cuisine are you going to do next, Fuchsia?’, assuming that I was planning to write a book about each province in turn. ‘Are you crazy?’ I wanted to reply. ‘Do you know how many provinces there are? Do you know what Hunan did to me?’
二零零七年一月，我又回中国待了一个多月，但一直心不在焉。我怀疑这条路是不是走不通了。我扪心自问，是不是应该坦白地承认，我在中国大吃大喝的这段丰腴时光已经结束了？是啊，这真是一段美妙奇异的旅程，一路上我什么也不错过，什么都去体会。但这段旅程本身是否已经没有那么快乐了呢？多年前，我毅然决然地放弃了一份符合别人对我期望的事业，之后便是自由自在、海阔天空。也许现在又该做同样的放弃了。现在经常有人问我：“扶霞啊，你又要去体验中国什么地方的菜系啦？”他们觉得我肯定要给每个省都写本书。“你疯了吗？”我想这么回答，“你知道中国有多少个省吗？”
Shanghai itself has become the darling of food journalists, who flock there to scoff ‘soup dumplings’ at the Nanxiang restaurant in the Yu Garden, and to dine at the celebrated Jean Georges on the Bund. But, by Chinese standards, Shanghai lacks history: it’s a modern metropolis, owing its ascendancy to the foreign concessions built there in the mid-nineteenth century, and richer in ‘fusion cuisine’ than real culinary tradition. My researches were to take me to the more ancient centres of gastronomy, in the hinterlands of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces.
上海本身就是美食记者的“宠儿”。他们成群结队地跑到豫园的南翔馒头店吃小笼包，又到外滩著名的Jean Georges吃法餐。不过，以中国的标准，上海的历史积淀不深，是一座现代大都市，“世界融合料理”比传统饮食更丰富。而我的研究是要去更为古老的饮食中心，比上海更为内陆的江苏省和浙江省。
While one might say that northern Beijing is the home of imperial cooking, southern Guangdong of the cuisine of the merchant class, and Sichuan of fiery peasant fare, eastern China is the gastronomic demesne of the cultivated man. It was in Hangzhou that the Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo encouraged the development of a marvellous stewed pork; and in Nanjing that the gourmet Yuan Mei wrote his famous cookery book. In the twentieth century, the writer Lu Wenfu set his novella The Gourmet, the story of the relationship between a reactionary gourmand and a puritanical communist over decades of revolution, in his hometown of Suzhou.
可能有人会说，北京孕育了宫廷菜、南粤诞生了商人菜、四川打造了火辣下饭的农人食物，而华东则是文人雅士的美食之地。宋朝诗人苏东坡令杭州出现了美味的“东坡肘子”，美食家袁枚在南京写成了他著名的菜谱《随园食单》。二十世纪，作家陆文夫的小说《美食家》，背景就设定在他的故乡苏州，讲的是数十年革命中一位保守派美食家与一位恪守简朴的共产党人的沉浮纠葛。
Yangzhou lies in the fertile southern Yangtze region, long recognised as a ‘home of fish and rice’ on account of the plenty of its produce. Since the Qin Dynasty it has been an administrative centre, although its roots as a settlement are yet more ancient. It came to prominence with the contruction, during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, of the Grand Canal, a waterway linking Hangzhou, even then a famous producer of silk and tea, with the old northern capitals at Luoyang and Xi’an. Yangzhou lay at the crucial intersection of the Grand Canal, running from north to south, and the Yangtze river, which flows from the mountains of Tibet to the eastern coast. As the transport hub of China, Yangzhou became one of its wealthiest cities. For centuries its name was a byword for luxury and sophistication. But after the railways came in the nineteenth century, leaving Yangzhou languishing on a secondary line, it became a relative backwater. These days tourists flock to Suzhou, for its gardens, and Hangzhou, for its pretty West Lake. But Yangzhou is off the beaten track.
扬州位于土壤肥沃的江南地区，因为物产丰富，素有“鱼米之乡”的美誉。这里从远古时代就有人聚居；从秦朝开始一直是个行政中心；隋唐时期修建了大运河，连接那时候就已经因为丝绸与茶叶闻名的杭州和北边的都城洛阳与长安。扬州是大运河上的重要城市，再加上发源于青藏高原、流向东部沿海的长江也流经这里，使其成为中国的交通枢纽，更是个诗酒繁华地、温柔富贵乡。数百年来，一提起“扬州”，人们想到的就是奢侈高贵的生活、文人雅士的做派。但十九世纪有了铁路，经过扬州的路线并不重要，这里的发展渐渐有些停滞。现在，游客们经常蜂拥到苏州赏园林、到杭州游西湖，扬州却不在必游名单上。
The southern Yangtze region, in which these ancient cities lie, produces some of China’s finest ingredients, including Jinhua cured ham, Shaoxing rice wine and Zhenjiang vinegar, as well as those famous hairy crabs. Many of its cities are known for speciality dishes: Hangzhou for Beggar’s Chicken, Vinegar Fish and Dongpo Pork (named after the poet), Nanjing for its salted duck, and Suzhou for sizzling eel and a soup of leafy water-shield from the Taihu lake. Yet none of these places can compete with the culinary glory of Yangzhou, the ancient gastronomic capital of the east, and the cradle of what they call ‘Huaiyang’ or ‘Weiyang’ cuisine (the names have old geographical connotations).
长江以南古城遍布的地区，有着中国最上乘精细的食材，比如金华火腿、绍兴酒、镇江醋，当然还有著名的大闸蟹。这里的很多城市都有自己代表性的特色菜：杭州有叫花鸡、西湖醋鱼和东坡肉；南京有盐水鸭；苏州有响油鳝糊和太湖里捞的莼菜做的汤。不过，要说美食，这些地方都比不上扬州，这里曾是古代华东的美食之都，也是“淮扬菜”的摇篮。
For me, it was the last, vital missing piece of a jigsaw. For fifteen years I had roamed all over China, from the deserts of the west to Shanghai’s ‘Paris of the East’, from colonial Hong Kong to the old imperial capital of Xi’an. My travels had been by no means exhaustive — in China there is always more to explore — but I had covered a great deal of gastronomic territory. Yet although I had glimpsed Yangzhou’s cuisine in its influences on the courtly cooking of Beijing, and on the chic new restaurants of Shanghai, I had never actually been there. For a specialist in Chinese cuisine, this was an unforgivable omission.
于我，这里是拼图上最后的一块，至关重要。十五年来，我漫游中国上下，从西部的沙漠到上海这个“东方巴黎”，从殖民历史深厚的香港到六朝古都西安。当然，也不能说我就是见多识广了，因为中国是永远探索不完的。但在美食版图上，我也算是个走南闯北的行者了。不过，对于扬州美食，我只是在北京的宫廷菜中窥视过其影响，在上海那些时髦别致的新派餐馆中有过肤浅的体验，却从未亲自踏足扬州。我可是中餐专家，不能留下这样的遗憾。
It was a cool, sunny morning when I took the main Shanghai-Nanjing railway line as far as the old vinegar town of Zhenjiang, a slow-moving place where, even in the early twenty-first century, foreigners were as remarkable as martians; men in Mao suits carried chirruping crickets in their pockets, and a blacksmith, working on the pavement, hammered woks out of red-hot iron. A taxi carried me to the car-ferry port, where I walked aboard. And then I stood on the top deck as we wove our way across a shifting warp of barges and passenger ships on the Yangtze, whose waters glittered in the bright winter sun. When we reached the northern bank, I hitched a lift for the short hop to Yangzhou.
那是个晴朗而冷冽的早晨，我沿着沪宁铁路（上海到南京）来到了因为出产陈醋而闻名的镇江。小城生活发展迟滞、节奏缓慢，现在已经是二十一世纪初，人们看到外国人仍然像见火星人一样好奇又惊慌。男人们穿着中山装，口袋里装着吱吱喳喳的蛐蛐儿；人行道上有个铁匠，正捶打着烧得通红的铁做炒锅。我招手叫了辆出租，去了镇江的渡口，上了渡轮。站在最高的甲板上，看渡船穿梭于长江上来来去去的驳船与客轮之中，冬日灿烂的阳光在江面上撒下闪烁的碎金。到了北岸，我找了辆车，很快就到了扬州。
As usual, my preparation had been minimal. I had searched in vain for useful books about Yangzhou and its food. I did, however, have the address of the local branch of the Chinese Culinary Association in my notebook, and I knew from past experience that it might be a good place to start. Since it was early and I had little luggage, I simply hailed a bicycle rickshaw.
和之前一样，我又没做什么功课。当然我找了下关于扬州和淮扬菜的书，却没一本有用的。不过嘛，我笔记本上记了中国烹饪协会扬州分会的地址，从过去的经验看，从这里入手应该没错。天还早，我行李也不多，于是就招了辆人力车。
I wasn’t expecting much of the trip. So many times I had arrived in a Chinese city that I didn’t know, seduced by legends about its lively street life and architectural beauty, only to find that most of it had been demolished and replaced by monotonous concrete. Suzhou had lost most of its canals and old streets; I could find no old lanes in Hangzhou; and they were pulling Shanghai apart by the day. In my writing, I was determined to find beauty in these places, to bring alive their characters and rich culinary traditions, and yet it seemed increasingly like an exercise in archaeology rather than reportage. That’s why Yangzhou was such a delightful surprise. From the moment my driver dropped me off near the city centre, I felt that there was something different about it.
我对这趟旅程并无太多期待。我经常因为传说中充满活力的市井生活与美轮美奂的建筑而来到自己一无所知的某个中国城市，结果发现很多老建筑都被拆掉了，千篇一律的钢筋森林取而代之。苏州的小桥流水和古老街巷大多已经消失不见；我在杭州根本就找不到什么旧时巷陌；上海更是日新月异、大肆拆建。写到这些地方的时候，我还是尽量去写美的一面，把它们的特色与丰富的饮食传统写好、写活。然而，我这样的尝试越来越不像纪实文学，而更像考古。所以，扬州是个惊喜。从我在市中心附近下车的那一刻起，就觉得这里有那么点儿与众不同。
I gave the driver the address of the association. ‘Please will you take me through the old streets?’ I asked, expecting him to tell me that they had been knocked down last year. But he didn’t — he actually drove me through the old streets. They were everything I had longed to see. We rambled over a canal bridge where a few people were selling pheasants, rabbits, and baskets of fruit, and into a long lane bordered by grey-brick courtyard houses, with alleys running off on either side. Old-fashioned cotton banners emblazoned with the Chinese characters for ‘rice’ and ‘wine’ hung outside little shops. There were street vendors too: an elderly man making pancakes on a griddle, a butcher mincing pork with a cleaver on a wooden board, someone selling home-made salted mustard greens, dark and sleek. Pig’s ears and chunks of carp and chicken hung on the outer walls of houses, salted and spiced, wind-drying.
我把协会地址给车夫看。“能请您带我走走老街吗？”我问的时候就想，他可能会说，这些街前些年都被拆了。结果他没有说，而是真的带我在老街之间穿梭。那里有我渴望见到的一切。车子颠簸经过运河上的一座小桥。桥上有几个人在卖野鸡、兔子、一篮篮的水果。他又拉我到一条长长的小街，两旁是有着灰砖房子的院落，还有旁逸斜出的小巷。小店外面飞扬着老式的棉布招牌，写着“米”、“酒”之类的汉字。街上还有很多小摊贩：老人站在煎锅前做脆甜的小煎饼；卖肉的挥舞菜刀在木墩子上剁肉末；有人在卖自家做的咸菜，颜色深浓、光鲜亮眼。房子的外墙上挂着猪耳朵、草鱼和鸡，都用盐腌过、抹了酱料，任其风干。
Even the busier streets in the old town had retained some character. They were lined with wutong trees and small shops selling kitchenware, clothes and locally made knives; they were busy with bicycles and unruly mopeds. We passed a mother cycling home with her son, his head resting gently on her back; a baker, standing beside an oven, wiping her hot face with a wet towel. This was no pastiche of local street life recreated for the tourists, but a living city. It reminded me of the vanished old quarters of Chengdu that I had known and adored.
就算是老城里比较繁忙些的街道，也都保持了一定的风格特色。街道两旁种着一队队梧桐树，排列着一家家小店，卖的是厨具、衣服和当地制作的刀；常有自行车和比较不守规矩的“小电驴”穿梭来往。一个骑自行车带儿子回家的妈妈经过我们身边，儿子的头轻轻靠在妈妈背上；一个面包师站在烤箱旁边，拿热腾腾的湿毛巾洗着红光满面的脸。没有为了游客而东拼西凑的“四不像”市井生活，这里本身就是一座活生生的城市。这让我怀念起自己熟悉而喜爱、现在却已经消失无闻的成都老城区。
The three deputy secretaries of the culinary association who were at work that day were immediately welcoming. I found them in a first-floor office piled with papers. They sat amid cupboards crammed with food magazines and books, looking out over low rooftops. The amiable, chain-smoking Mr Qiu made me a cup of tea, and they all gathered round for a chat. Within minutes we discovered that we had mutual friends — professors of food history in Chengdu. I got along particularly well with the gruff-voiced, talkative Mr Xia, who seemed to know everything about Huaiyang cuisine. When the other two had drifted back to their desks, he and I continued to sip our tea as he taught me about Yangzhou’s magnificent past.
那天，烹饪协会有三个副秘书长在上班，他们立刻对我表示了热烈欢迎。我走进一楼一间堆满文件的办公室，他们都在。办公室层高不高，里面的柜子都“顶天立地”，也放满了美食杂志和书籍。和蔼可亲、香烟不离手的邱先生给我泡了杯茶，大家都坐过来跟我聊天。聊了几分钟，就发现我们都认识成都的一些研究餐饮历史的教授。我和声音粗哑而健谈的夏先生尤其谈得来，他好像对淮扬菜了如指掌。另外两个秘书长都回到办公桌前了，我还继续喝着茶，听夏先生给我介绍扬州辉煌灿烂的过去。
The city was a famous trading port, he said, with direct commercial links to Japan, friendly relations with Persia and many other distant realms. Marco Polo supposedly stayed here in the late thirteenth century, and remarked on the ‘large and splendid city… so great and powerful that its authority extends over twenty-seven cities, all large and prosperous and actively engaged in commerce’. Above all, Mr Xia told me, Yangzhou owed its wealth and opulence to the salt trade, which flourished during the Qing. Sea salt, evaporated in salt-ponds on the Shandong and Jiangsu coasts, was transported by water to Yangzhou, the largest wholesale salt market in China. It was such a profitable business that Yangzhou salt taxes came to make up a quarter of China’s entire tax revenue.
他说，扬州城曾是著名的贸易港口，直接和日本通商，与波斯以及其他很多遥远的国度都建立了友好关系。十三世纪末，马可·波罗应该在此旅居过，他赞叹扬州是个“辉煌无比的大城市……如此雄伟，如此强大，下辖二十七座广大城池，都十分繁荣，积极通商”。夏先生告诉我，扬州能如此富庶，最重要的原因就是清朝时期逐渐繁荣发展起来的海盐贸易。山东和江苏沿海地区蒸发提纯的海盐，经过水路运往扬州，使这里成为全中国最大的海盐批发市场。做这个生意很赚钱，扬州盐商交的税一度占到了全中国总体税收的四分之一。
On the back of their lucrative trade, the Yangzhou salt merchants grew rich. They built mansions and pleasure gardens, entertained lavishly, and led lives of great refinement. One of them compiled a collection of recipes that is still in print. Men of letters flocked to the city. During the Tang, the prominent poet Du Fu praised the beauty of its people, the wine-loving Li Bai penned lines inspired by local feasting and carousing, and Wang Jian wrote of the thousand lanterns that gleamed in its nightmarkets. The Song poet Su Dongpo also lived here for a while, taking up lodgings in the Stone Tower Buddhist Temple.
有了这日进斗金的生意，扬州的盐商越来越富。他们修建了阔气的豪宅、修身养性的园林，挥金如土地进行娱乐，过上了十分精致讲究的生活。其中一位编撰了《调鼎集》，清朝中期厨师实践经验集大成的烹饪书，到现在还在印刷出版。文人墨客更是纷纷下扬州。唐朝“诗圣”杜甫赞颂过扬州人的美好善良；“酒仙”李白在这里欢宴畅饮、诗兴大发，写下不少传世名句；王建写了扬州“夜市千灯照碧云”；宋朝诗人苏东坡也在这里住过一段时日，寄宿在石塔寺。
During the Qing Dynasty, the Kangxi and Qianlong Emperors were unable to resist the charms of Yangzhou. They must already have had a taste for its delicacies, because Huaiyang cooking had long been influential at court. They lingered in Yangzhou during their lengthy ‘tours of the south’, idling in its gardens, playing at fishing, and being entertained by the salt merchants to sumptuous feasts. The only extant description of the fabled Man-Han imperial banquet of the Qing era is in a chronicle of Yangzhou life and society, ‘Record of the painted pleasure-boats of Yangzhou’, written by a local playwright, Li Dou, in the eighteenth century: ‘They had bird’s nest with chicken slivers, abalone with pearl leaves, a thick soup of crab and shark skin, bear’s paw with crucian carp tongues…’ Li Dou listed more than a hundred dishes made with every fine ingredient, accompanied by fresh fruits and delicate vegetables.
清朝皇帝康熙和乾隆根本抵挡不住扬州的魅力。亲临扬州之前，他们应该已经尝过那里的美味，因为淮扬菜对宫廷菜的影响由来已久。他们喜欢“南巡”，总会在扬州流连许久，徜徉于美妙的园林中，享受垂钓的悠闲，参加盐商们奢华的大宴。关于清朝传说中的“满汉全席”记载不多，其中之一就出现在记录扬州生活与社会的笔记集上。这套笔记集叫《扬州画舫录》，是当地一位剧作家李斗在十八世纪所写，其中记载满汉全席包括“燕窝鸡丝汤、鲍鱼汇珍珠菜、鱼翅螃蟹羹、鲨鱼皮鸡汁羹、鲫鱼舌汇熊掌……”李斗列出了一百多道大菜，还详细记载了每一样食材以及搭配的新鲜水果与精致蔬菜。
Under the encouraging eyes of the association’s deputy secretaries, I raised my chopsticks. First I tasted the ‘four strands of flavour’ (si tiao wei): tiny, stimulating dishes to awaken the palate. There were fried peanuts, cubes of fermented beancurd stained pink by red yeast rice, morsels of pickled cabbage and slices of ginger preserved in soy sauce. Afterwards, I moved on to the appetisers proper: savoury salt-water goose, ‘vegetarian chicken’ made from marinated beancurd skin, tiny ‘drunken’ river shrimps, crisp-and-supple sweet-sour cucumber, and a marvellous rendition of Zhenjiang yao rou. This was a terrine of shards of pork in aspic served with a dip of aromatic Zhenjiang vinegar. The yao rou, whose name might be translated as ‘delectable meat’, melted, divinely, in my mouth.
在协会几位副秘书长鼓励的目光下，我提起筷子，先尝了“四条味”：都是小盘小盘的，先唤醒味蕾，有一粒粒的炸花生米、一块块的红曲豆腐乳、一片片的泡菜和一条条的酱生姜。接着我开始吃比较正式的开胃菜：可口的盐水鹅、用卤汁泡豆皮做出来的素鸡、小小的腐乳醉虾、脆嫩又柔软的糖醋黄瓜以及美味惊人的镇江肴肉。肴肉，就是把猪肉厚片放在陶罐里腌制成晶莹剔透的肉冻模样，吃的时候蘸点芳香浓郁的镇江醋。一片肴肉入口即化，我真是飘飘欲仙。
I left the office of the culinary association, later that afternoon, laden with gifts: glossy cookery books, academic studies of Yangzhou culture, an anthology of poems about Huaiyang cuisine, out-of-print collections of recipes. I was touched by the kindness and generosity of the food researchers I’d met, and captivated already by the magic of the city. Most satisfyingly of all, I left with an invitation to dinner.
那天下午我走出烹饪协会的办公室时，双手提满了礼物：装帧精美的烹饪书、对于扬州文化的学术研究刊物、一本关于淮扬菜的诗歌选集、已经绝版的菜谱。那些美食研究者的热心与慷慨让我感动，而这座城市的魔力已然将我俘虏。最让我高兴的是，临走时他们邀请我去吃晚饭。
‘You see,’ said Mr Xia, surveying a tempting spread of cold hors d’oeuvres, ‘Yangzhou cooking is concerned with the ben wei, the essential tastes of things. Here you won’t find the heavy sweetness of Suzhou cooking, or the spiciness of your Sichuanese. We like to show off the natural flavours of fresh and seasonal ingredients, subtly enhanced by seasonings like salt, sugar, oil, spring onion, ginger and vinegar. Please, eat!’
“你看，”夏先生一边观察着桌上一道道令人食指大动的凉菜，一边说，“淮扬菜是最讲究食物本味的。在这里是吃不到苏州菜那种厚重的甜酱，或者你们四川那种重麻辣口味的。我们喜欢用新鲜应季的食材，突出它们的本味，只微微加一点佐料调味，比如说盐、糖、香油、小葱、姜和醋。来，吃啊！”
‘Those last dishes were two of the so-called “three heads” of Yangzhou,’ said Mr Xia. ‘The third was a whole pig’s head. But we thought that might be a bit excessive for today, given that there are only six of us. Perhaps another time we can gather a few more people for a full “three-headed” feast?’ (Later, I learned the intriguing fact that the most acclaimed producers of the slow-cooked Yangzhou pig’s head were monks at the Fahai Buddhist temple, who were officially, like all other monks, vegetarian. They would only show off this talent for carnivorous cookery to people they knew and trusted — if a stranger knocked on the door and demanded a pig’s head, they would be dismissed with a mischievous smile and a Buddhist greeting: ‘A mi tuo fo!’)
“刚才上的两道菜是扬州‘三头宴’中的两道，”夏先生说，“第三道是整猪头。不过我们觉得要点的话菜就太多了，因为只有六个人。要不然改天我们多叫几个人来吃顿完整的‘三头宴’好啦？”（后来我了解到一个有趣的事实：扬州最有名的扒烧整猪头出自法海寺的和尚之手。他们和所有和尚一样，对外都宣称自己吃素，只有在那些熟悉和信任的人面前，他们才会显示这项肉食上的绝活。要是哪个陌生人敲门说要吃整猪头，他们肯定会狡黠地笑着请他离开，并且说一句“阿弥陀佛”来送客。）
The main courses were just as delicately pleasing. We sampled ‘hibiscus-flower fish slices’, soft white pillows of fish-flesh blended with egg white and starch, tender as a custard but with a slight crispness to their bite; fresh broad beans with straw mushrooms; and a red-braised carp head with farmhouse beancurd, served on a grand blue-and-white china platter (Mr Xia probed out for me the sweet, fatty flesh around the fish’s eye). And then there were the famous ‘lion’s head meatballs’, cooked slowly in individual clay pots until they were so tender they yielded at a chopstick’s touch.
主菜也是一样的美味可口。我们尝了尝芙蓉鱼片，软嫩的鱼肉像小小的白枕头，裹了蛋清与水芡粉，吃起来像奶冻一样柔滑，咬下去却又感到一种脆嫩；还有豆瓣草菇、用巨大的青花瓷盘端上来的红烧江鲢老豆腐（夏先生专门帮我挑了鱼眼睛周围那甜丝丝、滑嫩嫩的肉）。当然少不了著名的清炖狮子头：专门用陶罐文火慢炖，直到肉圆软烂，筷子一沾就完全解体。
I learned from my dining companions that Yangzhou cooks were known across China for the dexterity of their knifework. The lion’s head meatball, for example, owed its irresistible succulence to the fact that the meat was hand-chopped into ‘fish-eye’ grains, and not minced or puréed. ‘The cook’s cleaver, of course,’ said Mr Xia, ‘is just one of the “Three Knives” of Yangzhou: the others are scissors, and the pedicurist’s blade. “Foot-repairing” is another of this city’s great pleasures. You must try it.’ (Later, nervously, I entrusted my feet to a pedicurist who shaved bits off them until they were as soft and sweet as a newborn baby’s.)
听一起吃饭的人说，扬州厨师的刀工敏捷精湛，在全中国都是出名的。比如，狮子头如此美味多汁、令人无法抗拒，就是因为厨子们会把肉手工剁成“鱼眼粒”，而不是单纯地剁肉末或者绞成肉酱。“嗯，厨刀嘛，”夏先生说，“是‘扬州三把刀’中的一把，另外两把是理发刀和修脚刀。修脚也是扬州城的好享受哦，你一定得试试看。”（后来，我很紧张地把自己的双脚交给一位修脚师。他帮我一点点地去了脚上的死皮，然后双脚变得又嫩又滑又香，仿佛初生婴儿的双足。）
The next dish, Wensi Beancurd, also had Buddhist connections. In a dense broth hung filigree strands of silken beancurd, threaded with a few wisps of Jinhua ham. It was invented, so they say, by a Qing Dynasty monk at the Tianning Temple who was renowned for his beancurd cookery (he made a vegetarian version, seasoned with mushrooms). Earlier, at a beancurd stall in the backstreets, I had seen a man cutting curd for this dish. His sharp knife, slicing up and down, moved almost imperceptibly through the block of beancurd, shaving off slices as thin as silk. These he cut, in turn, transforming the slices into a mass of fine threads. It was masterful.
接下来这道菜叫文思豆腐，也有佛教渊源。浓稠的高汤里有千丝万缕爽滑的豆腐，还混杂着一丝丝金华火腿。听他们说，这道菜的发明者是清朝天宁寺一个以做豆腐菜出名的和尚（他做的是素食版，用蘑菇提味）。之前在小街小巷里的豆腐摊，我也见过一个人在切豆腐，准备做这道菜。他那锋利的刀上下挥舞，几乎是肉眼无法察觉地在那块豆腐之间穿梭游移，切下绸子一样细腻轻薄的豆腐片，然后又切成细细的丝，真称得上是大师手笔了。
We sat there, talking in Chinese, of course, discussing the characteristics of Yangzhou cuisine. At one point during the meal, Mr Xia looked at me with sudden concern, and asked: ‘I do hope you can take the flavour of Huaiyang dishes, when they are not hot and spicy like your usual Sichuanese food.’ I looked back at him in puzzlement, but it was Mr Qiu who reminded him that I was not actually Sichuanese, but from England, so it was unlikely to be a problem. We all laughed, Mr Xia at his mistake, I because this curious exchange made me realise how often I did actually find myself referring to other foreigners as lao wai, and saying things like: ‘In Sichuan, we tend to add a bit of chilli-bean paste to our red-braised dishes’ or ‘In Sichuan, we call it such-and-such’ or ‘In Sichuan, we drink the soup at the end of the meal’.
我们在餐桌上用中文谈笑风生，话题自然离不开淮扬菜的特色。吃着吃着，夏先生突然略带忧虑地望着我说，“希望你吃得惯淮扬菜的味道，因为没有你们川菜那么麻辣。”我满腹狐疑地望着他。不过邱先生出来解了围，提醒他说我不是四川人，是英国人，所以这不是个问题。我们哈哈大笑，夏先生是笑自己犯了个错，我笑的是突然意识到自己经常把别的外国人说成“老外”，还经常说“我们四川经常在红烧菜里面加豆瓣酱”、“我们四川把这个叫什么什么”、“我们四川都是吃完饭再喝汤”。
We finished our dinner, inevitably, with the one dish that the entire outside world recognises as a local speciality — Yangzhou fried rice. On almost every restaurant menu in Western Chinatowns it appears, and finally I was tasting it in its place of origin. The rice was shot with tiny cubes of dark pink ham and brown shiitake, wisps of golden egg, crabmeat, and tiny shrimp. It was rich but not oily, wok-fragrant and utterly delicious. Afterwards, we rinsed our palates with a broth afloat with mushrooms and cai tai, a seasonal green, and then refreshed ourselves with slices of watermelon and fresh sugarcane from the south.
当然，这顿饭的尾声上的一定是扬州在全世界最知名的一道特色菜：扬州炒饭。这道菜几乎出现在西方所有唐人街餐馆的菜单上，现在我终于能在诞生地吃到正宗的了。米饭里面混了深色火腿和棕色香菇，都切成小块；还有小条小条煎得金黄的鸡蛋、蟹肉和小小的河虾。内容与味道都很丰富，却并不油腻，散发着刚出锅的香气。除了“好吃”二字，也不知道怎么形容了。之后，我们喝了飘着蘑菇和时令菜薹的汤，算是清理了下味蕾；再吃上几片西瓜和南方的甘蔗，更觉清新爽利。
Over the next few days, I explored the landscaped gardens of Yangzhou. The grandest was the Slender West Lake Park, upon which the salt merchants had lavished their funds to make it fit for the Qianlong Emperor’s visit. The curves of the lake were softened by weeping willows; pavilions and ornamental bridges dotted its shores and inlets. I wandered to the end of the spit of rock where the emperor had cast his fishing line. It was like walking in a Chinese ink-and-water painting.
接下来的几天，我都徜徉于扬州那些造景精致的园林中，最壮丽的当属扬州瘦西湖。盐商曾投入了大量资金打造这里来迎接南巡的乾隆皇帝。有了岸边的垂柳，瘦西湖弯曲的弧线变得更加温柔，两岸和水湾之中不时见到别致的亭台楼阁与雕花的小桥。我漫步到乾隆曾经垂钓过的吹台，仿佛行走在中国传统山水画之中。
We had been joined for the meal by a young officer from the local government trade office, Mr Liu, and a chef named Chen. When we had finished eating, Liu and I went for a walk along the Grand Canal at the south of the old town. Peach trees and weeping willows grew along the banks. People were ballroom dancing outside pavilions festooned in fairy lights. We caught the last pleasure boat of the night, and as we were the only passengers, we asked the driver to switch off the lamps. So we stood on the prow with the breeze in our faces and tried to imagine that we were emperors, on a visit from Beijing to sample the delights of the south (‘and to find a pretty concubine’ said Liu, with a laugh).
同桌吃饭的有个当地政府贸易办公室的年轻官员刘先生，还有个厨子陈先生。饭吃完了，刘先生和我沿着扬州老城南边的大运河散步。沿岸种着桃树与垂柳。楼阁上亮起小小的彩灯。人们就在这些楼阁之外借着光跳交谊舞。我们赶上了晚上最后一班游船，作为唯一的两个乘客，我们请船夫关掉了灯。站在船尾，清风拂面，我们想象着自己也是古代的帝王，从北京远道而来，体验江南生活的悠闲愉悦（“还要找个漂亮的妃子。”刘先生大笑着说）。
Perhaps Yangzhou had a particular meaning for me because I was in the midst of reading Cao Xueqin’s great eighteenth-century Chinese novel, A Dream of Red Mansions (also known as The Story of the Stone). It is a family saga, the tale of four generations of the Jia clan who live together in two neighbouring mansions in a notional Chinese capital in northern China. Although the novel is set in the north, Cao himself came from the southern Yangtze region, and the life he describes resembles that of the Yangzhou literati. Cao wrote the novel while living in poverty in Beijing, after the collapse of his once-illustrious family’s fortunes. Many of the characters are thought to be be based on real people, the friends and relatives of Cao’s own youth, and it is generally seen as a nostalgic evocation of his past.
也许，扬州对我意义特殊，是因为我正在读十八世纪曹雪芹所写的伟大古典小说《红楼梦》。这是一部宏大的家族史，讲了望族贾家四代的故事。他们住在一个架空的中国北方都城，分居两座相邻的府邸。曹雪芹也曾是纨绔公子哥，后来显赫一时的家族出了事败落。他写作这本小说时，正在北京过着穷困潦倒的日子。据说书中很多人物都有真实的原型，是曹雪芹青少年时期的亲朋好友。人们普遍认为这本书是他自己对过去生活的追忆和怀念。
In the more modest He Garden, built in the nineteenth century by a local official, I climbed the steps of a rockery to a tiny pavilion, where I sat and wrote for a while, engulfed by the intoxicating scent of winter plum blossom. Down below, in a two-storey building with a tiled roof that curved up at the ends, two musicians were practising. A middle-aged lady sung a plaintive tune, while an er hu player drew his bow over strings. Before me lay a miniature landscape tailored to appeal to a certain Chinese literary sensibility. Every feature had a name of poetic allusion. There were hidden promonteries from which to view the garden, places where a scholar might pause and be inspired to compose a few lines. At the far end of the complex was a pond designed to mirror the moon’s reflection. Sitting in my eyrie, writing at a marble table, I felt at peace.
相比之下，何园就比较小巧朴素，是十九世纪当地一个官员主持修建的。我爬上石阶，来到一座小小的楼阁，小坐一会儿，写了点东西，被冬梅醉人的香气所环绕。下面一座青瓦顶、飞檐梁的二层小楼中，有两个乐师在练习。一位中年女性唱着哀伤的调子，一位二胡乐师拉着弓弦。我眼前这幅小巧的图景，恰恰是中国传统文学中相当典型的一幕，仿佛一草、一木、一人、一物都曾在古诗中出现过。园中还有些隐匿的观景处，说不定就曾有哪位文人行至此处，暂作停留，文思泉涌，吟上几句。何园那头是一个池塘，专门用来倒映天上之月。我坐在这小小一方人间仙境中，在大理石桌面上写作，顿觉内心平静无波。
Somehow the elegance of the city had endured, despite everything. Like almost anywhere in China, Yangzhou had been damaged by the communists, who demolished its ancient city walls, carved up the salt merchants’ mansions, and unleashed the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Its relative obscurity, however, had saved it from the worst ravages of the reform period. In Suzhou, I’d seen how the Xuanmiao Temple was penned in by American fast-food outlets, and the bicycle rickshaws plastered with McDonalds advertisements. No one had bothered to smear Yangzhou with such tacky commercialisation. Slum buildings along the canal had been cleared, and the banks of the canal redeveloped, but local leaders had decided to protect and revive the old city. High-rises were banned in the historic centre, and they were gradually restoring the salt merchants’ mansions to their former splendour.
历史的风浪中，这座城市不知怎么的，仍然保持了优雅恬静。和中国几乎所有的城市一样，扬州在二十世纪的政治动荡中也遭到不小的破坏：古城墙被拆毁，旧时盐商们的豪宅被分割损坏。“文革”期间的混乱当然也没能幸免。不过，这里相对没那么显眼，躲过了改革开放时期最可怕的大肆破坏和建设。我在苏州目睹了被美国快餐店包围的玄妙观和贴着麦当劳广告的人力车。但扬州就没这么俗气、没这么商业化了，因为没人想到来开发这个市场。运河边的棚户区与危楼倒是被清除了，两岸重新进行了开发，但当地领导们决定要保护和复兴这座古城。历史遗迹聚集的中心不允许修高楼，盐商的宅子也在一步步恢复往日的华丽光彩。
In English translation, it is a novel in five volumes, and for the few months I spent reading it, it took over my life. The story begins in the ‘golden days’ of the family’s history, when the young Jia cousins amuse themselves in the Prospect Garden. They hold poetry competitions, play drinking games, devour hairy crabs and admire chrysanthemums. As the novel progresses, the tale becomes darker. There are suicides, kidnappings and savage betrayals. Eventually the family’s wealth is confiscated by the imperial authorities, and the Jias’ reputation lost amid a storm of scandal. But I travelled to Yangzhou when I was still absorbed in the first, happier volumes of the novel, the Golden Days, and everything I experienced there seemed to resonate with the gilded life of the Jias.
英文版的《红楼梦》一共五部，我花了几个月去读。这段时间，这部小说几乎完全占据了我的生活。故事从贾家最辉煌的“黄金时代”开始。年轻的贾家及外姓兄弟姐妹们在大观园愉快玩耍。他们举行诗会，饮酒游戏，大啖美蟹，共赏秋菊。小说写到后面，基调变得阴暗沉郁起来，出现了自杀、绑架和疯狂的背叛。最终，朝廷派人抄没了贾家的家产，而贾家爆发出暴风雨般的丑闻，也是颜面尽失、名誉全无。不过，我到扬州的时候，还沉浸在基调比较明快愉悦的前两部，在扬州城经历的一切，似乎都能和贾家那富贵讲究的生活产生共鸣。
Perhaps, compared with Yangzhou’s heydays in the Tang and Qing, when it was one of the most polished cities in the world, it was now just a shadow of itself. But wherever I went, I found echoes of its legendary refinement and charm: in the gardens, in the food, and above all in the graciousness of the people I met.
也许，现在的扬州，比起唐朝与清朝处于全盛时代的那座全世界最精致的城市，只能算过去的一个影子。然而，不管我走到哪里，都能找到那些精雅与迷人的传奇那遥远的回响：园林里有，食物里有；而最能体现这城市气质的，莫过于我见到的这些和蔼亲切的人。
Mr Xia had invited me for breakfast at a salt merchants’ mansion that had been turned into a restaurant and a museum. A gentle mist blotted the willow trees as I hurried along the canal to meet him. Outside the mansion’s long, grey-brick walls, some middle-aged ladies were practising Tai Chi. Inside, Mr Xia was waiting for me, in a grand hall with high ceilings and wooden panelling, wearing a baseball cap and clutching his jar of home-brewed tea. Once, this was part of the inner quarters of the mansion, where the grand ladies of the household would have sat at their needlework, but now it was crowded with working men and women, chatting and laughing quietly over their breakfasts. Waitresses in padded pink silk jackets bustled around bearing towers of steamers.
夏先生邀请我到某个改造成餐厅兼博物馆的盐商老宅里去吃早饭。我沿着运河急匆匆地赶去赴约，晨雾环绕在两岸的垂柳之中。在宅子长长的灰砖墙外面，一些中年妇女在练太极。夏先生已经在里面等我了，戴着棒球帽，胳肢窝下夹着一罐家里泡好的茶。那是个敞亮的大厅，高高的天花板，周围布置着雕花木板。这里曾经是宅子后院内室的一部分，家里众多的女人们会坐在这里做针线活。但现在里面坐满了上班族的男男女女，一边吃着早饭，一边小声谈笑。穿着粉色丝绸棉衣外套的女服务员们忙里忙外，手里拿着堆成小山一样的蒸笼。
‘The early-morning tea breakfast is an institution in Yangzhou, just as it is in Guangdong,’ said Mr Xia. ‘The difference is that the Cantonese like to discuss business over their dumplings. Here we just like to relax and have fun.’
“早茶是扬州的传统，跟广东一样的。”夏先生说，“不过广东人喜欢边吃虾饺什么的边谈生意。我们这儿嘛，就是放松、享受。”
Our breakfast was extraordinarily delicious. We ate steamed buns stuffed with radish slivers; with chopped pork, bamboo shoot, mushrooms and tiny shrimps; and with finely-chopped greens. There were juicy steamed dumplings with a sweet, meaty filling; grilled buns with toasted sesame; dry beancurd slivers with soy sauce and sesame oil. ‘Look at this bao zi,’ said Mr Xia, pointing at a bun resting in a bamboo steamer, ‘it’s beautiful. See how delicately it has been wrapped. The folds are so even. And the flavour, you’ll find, is excellent: a rich savouriness balanced by a hint of sweetness.’
这顿早餐实在太美味了。我们吃了包子：有的塞了萝卜丝，有的塞了碎肉，还有塞了竹笋、蘑菇和小虾米的三丁包，以及塞了细切绿叶菜的菜包。蒸饺上桌，咬下去绵软多汁，肉馅儿甜甜的；自然也少不了著名的生煎包以及浇了酱油和芝麻油的烫干丝。“你看这个包子，”夏先生指着竹蒸笼里的一个包子说，“很漂亮。你看包得多精细。每一个褶子都很平均。还有味道，你吃吃，特别好吃，很浓郁的鲜味，又有一丝甜味来平衡。”
Most advocates of Chinese local cuisines insist that theirs is the best in China, and disparage the cooking of other regions. But in Yangzhou I was tempted to agree with the culinary patriots. Yangzhou food, as they say, combines the strengths of the cooking traditions of northern and southern China. It is about the art of balance, the miraculous transformation of ingredients in the pot that the chef Yi Yin had talked about more than three thousand years ago. Yangzhou cooks are famously particular in their selection of raw ingredients. They insist on the tenderest of spinach leaves, the hearts of cabbages, the crispest tips of bamboo shoots. They have rules on seasonality: no drunken crabs after the Lantern Festival, no hairtail anchovy after the Feast of Clear Brightness. And lion’s head meatballs, though available all year round, are cooked with bamboo shoots in spring, freshwater mussel in summer, crab coral in autumn, and wind-dried chicken in winter.
在中国很多地方，当地人在宣传本地菜系时，都坚称这是全国最佳，对其他地区的菜系则表示很不屑。但只有在扬州，我才觉得这种骄傲颇有道理。正如他们所说，淮扬菜完美融合了华北华南烹饪传统的长处，是一种平衡的艺术，是锅碗瓢盆中食材之间奇迹的融合转化，这也是三千多年前中华厨祖伊尹提出的思想。扬州大厨们对于生鲜食材的选用是出了名的挑剔。他们一定要选择最柔嫩的菠菜叶，卷心菜只取菜心，竹笋只要最脆嫩的竹笋尖。食物必须应季，这是规矩，正所谓“醉蟹不看灯、风鸡不过灯、刀鱼不过清明、鲟鱼不过端午”。（1）而狮子头这种一年到头都能吃到的东西，早春的时候里面加的是淡水河蚌、清明节后就加入竹笋、秋天包了蟹粉、冬天则是风鸡。【注：（1）这句话用来说明淮扬菜取材非常讲究，意思是，做醉蟹只能选正月十五之前的螃蟹；做风鸡不能选正月十五之后的鸡；清明节后的刀鱼就不能入菜了；端午过后的鲟鱼也不能用做食材了。】
Yet despite their strikingly different characters, the cuisines of Sichuan and Yangzhou are nonetheless related. They are linked by the artery of the Yangtze River, and also by their enviable geographies — the fecund soils and abundant produce that helped to supply their famous kitchens, and which enabled the more fortunate of their people to lead lives of great luxury and refinement. Talented cooks in either place conjure up banquets of unbelievable variety, but they express themselves in different registers. ‘Huaiyang cuisine is like Sichuanese cuisine without the spiciness,’ as Mr Xia told me once. In the Tang Dynasty, they used to say ‘Yangzhou first and Chengdu second’, in wonder at the flourishing economies and cultures of these two beautiful cities.
尽管在性格风骨上大相径庭，川菜和淮扬菜仍算亲戚。一条长江，以及同样惹人艳羡的丰饶富庶把它们联系在一起。两地都有肥沃的土地与丰富的物产，催生了同样大名鼎鼎的菜系，也让两地比较有钱的人能享受十分奢侈和精致的生活。两地技艺超群的厨师们可以操持种类多到难以置信的宴会，不过他们自己倒是分得挺清楚。“淮扬菜就像没加辣椒的川菜。”夏先生对我说。唐朝时候有句老话，“扬一益二”（扬州第一，成都第二，同为中心），对这两个同样有着繁荣经济与丰富文化的美丽城市，这句话再恰切不过地表明了人们的向往和赞赏。
Yangzhou food doesn’t jump up and amaze you, like its Sichuanese counterpart. It won’t make your lips tingle, or dance jazz on your tongue. It is not a sassy spice girl with red lipstick and a sharp wit, thrusting itself into the limelight. Yangzhou food is an altogether gentler creature. Like one of the Jia cousins in A Dream of Red Mansions, it sits in a landscaped garden, ornaments of jade and gold in its hair, composing poetry at a marble table. It seduces by understatement, with its delicate colours (pale pink, green, yellow), fine stocks, soft and soothing textures, and sensitivity to salt and sweetness.
淮扬菜不像川菜，重口味，一吃之下便天雷地火、惊唇动齿。夹一筷子吃下去，你嘴唇上不会有那种麻酥酥的感觉，你的舌头不会像在跳爵士舞。淮扬菜不是一个开朗活泼、烈焰红唇、伶牙俐齿的辣妹子，一出场便站在聚光灯下、舞台中心。整体来说，淮扬菜是另一种比较温柔平和的存在，就像《红楼梦》中贾家的某个姊妹，在精美的园林中，戴着金玉的发饰，在大理石桌前作诗。其吸引人的地方，就在于这种清远收敛、柔和淡色（淡粉色、绿色、黄色）、悉心熬煮的高汤、抚慰人心的柔嫩口感，以及那种微妙又鲜明的咸甜之味。
I don’t know what it was that made me fall so completely for Yangzhou. Perhaps it began with the sun glittering on the waters of the Yangtze; maybe it was the old streets, which brought back so many memories of my beloved Chengdu. Or perhaps it was the extraordinary kindness of Mr Xia and his colleagues, and their modest pride in Huaiyang culinary culture. I also had the sense there of a city being rescued and reborn from the ashes of the Cultural Revolution, and of hope in a Chinese future that was more than just rampant capitalism.
我也不知道究竟是什么让我完完全全地爱上扬州。也许长江水面上阳光投射的碎金给我留下了良好的第一印象；也许是因为那些古老的街巷让我时时回想起深爱的成都；也许是因为夏先生与同事们的热情善良，以及对淮扬饮食文化那令人颇受感染的自豪。在那里，我还觉得，这座城市从“文革”大火的灰烬中被抢救过来，获得重生。我在扬州看到了希望，中国的未来也许不只是大肆蔓延的资本与拜金。
Two and a half centuries after the Qianlong Emperor had been mesmerised by Yangzhou, the city still had an irresistible pull, and it worked on me like a tonic. Softly and imperceptibly, it melted away my bitterness and exasperation at China. Chef Chen, to whom I had been introduced at that first fine meal with my friends at the culinary association, told me: ‘Hunanese cooking, with all those bold and brassy flavours, is the food of war — look at the military leaders it nourished. Yangzhou food is the food of peace. In times of harmony, that is what you should eat.’ Somehow his words expressed perfectly my own feeling that being in Yangzhou was, for me, a kind of peace after the war of writing my Hunanese cookbook.
扬州曾经让乾隆皇帝沉迷江南、乐不思归。两个半世纪过去了，这座城市依然有种无法抗拒的吸引力。于我，这里就像一剂有效的补药，不知不觉间便温柔地化解了我对中国和对自己研究的疲累厌倦。和烹饪协会的朋友在扬州吃第一顿大餐时认识的陈厨告诉我：“湖南菜的味道大胆厚重，是战时菜，你看这菜养出了那么多军事领袖。而淮扬菜是和平菜。和平时期，就该这么吃。”巧合的是，他这句话十分恰切地表达了我在扬州的感觉。我写那本湖南菜谱就像在打仗，现在仗打完了，来了扬州，终于找到了人生的和平。
Many Chinese friends have spoken to me over the last few years of a historical progression from ‘eating to fill your belly’ (chi bao), through ‘eating plenty of rich food’, (chi hao) to ‘eating skilfully’ (chi qiao). In the past, they say, food was just about sustenance; starvation was a constant threat. With growing wealth, the Chinese began to eat as much meat and fish as they could, as if to make up for years of deprivation. Now, though, the thrill of plenty is wearing off, and a growing number are trying to eat with more discernment, seeking out ‘green food products’, reducing their consumption of animal foods, and ordering less gluttonously in restaurants.
很多中国朋友都曾跟我谈到过，过去这些年来人们经历了“吃饱”到“吃好”再到“吃巧”的历史进程。他们说，过去总是饿肚子，吃饭就是吃个饱，为了活命。后来手里的钱多了，中国人开始大鱼大肉地胡吃海塞，仿佛是要弥补多年来的匮乏与饥饿。而现在，最初富起来的那种激动逐渐褪却，越来越多的人开始对吃有了品位和讲究，注重“绿色食品”，减少食肉吃荤，在餐馆点菜也没那么铺张浪费了。
In Yangzhou, after my own period of ‘eating plenty of rich food’ in China, I found myself eating more ‘skilfully’. I dined out with the officers of the culinary association on food that wasn’t full of colourings and MSG. I ate well, but not excessively, at the old Yechun teahouse by the canal, famous for its buns and dumplings. And I wasn’t offered meat from a single endangered species. Gradually, my appetite returned, and eating became a pleasure once more. I felt my spirits lifting.
而我在扬州时，也恰恰是经历了在中国“吃好”的日子，开始吃得更“巧”了。我跟烹饪协会那些人出去吃的东西，没有那么多人工色素，也不会放味精。在运河边历史悠久、以点心出名的冶春茶社，我吃得很好，但没有过饱，也没谁给我端上任何濒危动物的肉。我的胃口逐渐回来了。吃，又变成人生一大乐事。我感觉整个人的精神都振奋爽利起来。
It was my last day in Yangzhou, and I wanted to visit a mansion near the Grand Canal that had caught my eye, several times, as I passed. It was a vast and imposing complex of courtyards and halls that had just been restored and opened as a museum. So I bought my ticket and went inside. Somewhere in the midst of the house, in a small courtyard with its own well, I was pleased to find an old-fashioned kitchen. The bright, airy room was dominated by an enormous cooking range, built in brick, covered in whitewashed plaster, and decorated with blue line-drawings of a blooming lotus and a fish. On top, a Kitchen God presided in his shrine. There were four ‘fire-mouths’ on the stove, two with wooden lids covering inset woks, one for the rice-steamer and one for a stack of bamboo steamers to cook buns and dumplings.
扬州之旅的最后一天，我想去看看大运河附近的一座宅院。经过那里好几次，我早就注意到了。宅院很大、很壮观，有好几个院落和大堂，刚刚修复好，作为博物馆对外开放。我买好票，走了进去。走到差不多中间的地方，小小的院落里有口井，旁边是个老式厨房，让我十分高兴。这个厨房亮堂堂的，通风很好。引人注目的巨大灶头是用砖砌成的，刷了一层白浆，用简单的蓝色线条勾勒了盛开的莲花与鲤鱼。最上面是灶王爷威风凛凛的神龛。灶上有四个“火嘴”，有两个上面摆着下沉式炒锅，盖着木盖子；一个上面用来蒸饭，还有一个上放着一叠竹蒸笼，用来蒸点心。
In a sense, Yangzhou rescued me, and my Chinese food-writing career. Like a dream of red mansions, it reminded me, not only of the vanished elegance of a certain aspect of the Chinese past, but also of my own lost love for China. Chengdu as I had known it might have been swept away by the tidal wave of real-estate development, but in Yangzhou, with its understated charm, its delicious food, and its exceptionally kind and elegant people, I found something of the same enchantment. Yangzhou rekindled the fire. I knew then that I could, and would write this book, and that there was life yet in my relationship with China.
从某种程度上说，扬州救了我，也挽救了我中国美食的写作事业。这里仿佛就是我的红楼一梦，不但让我找回这个国家渐渐消失的优雅与古朴，也找回了我对中国有些褪却的痴情。我所熟悉与热爱的成都，已经在房地产开发的大潮中迅速消逝；然而扬州还有这低吟浅唱的魅力，有平和美味的食物，有如此善良温文的人们，就像当初的成都一样让我迷醉其中。扬州重燃了我心中之火。那时候我就知道，我能写，也会写出这本书。我和中国缘未了、情未尽。
As we chatted, I became aware of a man and woman watching me from the edge of the room, and discreetly eavesdropping on our conversation. Eventually, when the old men had exhausted their kitchen memories and bid me goodbye, these two came forward and greeted me. ‘Hello, may we trouble you a little?’ said the man. ‘My name is Zhang Wenjie, and I am the manager of the People’s Number One Hospital, which owns this land. This is Yuan Yuan, the manager of the museum.’ He seemed friendly and open, and Mrs Yuan had a gentle, soft face and was dressed in a fitted coat, with a mother-of-pearl clasp in her hair. ‘Won’t you come with us, and drink some tea?’
我一边跟他们聊着，一边发现厨房门口站着一男一女，都盯着我，还小心翼翼地偷听我们的谈话。等老先生们终于回忆完童年时候的厨房，跟我说了再见，这两个人上前来跟我打招呼。“您好，麻烦您一下，”男人说，“我姓张，是第一人民医院的院长，这块地就是医院的。这位是袁姐，是博物馆的馆长。”这人看着很面善又开朗，袁姐也长着一张温暖柔和的脸、穿着一件合身的外套、戴着个珍珠贝发卡。“您能跟我们一起去喝个茶吗？”
It was the only old Yangzhou range I’d seen, and I wasn’t sure how everything worked. Luckily for me, the other visitors that day were three elderly men in Mao suits who remembered such stoves from their childhoods. ‘When we were young,’ said one, ‘everyone had ranges like this. You see those cubbyholes at the back, they were for seasonings: you know, the salt, the oil, sugar, soy sauce and vinegar. And those cupboards underneath, you could store your wok brushes there, or put wet shoes inside to dry them out. The hooks hanging from the ceiling were for hams and smoked ribs. And you stacked up the firewood behind the stove.’
我在扬州，只看到过这么一个老厨房，不太看得懂其中的门道。好在，那天还有三个游客，是穿着毛式中山装的老先生，他们还记得童年时用过这种灶。“我们小时候啊，”其中一个说，“家家都是这样的厨房。你看后面那些小架子，是放调味品的，就是盐呀、油呀、糖、酱油和醋这些的。下面那些橱柜，可以把锅刷放里面，或者把湿鞋子放到里面去烘干。从天花板上挂下来的那些钩子，是挂火腿和熏肉的。柴么就放在灶后面。”
There was some unspoken eagerness behind his invitation, but I had no idea what it meant. They led me through a labyrinth of courtyards, and then up a little path to an anomalous two-storey building in a walled garden. It was built in the Western colonial style, with red and grey bricks, casement windows and a wooden verandah, and stood awkwardly within the walls of a traditional Chinese mansion. The ground floor had been turned into a teahouse for tourists, but we didn’t stop there: they led me up a wooden staircase to the private rooms on the upper storey. The innermost room had been restored in the 1930s ‘European’ style, with a fireplace, glass-fronted cabinets, and Chinese wooden sofas around a coffee table. In the corner, a wind-up gramophone sat on a table, its brass horn flaring above. ‘This is known as the yang lou, the foreigners’ building,’ said Mr Zhang.
他的邀请中有种无言的急迫，但我完全不知道他在急什么。两人领我穿过迷宫般的院落，接着沿一条小路来到一个环绕着围墙的花园中。那里有一栋很奇怪的双层建筑，是西方殖民风格，有红灰两色的砖、铰链窗和一个木头搭建的露台，在这个传统中国风的宅院里显得很是格格不入。一楼是改建后供游客休憩的茶社，但我们没有在那里停下。两个人继续带着我，沿着木楼梯上了二楼的包间。最里面的那个包间是二十世纪三十年代的“欧式”风格，有一个壁炉、玻璃柜、一张咖啡桌周围摆着中式木沙发。角落的桌子上摆着一台老式留声机，黄铜喇叭闪闪发光。“这个叫洋楼。”张先生说。
We sat around the coffee table, and they offered me tea. Again, I had the sense that there was more to their hospitality than met the eye, but they just smiled and chatted politely. I noticed that there was an old 78 record on the gramophone, and suggested that we play it. To oblige me, Mr Zhang cranked up the machine, and set the needle in the crackly groove. I was expecting a musical glimpse of the thirties, something like ‘Nights of Shanghai’ by Zhou Xuan. It would have suited the atmosphere so perfectly, the gentle urbanity of my hosts, the delicacy of the tea, and the cosmopolitan atmosphere of this curious room. So it was a shock when we heard the shrill marching tune of a Maoist anthem. It jarred, horribly. We smiled at one another in embarrassment as Mr Zhang lifted the needle and let the gramophone wind down in silence.
我们围着咖啡桌落座，他俩给我上了茶。我再次感觉他俩的热情背后有什么深意。但他们只是微笑着，礼貌地跟我聊天。我发现留声机上摆着一张胶木78转粗纹唱片，建议放来听听。我这话一出口，张先生便殷勤地转起那笨重的机器，把唱针放到那仿佛一碰就要裂的木头上。我本以为会飘散出的是三十年代的那种音乐，比如周璇唱的“夜上海”，那可太应景了。两位主人温文尔雅，清茶飘香，再加上这个奇怪的房间里弥漫的大都市气息。所以，当那慷慨激昂的毛主席赞歌尖锐地响起时，我们都惊了一跳。音乐断断续续的，很刺耳。我们彼此尴尬地笑笑，张先生赶紧把唱针抬起来，让留声机无声地转着。
‘Let me tell you the story of this place,’ said Mr Zhang. ‘The mansion was built in 1904 by a Yangzhou man named Wu Yinsun, a customs official who was posted to Ningbo, in neighbouring Zhejiang Province. He intended to return here when he retired from official life, so he bought the land, and built the complex mainly in the Zhejiang style. His plan was to start a trading business, so he had this building designed as a suitable place for receiving yang ren, foreign businessmen. But Wu never returned to Yangzhou, so the foreign businessmen never came. In 1949, the whole mansion was requisitioned by the new communist government, who gave it to the Number One People’s Hospital. They converted it into living quarters for hospital workers: at one time it was home to a hundred families. But this building, the yang lou, was left to decay. The verandahs collapsed, and it became unsafe to enter.
“我给您讲讲这个地方的故事吧，”张先生说，“这宅院是一九零四年时扬州人吴引孙修的。他是海关监督，还是浙江宁波的道台，想退休了回到这儿来住，于是买了这块地，修的时候主要参照浙江的风格。他想在这儿做贸易，所以这栋楼是专门为接待洋人修的。但是吴引孙再也没回过扬州，所以也没来过什么洋人。一九四九年，新政府把整栋宅院都充公了，给了第一人民医院。医院就把这里改造成职工宿舍楼，曾经住过一百户人呢。但是这栋洋楼呢，就没人管，荒废了。露台都垮了，进来都不安全。”
‘Now we’ve restored it, as you can see,’ he said, gesturing towards the sleek new wood of the verandah, the neat brickwork. Then he smiled, a little bashful. ‘In fact, you are the first foreigner who has ever come into the yang lou, that’s why we wanted to invite you.’ He and Mrs Yuan waited, a little nervously, for my response.
“现在我们修复了，你也看到了。”他说，指着露台上光滑的新木头和整齐的砖墙。接着他有些不好意思地笑了。“其实啊，您是第一个到这栋洋楼来的外国人，所以我们想邀请您来喝喝茶。”他和袁姐都有点紧张地等待我的回答。
I was overcome with a sudden sense of all the time that had passed since I first came as a foreigner to China, and of all that had happened to me in those years. I had learned to speak Chinese, and in some ways to think and feel in the language. I had developed deep ties of affection with my Chinese friends, and had roamed all over the country. I had learned to eat everything, and had even trained as a Chinese chef. Yet however much of an insider I had become, in some ways, it seemed, I would always be a yang ren, a foreigner, a lao wai. It was a sobering thought, but a sweet one, under the circumstances.
我心中一下子涌上很多关于过去的记忆：作为一个外国人，来到中国已经是多年前的事情了。这些年发生了好多事。我学会了说中文，甚至在某些方面还使用这种语言来思考和感受。我和中国朋友们建立了深厚的友谊和关爱，还在全国走南闯北。我什么都吃了一点，甚至还参加培训，成了个比较专业的中餐厨子。然而，不管我已经多么融入这个国家、被其同化，现在看来，我总还是一个洋人、外国人、老外。这突如其来的想法让人清醒，不过在这个场景下，也显得挺可爱、挺亲切。
Then Mr Zhang summoned the photographer who had been waiting in the wings, and asked if I would mind if they marked the occasion for posterity. So I posed for photographs by the fireplace and out on the verandah, smiling brightly, flanked by the director and the hospital boss, a token foreigner in the building built for my alien kind.
张先生叫来个一直等在旁边的摄影师，问我能不能合影留念。于是我站在壁炉前拍了照，又到露台上做了回模特，露出灿烂的笑容，身边站着馆长和医院院长。我在这个为西洋人修建的洋楼里，做了一回外国人的代表。
In the yang lou, I wanted to hug Mr Zhang and Mrs Yuan, but that’s not what Chinese people do. I was moved, and somehow delighted. Finally, after more than a century, the late Mr Wu’s occidentalist dream had been fulfilled, and by pure coincidence I was the agent of this fulfilment.
在那栋洋楼里，我真想当场拥抱张先生和袁姐，但中国人是不会这么做的。我觉得感动，也有些没由来的欢喜。终于，一个多世纪以后，那位已故的吴先生圆了这中西交流的梦想。而我完全是出于巧合，做了为他圆梦的使者。
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