‘Sa zi mian? What noodles d’you want?’ Xie Laoban gave me his usual surly look as he glanced up from the conversation he was having with one of his regulars.
“啥子面？”谢老板正在跟一个常客聊天，抬起头来给了个我早就见怪不怪的臭脸。
‘Two liang of sea-flavour noodles, one liang of Dan Dan noodles,’ I replied, dumping my schoolbag on the ground and perching on an unsteady stool, just inches from the stream of passing bicycles. There was no need to look at the blackboard, chalked up with the names of a dozen or so noodle dishes, because I knew it by heart, having eaten at Xie Laoban’s almost every day since I had arrived in Chengdu. Xie Laoban yelled my order out to his staff of three or four young blokes, who were scurrying around inside the noodle shop behind the coal-burning stove. A glass cabinet held bowls of seasonings: darkly fragrant chilli oil, ground roasted Sichuan pepper, sliced green onions, soy sauce and vinegar, salt and pepper. Nearby, potfuls of stocks and stews simmered away on an electric cooker, and skeins of freshly made noodles lay snakily in deep trays of woven bamboo. At the front of the shop, in full view of the street, steam drifted up from two enormous wokfuls of boiling water.
“二两海味面，一两担担面。”我回答，一边把书包放到地上，坐在一张摇摇晃晃的长凳子上，身边就是川流不息的自行车。根本不用看那个写了十几种面的小黑板，因为我从到了成都基本上每天都在谢老板这儿吃面，对那些内容早就烂熟于心了。谢老板把我点的面朝那三四个年轻的伙计喊了一通。他们正在面店的煤灶旁前前后后地忙碌着。玻璃橱柜里有一碗碗的调味料：红油、花椒面儿（1）、葱花、酱油、醋、盐和胡椒。旁边的电炉子上煨着高汤，炖着面臊子，热气升腾；竹编簸箕里盘旋着一把把新鲜劲道的面。店门口能把整个街景尽收眼底的地方，放着两口巨大的锅，水“咕嘟嘟”地沸腾着，飘散出阵阵蒸汽。【注：（1）即花椒炒熟再磨成粉。四川话喜欢把磨成的“粉”说成“面儿”。】
Resuming his conversation, Xie Laoban slumped back in his bamboo chair, smoking a cigarette as he recounted some grimly amusing tale. There was always an embittered look about his face, an edge of hostility and suspicion, and if he smiled at his acquaintances, his smile was tinged with a sneer of sarcasm. In his forties, he had a face pitted with the legacy of acne, sun-darkened yet wan and drawn. He seemed world-weary and cynical, though my foreign student friends and I never knew why. He fascinated us, but while we speculated incessantly about his life, wondering where he lived and with whom, what he did in the evenings, and whether he had ever been happy, in the end it was hard to imagine Xie Laoban being anywhere else but in that bamboo chair in the backstreets around the university, taking orders for noodles and barking at his staff. The bolder among us — Sasha and Pasha from Vladivostock, Parisian Davide — greeted him heartily, trying to engage him in conversation or cracking jokes in a vain attempt to raise the glimmer of a smile. But he remained stony-faced and deadpan, simply asking, as he always did, ‘Sa zi mian?’
谢老板继续和客人聊天，舒服地躺在竹椅上，一边抽烟一边说着诡异又有趣的故事。他脸上总有一种阴郁不悦的表情，仿佛总是带着敌意和怀疑。就算是向熟人微笑，那笑容里也有一种冷冷的嘲讽。这个男人四十几岁了，脸上全是从前出粉刺留下的坑坑洼洼，肤色被太阳晒得深深浅浅，有一种病态。老板的面相是有点厌世、有点愤世嫉俗的，不过我和留学生朋友们对个中原因也不得而知。他的气质深深吸引了我们。我们一直试图去勾勒他的生活，想象他在哪里住、和谁住、晚上干些什么、有没有快乐幸福过。但不管我们怎么想，最后也很难想象谢老板不在学校后街这把竹椅子上、不问你吃啥子面、不朝伙计大吼大叫。我们中间有几个胆子比较大的，比如从海参崴来的萨沙和帕夏，还有巴黎来的戴维德，会热情地跟他打招呼，想跟他聊聊天，或者讲个笑话，一心想让他笑一笑。但他还是一张冰块脸，完全面无表情、不动声色，只是和往常一样问道：“啥子面？”
I could see the young men assembling my lunch, trickling spices and oils into the tiny bowl for my Dan Dan noodles, sprinkling a little salt and pepper into the larger bowl for the sea-flavour noodles. The appropriate weight of noodles (one liang is about fifty grammes) were flung into the wok to cook, and before long steaming bowls were brought to my table. The sea-flavour noodles were, as always, richly comforting in their seafood broth, with a topping of stewed pork and bamboo shoots, mushrooms, dried shrimps and mussels. And the Dan Dan noodles — well, they were undoubtedly the best in town, the best anyone had ever tasted. They looked quite plain: a small bowlful of noodles topped with a spoonful of dark, crisp minced beef. But as soon as you stirred them with your chopsticks, you awakened the flavours in the slick of spicy seasonings at the base of the bowl, and coated each strand of pasta in a mix of soy sauce, chilli oil, sesame paste and Sichuan pepper. The effect was electrifying. Within seconds, your mouth was on fire, your lips quivering under the onslaught of the pepper, and your whole body radiant with heat. (On a warm day, you might even break out into a sweat.)
我看着年轻的伙计们做着我的午饭，把辣子和各种各样的调料倒进我那小小的一碗担担面里，再往那碗大一点的海味面里加点盐和胡椒。他们准确地抓起一两或二两面，扔进锅里煮。不一会儿，热气腾腾的两碗面就端到我桌上。海味面和以往一样，浸在浓郁的海鲜汤里，有种安慰人心的感觉，上面还加了炖好的肉、笋、蘑菇，再加点干虾米和淡菜。担担面呢，嗯，毫无疑问这是成都最好吃的担担面，走遍天下恐怕也就是这一家了。它看上去倒是其貌不扬：一小碗面，加了一勺深色的、松脆的牛肉碎。但只要你拿起筷子，把面拌一拌，就会唤醒铺在碗底的那些香料。每一根面条都会裹上酱油、红油、芝麻酱和花椒混合成的调料，效果实在是石破天惊。入口短短几秒，你的嘴巴就会着火，你的双唇会在花椒的猛攻下不停颤抖，你的全身都会散发着热气（天气热的时候就会汗流浃背了）。
Xie Laoban’s Dan Dan noodles were a potent pick-me-up, a cure for hangover or heartache, and the perfect antidote to the grey humidity of the Chengdu climate. As students, we were slavishly addicted to them. Many, like me, ordered a gentler meal of soup noodles with fried egg and tomatoes or sea-flavour stew, with a small shot of fiery Dan Dan noodles as a chaser, while the fast-living, hard-drinking Russians and Poles invariably ordered a full three liang of ‘dan danr’. We devoured them at one of the wobbly tables in the street, brushed by bicycles, assaulted by the honk of taxis and their sour aftermath of exhaust fumes. When we had finished, we asked Xie Laoban for the bill, and he would add up the paltry sums, take our crumpled notes, and rootle around in the little half-open wooden drawer for some change.
谢老板的担担面实在是非常有效的醒神药，宿醉或者伤了心，吃一碗再好不过了。在成都灰蒙蒙的潮湿天，这样一碗面简直救命。我们这些学生就像奴隶一样心甘情愿地上了瘾。很多人都和我一样，先来碗比较温柔的汤面，比如番茄煎蛋面，然后再上一小碗刺激火爆的担担面过过瘾。不过生性雷厉风行、喝起酒来海量无敌的俄罗斯人和波兰人总是一往情深地点三两“担担儿”。我们坐在街边摇摇晃晃的桌子边，狼吞虎咽地吃下去，周围的自行车来来往往，出租车的喇叭吵个不停，还喷来一阵阵难闻的尾气。吃完以后，我们叫谢老板结账。他把一个个琐碎的数字相加，接过我们皱巴巴的钞票，埋头在那个半开的小木抽屉里找零钱。
Dan Dan noodles are the archetypal Chengdu street snack. Their name comes from the bamboo shoulderpole that street vendors traditionally use to transport their wares: the verb ‘dan’ means to carry on a shoulderpole. Elderly residents of the city still remember the days when the cries of the noodle sellers — ‘Dan dan mian! Dan dan mian!’ — rang out in all the old lanes. The vendors would lay down their shoulderpoles wherever they found custom, and unpack their stoves, cooking pots, serving bowls, chopsticks and jars of seasonings. Servants would hear their call and rush out to the gateways of the old wooden houses to order noodles for their masters. Mah Jong players, clattering their tiles in a teahouse, would interrupt their game for a bowlful. Passers-by would slurp them in the street. The noodles were served in tiny bowls, a liang at a time, just enough to take the edge off your hunger, and so cheap that almost anyone could afford them.
担担面是土生土长的成都街头小吃，名字来源于挑着扁担的传统街头货郎。“担”是个动词，意思是“挑扁担”。成都的老人们还记得那些卖面人的吆喝，“担担面！担担面！”的声音传遍成都古老的小街小巷。只要有客上门，货郎们就放下担子，支起炉子，烧好水，摆好碗筷和一罐罐调味料。各家的仆人听到他们吆喝，就从那些老旧的木房子中跑出来，站在门口，帮主人叫面吃。正在茶馆里“修长城”的麻将搭子，会暂停牌局，出去吃一碗再说。行人也会停下来，“吸溜吸溜”地吃个面。面都是一小碗一小碗的，每次一两，刚好能垫垫肚子、顶顶饱，而且特别便宜，基本上什么人都买得起。
The noodle sellers weren’t the only traders on the move; they were part of a thriving and colourful street life for which Chengdu was renowned. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, in the early twentieth century, a guide to the city by Fu Chongju included descriptions and illustrations of some of its many street traders, including itinerant barbers and pedicurists, water-carriers and flower-sellers, menders of parasols and fans, vendors of chicken-feather dusters, knife sharpeners, and snack makers. The old city was a maze of alleys lined with timber-framed houses, their walls made of panels of woven bamboo that were packed with mud and straw, then whitewashed. Stone lions stood on pedestals at either side of imposing wooden gateways. There was a teahouse on almost every street, where waiters with kettles of boiling water scurried around, refilling china bowls of jasmine-scented tea. And amidst the cacophony of the markets and the bustling streets, no sound was more welcome than the cry of a snack-seller, advertising the arrival of some delicious xiao chi, or ‘small eat’.
当然，“移动销售”的货郎们不只卖面，成都的街头是出了名的生机勃勃和丰富多彩。清朝末年，二十世纪初期，傅崇矩写了本成都导游手册（2），里面描述了多种多样的货郎，包括流动理发师、流动修脚师、送水的、卖花的、修伞修扇子的、卖鸡毛掸子的、磨刀的和卖小吃的。古老的城市，迷宫般交织的街道，木结构的房子，竹子编织的墙上糊着泥巴和稻草再粉刷成白色。壮丽庄严的木门前，石狮子威风凛凛地镇守在底座上。几乎每条街都有个茶馆儿，小二提着一壶壶开水在桌椅间穿梭，往飘散着茉莉香味的盖碗里续水。喧嚷的市场与热闹的街道上，最受欢迎的声音就是那些卖小吃的，美味应声而来。【注：（2）即《成都通览》，作者傅崇矩，清末文人，四川简阳人，青年时期随父亲迁居成都，一生以成都人自诩。】
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are remembered as the heyday of Chengdu snacks. Street vendors lived or died by the quality of their cooking, so the secrets of their methods were jealousy guarded. In an atmosphere of fevered competition, individual traders devised new recipes, some of which still bear their names. One man, Zhong Xiesen, invented the divine ‘Zhong boiled dumpling’ (zhong shui jiao), a tender pork-filled crescent bathed in spiced, sweetened soy sauce and chilli oil, and finished off with a smattering of garlic paste. Another, Lai Yuanxin, left to posterity his squidgy glutinous rice balls (lai tang yuan), stuffed with a paste of toasted black sesame seeds and sugar. A married couple who roamed the streets with their cooking equipment had a relationship so famously harmonious that their speciality — slices of beef offal tossed with celery and roasted nuts in a fiery dressing of spiced broth, chilli oil and Sichuan pepper — is still known as ‘Man-and-wife lung slices’ (fu qi fei pian). The more successful traders often went on to open their own restaurants, usually named after their most celebrated snack.
十九世纪末和二十世纪初应该是成都小吃的黄金岁月。货郎们的生死存亡全看小吃的手艺，所以各家都有被别人妒忌猜测却秘而不宣的独门秘方。如此激烈的竞争氛围中，货郎们争先恐后地开发属于自己的新配方，有些到现在还以创始人命名。其中一个叫钟燮森的，发明了极为美味的“钟水饺”：味道清淡的猪肉馅儿包成新月状的饺子，加点甜辣味的酱油和红油，最后来点蒜蓉。还有个赖源鑫，给后人留下了他温香软玉一般的“赖汤圆”：炒过的黑芝麻磨成粉，加上猪油和白糖，包在糯米皮里。一对夫妻，挑着厨具漫步在大街小巷，伉俪情深传为佳话；他们专门卖一种凉菜：白卤牛杂切片，拌上芹菜、花生米、芝麻，加点卤水、红油和花椒面儿，就成了现在著名的“夫妻肺片”。货郎要是做得比较成功，一般会开个餐馆，通常都用自己最著名的那种小吃命名。
During the Cultural Revolution, any kind of private enterprise was banned. The teahouses of Chengdu were forced to close, and snack-sellers were banished from the streets. Yet soon after the end of China’s ‘Decade of Chaos’, the old street-food culture heaved itself back into life. Its resurgence was partly a symptom of the ‘smashing of the iron ricebowl’ — the post-Mao dismantling of the old socialist system that had guaranteed jobs and incomes for life. Middle-aged workers suddenly found themselves ‘laid-off’ on subsistence wages, and were forced to find other ways to make money. So some of them would fry up a basketful of ma hua (dough twists) in the mornings, or put together some zong zi (glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves), which they took out into the streets to sell. And there were peasants making a bit on the side in the slack farming season.
“文革”期间，任何形式的私人企业都被禁止了。成都的茶馆被迫关门，货郎也不准上街了。但在中国的“十年浩劫”结束不久，生命力蓬勃的“路边摊”文化重生了。这种东山再起是“砸烂铁饭碗”现象的一部分。很多中年工人发现自己下岗了，只能拿最低工资，因此被迫寻找别的生计。于是有的就早上炸个一篮子的麻花儿，或者包一些粽子，拿到街上来卖。农闲的时候，也有农民挑着自制的小吃到城里来卖。
The eyes of the older generation tended to mist over when they recalled the street food of their childhoods. One elderly man I met in a teahouse sat with me for an hour, writing out in meticulous detail a list of dozens of kinds of dumplings, categorised according to their cooking method and main ingredients. A portly and jovial chef in his fifties smiled wistfully as he reminisced: ‘Oh, they were all out there on the streets, sold from the shoulderpole, Dan Dan noodles, “Flower” beancurd and toffee.’ And he sang for me a long-remembered street vendor’s chant: ‘I got sweet ones, crispy ones, sugared dough twists!’
老人们回忆起小时候那些街头吃食，两眼总会泪汪汪的。我在茶馆遇到个太爷，坐在我身边聊了一个多小时，一丝不苟地写下了几十种不同的饺子，根据烹煮的方法和主要的馅料来分类。一个五十多岁、仪表堂堂、热情活泼的大厨带着满足的笑容跟我怀旧：“噢哟，他们都在街（gāi）上挑起扁担卖的，啥子担担面啊、豆花儿啊、丁丁儿糖（3）啊。”他还给我来了段儿过去货郎叫卖的小曲儿：“有甜的脆的～～糖麻花儿～～～！”【注：（3）丁丁糖，即四川人所说的“麻糖”，是经过浓缩扯白的麦芽糖。卖麻糖的小贩都拿着一个小铁板，用铁锤敲打铁板发出叮当的声音招揽顾客，所以得名“丁丁糖”。丁丁糖有止咳化痰、润肺清嗓的作用，只是吃起来比较粘牙。】
The old streets of the city were endlessly fascinating, and I spent much of my time exploring them. In shady corners, barbers hung mirrors on tree trunks or the walls of convenient buildings, and set up bamboo chairs for their clients, who lay back to be frothed and shaved with cut-throat razors in full view of the street. Knife sharpeners wandered past in dirty aprons, carrying their wooden stools and long, grey whetstones, ready to bring a keen edge to anyone’s cleaver. There were mobile haberdasheries, carried on bicycles that were pegged all over with zips, buttons and reels of cotton. Some pedlars sold their own handiwork — colanders woven from strands of bamboo, or black cotton shoes with padded white soles.
城里老街的美妙真是无穷无尽，我的大部分时间就沉迷于其中不断探索。绿荫葱茏的角落，理发匠们把镜子挂在树干或者比较方便挂东西的建筑墙面上，摆好给顾客坐的竹椅子。客人舒舒服服地半躺着，任由对方给自己涂上泡沫，拿锋利得可以割开喉管的刀片刮胡子。眼前是一览无余的街景。磨刀的穿着脏兮兮的围裙慢悠悠地走过去，挑着木头凳子和长长的灰色磨刀石，不管谁提着刀来都能给你磨得削铁如泥。还有流动的杂货店，卖货人骑着自行车，车子两旁挂满了拉链、纽扣和一卷卷棉线。有些小贩会卖自己亲手做的东西，竹编的簸箕、千层底的黑色棉布鞋。
In the mid-nineties, Chengdu was still a labyrinth of lanes, some of them bordered by grey brick walls punctuated by wooden gateways, others lined with two-storied dwellings built of wood and bamboo. The grand old houses had been divided up into more humble living quarters, plastic signs had been hoisted up above the open shopfronts, and the stone lions had disappeared from their pedestals. But if you closed your eyes to these signs of change, you could imagine yourself walking through a more distant Chinese past.
九十年代中期的成都仍然布满了迷宫般的小街，有的两旁是灰色的砖墙，点缀着一些木门；有的两旁则是两层的竹木民居。原来的大房子被分割成挨挨挤挤的小宿舍，开阔的店面前支起了塑料的招牌。石头底座上，石狮子早已经无影无踪。但是，如果你对这些变化视而不见，仍然能想象自己在遥远的老成都穿梭漫步。
In the alleys there were wine shops, with strong grain spirits sold from enormous clay vats. Some of the wine was steeped with medicinal wolfberries, some — for the gentlemen, of course — with assorted animal penises. Flute-sellers wandered among the crowds with bamboo pipes slung all over their bodies, playing a melody as they went. And it was hard to go more than a few yards without being tempted to eat. I might be waylaid by an old man selling sesame balls; distracted by someone selling glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in tangerine leaves from a steamer on the back of a bicycle; or arrested by the scent of eggy pancakes stuffed with jam, fresh from the griddle.
小巷子里有卖酒的店铺，粮食酿的高度白酒装在巨大的陶缸里。有些酒里泡着枸杞，有些泡着杂七杂八的“鞭”，当然是给男人喝的。卖笛子的人在人群中走过，全身都挂满了竹笛，边走还边吹奏着各种旋律。而且，走不了几步就有好吃的在诱惑你。那个卖麻圆的老人还埋伏在前面等着我呢；这边自行车后座上架起蒸锅卖叶儿粑（4）的人又让我分了心；小小浅浅的铜锅里刚出炉的蛋烘糕（5）包着果酱，闻到那香味我就只能缴械投降了。【注：（4）叶儿粑，四川传统小吃，用糯米面粉包上甜的或咸的馅儿，外面裹上新鲜的橘子叶蒸制而成，口感软糯，味道鲜美。（5）蛋烘糕，四川传统小吃，用鸡蛋、面粉、红糖、白糖混合成面糊摊成的小蛋饼。现代发展出很多种夹馅，比如果酱、奶油、花生糖、榨菜、凉拌豇豆、牛肉酱、豆沙等，可以根据自己的口味进行混合，是四川非常受欢迎的一种街头小吃。】
In March, when the spring winds whipped up, there was a kite vendor on every thoroughfare, displaying colourfully painted birds and insects made from bamboo and tissue-thin paper (the whole wide sky was full of them, too, like a swarm). When it rained, sellers of foldaway waterproofs appeared as if by magic; in the soupy summer heat, old men laid out rows of fans on the pavement. I even saw, once, a bicycle stacked with hundreds of tiny cages woven from thin strips of bamboo. Each one contained a live cricket, a potential pet; together, they hummed like a small orchestra.
三月，春风渐起，每条大路上都能遇到个卖风筝的，展示着五颜六色的鸟和昆虫，框架用竹条搭成，用很薄很薄的纸糊好（宽广的天空中也飞满了风筝，一窝蜂一窝蜂的）。下雨的时候，折叠雨衣的卖家像变魔术一样，不知道从哪儿就钻出来了；潮湿黏着的暑热中，会有老人在人行道上摆出一排排扇子。有一次，我甚至还看到一架自行车上挂满了几百个用细篾条编成的小笼子，每个里面都有只活蟋蟀，可以买回去当宠物；蟋蟀齐鸣，如同交响乐团正在演奏。
The notes ding ding dang, ding ding dang, beaten out on two ends of a piece of metal, signified the arrival of the Ding Ding toffee man, selling his pale, malt-sugar sweetmeat, which melted stickily in your hand if you didn’t eat it quickly. Best of all was the shouted ‘Dou huar! Dou huar!’ of the Flower beancurd vendor. I would rush to catch up with him, and he would put down his shoulderpole and the two red-and-black wooden barrels suspended from either end, and set about making me up a bowl of beancurd. It was still warm from the stove, as soft and tender as crème caramel, with a zesty topping of soy sauce, chilli oil, ground Sichuan pepper and morsels of preserved mustard tuber.
拿小铁锤在一块铁板的两边敲打出“叮叮当，叮叮当”的声音，听到的人就知道卖丁丁糖的人来了。这饴糖扯出来的白麻糖，要是不赶快吃，就会化在你手里，黏糊糊的。最开心的是听到小贩叫卖“豆花儿！豆花儿”，我会赶快跑过去，他就放下扁担，一边一个红黑相间的木桶，然后给我做上一碗。豆花儿还是热腾腾的，像刚出锅，口感像焦糖奶油一样柔嫩爽滑，表面上淋一点酱油、红油、醋、花椒面儿，再来一些大头菜末、葱花、炸黄豆，真正是锦上添花。
I never saw street vendors selling Dan Dan noodles. Like the famous Zhong dumplings and Mr Lai’s glutinous riceballs, they had disappeared from their original habitat, and were served instead in specialist snack canteens, or as a kind of amuse-bouche in more glamorous restaurants. On the streets, they’d been replaced by newly fashionable titbits: Shanghai fried chicken, Xinjiang potatoes or barbecue skewers. Every few months a new street-eating craze arrived, and a rash of identical stalls would jostle for position with the dispensers of more established fare.
我从来没见过街上这些流动的小贩有卖担担面的。就像著名的钟水饺和赖汤圆，都已经从原有的商业模式中消失了，开成了专门的小吃店，或者在那些更为豪华的饭店作为可口的小点。街上早已经有更为流行的新小吃来代替它们：上海炸鸡、新疆土豆、烤肉烤串。每过几个月就会有一种新的街头小吃风靡小街小巷，一群一模一样的小摊会和那些早就在这里站稳脚跟的小贩抢地盘。
Although the name Dan Dan noodles refers only to the way in which the snack was sold from a shoulderpole, over time it has become associated with a particular recipe, in which the noodles are topped with minced meat and ya cai, a famous vegetable preserve whose dark crinkly leaves add salt and savour. Every restaurant serving traditional Sichuanese food has Dan Dan noodles on its menu, and you can now buy Dan Dan noodle sauces in the supermarkets that have sprung up since I first lived in Chengdu. I’ve lost count of the different versions of the recipe I’ve tried over the years. Yet in all my wanderings, I have never come across Dan Dan noodles as delicious as those made by Xie Laoban in his modest noodle shop near Sichuan University.
虽然“担担面”这个名字指的只是这个小吃之前是挑着扁担卖的，但随着时间的推移，“担担面”已经有了专门的菜谱，面上一定要加肉臊子和宜宾芽菜（这是四川著名的腌菜，黑而卷曲的菜干，能增添盐分和风味）。每个卖四川传统小吃的餐厅，菜单上都一定会有担担面。现在你还能在超市里买到专门做担担面的调料包。嗯，从我刚到成都到现在，超市也是雨后春笋般开了一家又一家。多年来我试过很多种担担面菜谱，数也数不清了。但探索这么久，体验这么多，再也没遇到哪一家做得有四川大学附近谢老板那个不起眼的面店那么好吃。
Of course I tried to persuade him to give me his recipe, but he would never divulge it in its entirety: instead, he tantalised me with fragments. On one occasion, he grudgingly let me watch his staff assemble the seasonings in the bowls; another time he let me taste his oils and sauces; finally, he told me me the ingredients of his niu rou shao zi, the marvellous minced-beef topping. Eventually, with a great sense of relief and achievement, I managed to put together the pieces of the puzzle, and to reproduce his recipe at home.
我当然软磨硬泡想从他那儿拿到配方，可是他从不会跟我和盘托出，而是一点点地透露了来逗我。有一次，他很勉强地让我看着伙计们往碗里加调味料；还有一次，他让我直接尝尝他的各种油和调料；最后，他跟我讲了牛肉臊子（他的担担面里那美味无双的牛肉碎）的配方。终于，带着极大的解脱与成就感，我把这幅拼图一块块地凑齐了，在家里重现了谢老板的美味。
It was like that until my final visit to his shop, sometime in 2001. This was during the architectural reign of terror of city mayor Li Chuncheng (or Li Chaiqiang — ‘Demolition Li’ — as he was popularly known). Li was a man determined to make his mark on the era by demolishing the old city in its entirety, and replacing it with a modern grid of wide roads lined with concrete high-rises. Great swathes of Chengdu were cleared under his command, not only the more ramshackle dwellings, but opera theatres and grand courtyard houses, famous restaurants and teahouses, and whole avenues of wutong trees. Chengdu hadn’t known such ruin and destruction since the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards dynamited Chengdu’s own ‘Forbidden City’, a complex of courtyards and buildings dating back to the Ming Dynasty (a statue of a waving Mao Zedong now stands in its place).
二零零一年，我最后一次去他的面店，情况才有了点变化。当时地方政府大刀阔斧地拆掉成都老城，让交织的宽阔大道和钢筋水泥的高楼大厦取而代之。一声令下，成都的大片土地被拆得干干净净，不仅是那些老旧的危房，还有川剧戏院和宽阔的院落住宅、著名的餐馆茶馆和那些洒满梧桐绿荫的道路。“文革”结束以来，成都还没经历过这样大规模的拆迁改建。那时候，“红卫兵”们炸毁了皇城，那是成都自己的“紫禁城”，是一个综合了院落与明朝时期楼阁的建筑群。（现在那个地方伫立着一尊毛泽东挥手的塑像。）
For years afterwards, whenever my Sichuan University classmates and I returned to Chengdu from Paris, London, Munich, Verona or Krakow, we would go to Xie Laoban’s for a nostalgic bowl of Dan Dan noodles. And whatever ends of the earth we had come from, and however many hundreds or even thousands of bowls of noodles we had eaten in his shop in the past, he would look at us without a smile or the merest flicker of recognition, and simply ask in the same deadpan Sichuan dialect, ‘Sa zi mian?’ If we were lucky, he might give us a perfunctory nod as we left, bidding him goodbye for another year or so. It became a bittersweet joke among us, this refusal to acknowledge who we were.
之后多年，四川大学那群同学和我，无论是从巴黎、伦敦、慕尼黑、维罗纳还是克拉科夫回到成都，都会来到谢老板店里，吃一碗怀旧的担担面。而不管我们从地球的哪个角落来，不管我们在他的店里吃了几百碗甚至几千碗面，他还是一个笑脸都没有，甚至像不认识一样看着我们，用毫无起伏的四川方言问道：“啥子面？”幸运的话，吃完走人的时候，可能会得到他一个敷衍的点头，表示过个一年左右再见。这成为我们之中一个苦乐参半的笑话。他这种抗拒的态度，恰恰是我们曾经经历的一部分。
The lanes around Xie Laoban’s noodle shop lay in ruins, bony cadavers of wood and bamboo, and his restaurant clung to one or two other little shops in a precarious island amongst them. When I wandered up for a lunchtime bowl of noodles, Xie Laoban gave me a sunny look and, to my amazement, almost smiled. And as he took orders, settled bills and chatted with his regulars, he seemed mellower and less spiky in his movements. By his own standards, he was radiant with bonhomie. What was behind this miraculous transformation? Had he fallen in love, or won a fortune at Mah Jong? Or had the obliteration of the city, and the impending destruction of his business, just filled him with a sense of the lightness of being? I shall never know. I sat there and ate my noodles, which were as fabulous as ever, and then it was time to go. I never saw Xie Laoban again. Later that year, I went to look for him. I wanted to tell him that I had described him and his shop in my Sichuanese cookery book, and published his recipe for Dan Dan noodles, which was now being read and perhaps cooked by a network of Sichuanese food fans all over the world. But the place where his noodle shop had stood was a moonscape of debris, a great plain of rubble, scattered here and there with shattered pickle jars and ricebowls. And none of the passers-by knew where I could find him.
谢老板面店周围的街巷全都是一片断瓦残垣，废弃的木梁和竹条横七竖八地躺着。他的餐馆和另外一两家小店伫立在其中，如同岌岌可危的孤岛。我散步过来，想吃碗面当午饭。谢老板向我投来热情的目光，差点就笑了，真是让我受宠若惊。让客人点餐、给客人结账、和常客聊天的时候，他性格也似乎温柔了些，举手投足也没那么不好惹了。和这人以前的样子相比，现在他真是散发着温厚和蔼的光芒。这奇迹般的转变是为了什么呢？他爱上什么人了吗？还是麻将桌上赢了一大笔钱？或者因为城市的改建，他的生意也行将结束，他终于感觉到了生命的轻盈松快？答案我永远不得而知。我再也没见过谢老板。那一年的后来，我还去找过他，想告诉他我把他和他的店写进了自己的四川烹饪书，公开发表了他的担担面的菜谱。全世界的川菜迷们都在读，也许还照着做了。但他的面馆曾经伫立的地方，只留下一片拆除后的残骸，如同月球表面一望无际的碎石，偶有打碎的泡菜坛子和饭碗散落其中。来来往往的人中，也没有一个知道他的下落。
Of course, in my first year in Chengdu, the idea of writing a Sichuanese cookery book hadn’t even occurred to me. And it would have been hard, then, to believe that such a vibrant old city would disappear in just a few short years. I passed my time there in pleasure and idleness. One day I might spend hours in a teahouse, memorising Chinese characters; on another I might decide to visit a nearby fishing village to see what people there were cooking for lunch. Some friends and I began taking Qi Gong lessons from a retired Chinese doctor in the shady gardens of the Qing Yang Gong Taoist Temple, where we learned to sense and control the energy flowing around our bodies. The Russians, Sasha and Pasha, persuaded one of the illegal cinemas to hold a special screening of Pulp Fiction (a bootleg copy), which turned into a riotous party. With my German friend Volker and eight other foreign students I hired a bus for a wild trip to eastern Tibet. But on many days, I simply meandered around the old streets of Chengdu on my bicycle, waiting for something to happen. And it usually did.
当然，我在成都的第一年根本想都没想过写一本四川烹饪书。那时候也很难相信，短短几年的时间，这么一座生机勃勃的古城就会消失。那时候成都的日子啊，那么愉悦又懒散。今天我可能在一个茶馆一坐就是好几个小时，记背一些汉字；明天我可能决定去附近一个渔村，看看那里的人们午饭做什么吃。几个朋友和我开始在青羊宫绿荫蔽日的院子里跟一个退休的老中医练气功，学习如何感知和控制流动在身体里的“气”。俄罗斯人萨沙和帕夏找到一家非法录像厅，好说歹说，让人家专门放了一场《低俗小说》（放的是盗版碟），放映会最后变成一场狂欢派对。我和德国朋友沃尔克以及另外八个留学生租了辆大巴，去西藏东边的甘孜州来了趟荒野之行。但很多个日子里，我只是骑着单车，在成都的老街中闲逛，等着发生什么新鲜事。通常都是有新鲜事的。
In one of my favourite teahouses, I befriended an ear-cleaner called Xiao Chang’an. I was familiar with the sound of him before we ever met. I liked to lie back in my bamboo chair, eyes closed, a bowl of jasmine tea by my side, listening out for the street vendors as they passed. A sharp, metallic twang heralded the arrival of the ear-cleaner, his shirt pocket filled with a terrifying array of instruments: little knives, copper spikes and tiny scoops, and a few delicate goose-feather brushes. Xiao Chang’an was a regular in this particular teahouse, and I had often watched him poking his instruments into the ears of teahouse customers, who lounged in their chairs with expressions of extreme bliss on their faces. One day we struck up a conversation, and he told me about his trade. He explained about the acupressure points that he stimulated with his little prongs and knives, and told me that the art of ear-cleaning dated back to the Song Dynasty. ‘These days,’ he said, ‘some women use ear-cleaning as a cover for prostitution. They may carry the right tools, but they have no idea how to pleasure an ear.’ I was intrigued by everything he told me, but much too scared to let him give me a practical demonstration of his art.
我在一家很喜欢的茶馆，和一个姓肖的人交了朋友，他是个掏耳朵的。在见面之前，我已经很熟悉关于他的声响了。我喜欢躺在竹椅子上，闭了眼睛，身边摆着一碗茉莉花茶，听着街上小贩们来来往往。掏耳朵的人总是先闻其声，敲击金属发出清脆砰然的一声。他的衣服口袋里装着一系列可怕的工具：小刀、铜钉子和小小的挖耳勺，还有几把精致的鹅毛刷子。老肖常来这家茶馆做生意，我经常看到他把各种工具伸进茶客们的耳朵里。茶客们躺在椅子上，露出极致享受的表情。有天我们偶然闲聊起来，老肖给我讲了讲他的生意。他说，那些小小的钩子和刀能够刺激穴位，还说掏耳朵的艺术可以追溯到宋代。“那个时候，”他说，“有些女的说是掏耳朵，其实就是卖淫。她们正经八百地拿起那些工具，但是根本不晓得咋个掏耳朵才爽。”他说的每一句话都让我万分好奇，但还是胆子太小，不敢让他在我身上真正展示这门艺术的美妙。
One sunny afternoon, however, after I’d known him for a while, my resistance crumbled. I settled back nervously in my chair and let him have his way with me. He began by gently drawing back my hair, and stroking the skin around my ear with a small blunt knife, sending shivers of pleasure all over my body. Silent and concentrated, he then began to scrape and probe inside my ear with his little scoops and copper prongs, and to twirl around a series of feather brushes. The most thrilling sensations came when he placed a brush in my ear and then touched its handle several times with his humming tuning fork. The vibrations sent a rhythmic sound like the buzz of a grasshopper into the depths of my ear.
然而，跟他认识好一阵子了，在一个阳光灿烂的午后，我的防线崩溃了。我紧张地坐在椅子上，任由他摆布。他先轻轻地把我耳朵往后拉了拉，然后拿一把小小的钝刀敲打周围的皮肤，让我全身愉悦地颤抖起来。他一言不发、全神贯注，开始拿着小小的挖耳勺和铜钉子在我耳朵里戳来刮去，还不时把羽毛刷子伸进去刷一刷。最令人兴奋得战栗的是，他把刷子伸进我耳朵，又用那把能发出清脆声音的叉子在把手上敲打了好几次。两者的震动产生了美妙的韵律，如同有只蚱蜢在我耳根深处鸣叫。
Life in Chengdu often seemed surreal. The most extraordinary things happened on a daily basis. It was impossible for any of us foreign students to have a ‘normal’ life there, anyway. Whatever we did was inherently eccentric and fascinating in the eyes of the locals. We were recruited to appear in advertisements and films; images of our faces were printed on packets of soap. I spent a day at a theme park, dressed up in a Spanish flamenco costume and full stage make-up, chosen for a role in a commercial on account, said the director, of my ‘mysterious eyes’. If we had striven to go about our lives in a discreet and boring manner, we would still have drawn crowds and gasps of amazement wherever we went. In practice, this gave us licence to do just about anything.
成都的生活总有点超现实主义的味道。每天都在发生最离奇、最不寻常的事情。反正，我们这些留学生也没有一个能在这城里过“正常”生活的。在当地人的眼里，我们不管做什么，都特别古怪、特别吸引眼球。有人找我们去打广告、拍电影；我们的特写照片会出现在肥皂盒上。我曾经在某个主题公园干过一天活：穿着一件西班牙弗拉明戈舞裙，化着舞台妆，饰演一个广告角色。导演说，选我是因为我有一双“神秘的眼睛”。就算我们努力活得谨小慎微、无聊至极，无论到哪里还是会引起人群的围观和惊叹。这样一来，我们干脆就可以无所不为了。
One night, I took a taxi with my Italian friends Francesca and Katya to a dinner party in another part of town. We hadn’t gone far when the taxi broke down in the middle of a vast open junction (there were few private cars then, and no traffic lights, so vehicles just wove their way across these massive intersections in an ad hoc manner). Our driver got out to tinker with the engine. We were in a stupid, drunken mood, giddy with hilarity, so we shoved a rock cassette into the car stereo, turned the volume up to the maximum, stepped out into the road and began to dance. Our driver smiled at us indulgently, as people tended to do. Soon another taxi ground to a halt beside us, and its driver leapt out to gawp at the spectacle of three laughing foreign girls dancing in the middle of the road. It was followed by another, and another, until the whole space was gridlocked with a crazy zigzag of abandoned taxis, twenty or thirty of them. At that point our driver got the engine running again, so we jumped back in, wove our way out of the chaos of parked cars and zoomed off, looking back at a sea of astonished faces.
一天晚上，我和两个意大利朋友打了个的，去城里另一个区参加一场晚餐聚会。没开多远，车子在一个很大、很空旷的岔路口出了故障（那时候私家车还很少，红绿灯也很少，车子开上这些巨大的路口都是畅通无阻、随意来去的）。司机下车去修发动机。我们呢，喝得醉醺醺的，脑子犯傻、头昏眼花、不停傻乐。我们塞了一盘摇滚乐磁带到车载收音机里，把音量开到最大，下车来到路上跳起舞来。司机看着我们，露出纵容的微笑，和所有人一样。很快另一辆出租在我们身边停下，司机简直是从车上跳下来的，目瞪口呆地看着三个大笑大叫的外国女孩在路中间跳舞。接着一辆又一辆的的士停了下来，直到路边歪歪扭扭停满了没有司机坐镇的出租，一共有二三十辆吧。那时候我们的司机已经把发动机修好了。于是我们又跳上车，从一堆停得很混乱的车中艰难地找了条出路开走了，往回一看，惊讶的脸组成了一片海洋。
I remember one hair-raising lunchtime when Zhang Changyu, a kindly scholar of culinary history whom I had met through my Chinese teacher, invited me out for hotpot, and ordered a whole dishful of expensive pig’s brains, just for me. He scooped them up in a little wire sieve, which he dipped into the simmering broth. And then he turned the brains into my seasoning bowl, where they sank gently into the sesame oil and chopped garlic. At first I tried to hide them under the garlic, and to flip them on to the waste plate with the fishbones, distracting him with lively conversation. But it just didn’t work. Every time I ‘lost’ some brains by my feeble subterfuge, he would tip some more into my bowl. In the end, I just ate them, with a sense of grim resignation. They were as soft as custard, and dangerously rich.
我对一次令人毛骨悚然的午饭记忆犹新。我通过汉语老师认识了一个研究烹饪史的学者，人很好，邀请我出去吃火锅，然后点了一大盘很贵的猪脑花，说是专门给我吃。他用小漏勺把脑花放进咕嘟冒泡的汤底，煮熟了倒进我的味碟中。脑花温柔地沉浸在香油和蒜蓉当中。一开始我想把它藏在蒜蓉下面，或者跟他聊个热火朝天，再趁他不注意偷偷和鱼骨头一起倒了。但根本没用。每次我自以为聪明地刚“处理”掉一点儿脑花，他就往我碗里再加一点。最后，我心一横、眼一闭，张口就吃了。那口感像奶冻，柔软绵密，又有很丰富的层次，真是危险的诱惑。
In such a bizarre context, it wasn’t surprising that my own tastes were becoming ever more adventurous. At first, like most foreigners, I steered away from the wilder waters of Chinese cuisine. Dining out with my classmates, I would order chicken or pork rather than frog or loach, and always choose flesh over offal. But as I made more Chinese friends, it became impossible to continue with such fastidiousness, if only because of my English good manners. Some well-meaning Chinese person was always plopping a bit of pig’s intestine or cartilage into my ricebowl, as a special favour.
真是够魔幻、够疯狂的了，所以我们自己的口味变得越来越大胆也就不足为怪了。一开始，我也和大多数老外一样，对那些比较“狂野”的中国菜敬而远之。跟同学在外面吃饭，我喜欢点鸡肉或者猪肉，不会碰牛蛙啊、泥鳅啊什么的，能点肉绝不点内脏。但是后来，中国朋友越交越多，就是单从我们大英国人的好修养来说，都不可能再这么挑剔、这么矜持了。有些中国人出于好意，总是会往我饭碗里夹点肥肠软骨什么的，表示对我特别的偏爱和照顾。
Sometimes my reticence over a particular food was overcome through simple drunkenness. The Chengdu equivalent of the late-night döner kebab in 1994 was fried rabbit-heads, a snack I’d heard about from a Canadian friend. I’d seen the rabbit-heads sitting ominously in glass cabinets, earless and skinless, staring out with beady rabbit eyes and pointy teeth. The idea of eating one was utterly revolting. But one night, after a long dancing session, I fetched up at a street stall bedraggled and hungry. My reason befuddled by alcohol, I ate my first rabbit-head, cleft in half and tossed in a wok with chilli and spring onion. I won’t begin to describe the silky richness of the flesh along the jaw, the melting softness of the eyeball, the luxuriant smoothness of the brain. Suffice it to say that from that day on I ate stir-fried rabbit-heads almost every Saturday night. (Later I learned that a Sichuanese slang term for snogging is chi tu lao kenr — eating rabbit-heads.)
有时候，简简单单的一场醉酒，就能打破我对某种食物的禁忌。一九九四年的成都，有种食物和土耳其烤肉在英国一样，都是深夜的街头最受欢迎的小吃，那就是兔脑壳。这还是个加拿大朋友告诉我的。我目睹了兔脑壳在玻璃橱柜里一列排开，散发着不详的气息，没有耳朵、没有脸皮，兔眼珠子直勾勾看着你，尖尖的牙齿一览无余。光想想有人吃这个，我就要吐了。但是一天晚上，上了节时间不短的舞蹈课之后，我又累又饿，跑到一个路边摊觅食。几杯酒下肚，理智给酒精让位，我吃了人生第一只兔头：一切两半，撒了点辣椒和葱花。我不想跟你细说下巴上的肉口感多么厚实丰富，眼睛那块儿是多么柔软、多么入口即化，兔脑髓多么顺滑绵密。我只想说，从那天开始，我几乎每个周六晚上都会点炒兔脑壳来吃。（后来我才知道，四川方言里会把亲嘴儿叫“啃兔脑壳儿”。）
Affection, too, played a part in my growing omnivorousness. Affection for my Chinese friends, who would offer me wobbly morsels of dubious-looking food with expressions of such eager and expectant kindness that I couldn’t refuse. And a growing love also for Chengdu, for Sichuan, and for China. Sometimes the most disgusting things can taste delicious when they are associated with a familiar and beloved place. Aside from the offal and the weird delicacies, certain unlikely snacks became part of my Chinese gastronomic landscape. Huo tui chang, pale pink ‘sausages’ made from an unspeakable mix of reconstituted pork and cereal squirted into a red plastic sheath, were sold on every railway platform in China. Eating them became part of the ritual of long train journeys. They still make me nostalgic and I can’t resist buying them occasionally, even though nothing would induce me to eat that kind of thing in England. I also became addicted to ta ta bubblegum, which was sold as a long, spiralling pink ribbon in a flat round box: this is probably why, having had perfect teeth until the age of twenty-five, I went home to England after my time in Sichuan and had to have seven fillings.
情感也越来越把我变成一个“杂食动物”。我喜爱的中国朋友们会给我一些看上去很可疑的食物，脸上的表情既急切又满怀期待、充满善意，我真是无法拒绝。我对成都、四川和中国的爱也在与日俱增。有时候，只要和一个熟悉喜爱的地方连在一起，即使看上去特别恶心的东西吃起来也相当美味了。除了内脏和奇奇怪怪的山珍海味，我的中国烹饪之旅还充满了各种各样以前想也想不到的零食。比如火腿肠，一种粉白粉白的所谓“香肠”；原料嘛，不可说不可说：人工再造的猪肉，加上一些谷物淀粉，用红红的塑料皮套起来；中国所有的铁路站台上都有卖。每当我坐火车进行长途旅行，吃火腿肠都变成了一种仪式。直到现在我也会十分怀念，偶尔还会无法抗拒地买上一根，尽管英国没有任何情境会触发我去吃那样的东西。我还对“大大”泡泡糖上了瘾。特别是“大大卷”，粉红色的带状泡泡糖卷成一圈，装在一个扁圆的盒子里。也许就是因为吃这个吃多了，二十五岁以前牙齿健康状况还堪称完美的我，从四川回到英国的时候，竟然有七处龋齿要补。
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