Oh, it was delicious. The deep savouriness of the crabmeat, combined with the honeyed tang of the vinegar and the arresting sharpness of the ginger, made a sublime chord of flavour. I demolished the rest of the legs. I sighed. Finally, I began to lap up the custard-like meat inside the shell, nature’s foie gras, and the yolk-yellow semen, dripping with golden oil. Outside the window, the sun gleamed on the still, blue waters of the lake.
啊，真是美味啊。蟹肉有一种环唇绕齿的鲜味，加上醋那种有点微甜的特别味道，以及姜那股强烈的辣劲儿，真是绝配，像一曲各种风味的动人合唱。我把另外几条腿也给拆了，满足得直出长气。最后，我终于开始对蟹壳里那果冻一般的肉大快朵颐了。这肉就像自然形成的鹅肝酱，最后当然少不了流动着金色油脂的蟹膏。窗外是安静湛蓝的湖水和阳光撒在上面的点点碎金。
My steamed crab crouched on the table in front of me in a blaze of sunset-orange, its claws bearded with moss-like fur, its legs fringed with spiky yellow hair. It looked as though it might scuttle away at any moment. I prepared for the attack. Eating hairy crabs is a messy business. You cannot avoid a tussle with shell and flesh: crunch, suck, crack, lick, probe, slurp. The restaurant had provided an array of stainless-steel tools, along with dry napkins, wet napkins, plastic gloves and toothpicks. So I crushed the legs with the crushers and poked out their tender meat, excavated the frondy white flesh of the claws. Then I dipped the meat into a saucer of ginger-infused vinegar before popping it into my mouth.
我的蒸蟹蜷伏在面前的餐桌上，浑身上下是日落时那种橘黄色。钳子上布满了苔藓般的黑色绒毛，蟹腿边缘有硬硬尖尖的黄毛。看上去这只蟹可能随时急匆匆地横行而去。不过我准备发起攻击了。吃这种大闸毛蟹是很麻烦的。剥开蟹壳吃肉，免不了一阵手忙脚乱：嚼、吸、夹、舔、掏、啜。餐厅专门配了不锈钢的“蟹八件”，还有餐巾、湿纸巾、塑料手套与牙签。我用蟹钳夹断蟹腿，掏出里面软嫩的蟹肉，还把蟹钳里面一丝丝白色的肉也挖出来了，接着拿肉蘸了蘸泡姜醋酱汁，再扔进嘴里。
Many Chinese people are obsessed with crabs, yet no one has ever managed to match the crab-induced ecstasies of the seventeenth-century play wright Li Yu. ‘As regards the excellence of food and drink,’ he wrote, ‘there is not one single thing whose exquisiteness I am unable to describe… And yet when it comes to crabs, while my heart lusts after them and my mouth enjoys their delectable taste (and in my whole life there has not been a single day when I have forgotten them), I can’t even begin to describe or make clear why I love them, why I adore their sweet taste, and why I can never forget them…’I have lusted after crabs all my life,’ he went on, ‘to the extent that every year as the crab season approaches, I save up my money in anticipation. My family tease me so much for treating crabs as though my life depends on them that I think I may as well call these savings my “ransom money”. From the first day of the crab season until the last day they are sold, I… do not let a single evening pass without eating them. All my friends know about my craving for crabs, and they entertain and fête me with them during the season; therefore I call the ninth and tenth months “crab autumn”… Dear crab, dear crab, you and I, are we to be lifelong companions?’
很多中国人痴迷于吃蟹，但要说把吃蟹时那种狂喜忘形、飘飘欲仙，写得最生动的莫过于十七世纪的戏剧家李渔。他写道：予于饮食之美，无一物不能言之，且无一物不穷其想象，竭其幽渺而言之；独于蟹螯一物，心能嗜之，口能甘之，无论终身一日皆不能忘之，至其可嗜可甘与不可忘之故，则绝口不能形容之。此一事一物也者，在我则为饮食中痴情，在彼则为天地间之怪物矣。予嗜此一生。每岁于蟹之未出时，即储钱以待，因家人笑予以蟹为命，即自呼其钱为“买命钱”。自初出之日始，至告竣之日止，未尝虚负一夕，缺陷一时。同人知予癖蟹，召者饷者皆于此日，予因呼九月、十月为“蟹秋”。虑其易尽而难继，又命家人涤瓮酿酒，以备糟之醉之之用。糟名“蟹糟”，酒名“蟹酿”，瓮名“蟹瓮”。向有一婢，勤于事蟹，即易其名为“蟹奴”，今亡之矣。蟹乎！蟹乎！汝于吾之一生，殆相终始者乎！所不能为汝生色者，未尝于有螃蟹无监州处作郡，出俸钱以供大嚼，仅以悭囊易汝。即使日购百筐，除供客外，与五十口家人分食，然则入予腹者有几何哉？蟹乎！蟹乎！吾终有愧于汝矣。（1）【注：（1）此篇出自李渔《闲情偶寄·饮馔部·肉食第三·蟹》。李渔是明末清初的文学家、戏剧家和美学家。他写的《闲情偶寄》可以说是养生学的经典著作，分了八个部分。而李渔在本书中写的吃蟹感受，让他得到了“蟹痴”的名号。】
It wasn’t surprising, I thought, that the pleasures of crab had been one of the themes of Chinese life and literature for centuries. Every autumn, at the start of the crab season, gourmets from Hong Kong, Tokyo and even further afield flocked to eastern China to eat them. It was a seasonal event, like the Grand National in England, or the Monaco Grand Prix. The female crabs ripen in the ninth lunar month, followed quickly by the males, and from then until the year’s end it’s a non-stop orgy of crabbery. Chefs in fancy restaurants incorporate hairy crab into extravagant recipes: stewed turtle with crabmeat, silken beancurd with crabmeat, ‘soup’ dumplings stuffed with pork and crab… Ephemeral crab shops spring up on the streets, selling live crabs burbling away in tubs, panes of glass to stop them running away.
我心想，难怪几百年来中国人都爱吃蟹，也爱在文学作品中歌颂蟹的美味呢。每年秋天吃蟹季开始的时候，香港、东京，甚至更远地方的美食家，都会蜂拥到华东去尝一尝这人间至味。吃蟹一年一度，是要看季节的，就像英国的全国越野障碍赛马，或者一级方程式赛车摩纳哥大奖赛。农历九月，母蟹肥了，可以捕捞了；很快公蟹也行了。从那时候起到年底，渔民就一刻不停地捞蟹。高档餐厅的大厨利用大闸蟹制定了很多奢侈的食谱：蟹肉炖甲鱼、蟹粉豆腐、蟹粉小笼包……街巷中出现很多临时的卖蟹小摊，鱼缸里是张着钳子、吐着泡泡的活蟹，它们被透明的玻璃板困住了，跑不掉。
The centre of the autumn crab trade is the lakeside city of Kunshan in greater Suzhou, but these days it’s a nightmare of commercial tourism. Coaches disgorge their parties of proles at tacky restaurants, where they gorge on crabs and have their photographs taken. Someone as cosmopolitan as Li Jing wouldn’t dream of going to a place like that. Instead, we turned off the main road and drove through fields of cabbages to a restaurant perched on an unspoilt stretch of the lake’s shore. We left the jeep and pattered over a zig-zag of bamboo walkways to a dining room propped up on stilts in the shallows.
秋蟹的交易中心，是苏州附近一座湖畔城市昆山，但到现在已经变成充满商业化的旅游区，实在是个噩梦。一辆辆大巴开过来，一群群老百姓下了车，走进那些俗气拥挤的餐厅，狼吞虎咽一番大闸蟹、拍点照片。像李静这种走南闯北见过世面的人根本不可能想去那样的地方。我们下了高速，穿过一片片卷心菜田，来到一家餐厅，就在阳澄湖边一个没有过度开发的僻静地方。我们都下了吉普车，顺着两旁翠竹掩映的弯曲小径，走进一间架在滩涂上的吊脚楼。
The best crabs in China, everyone agrees, are those reared in the Yangcheng Lake near Suzhou, because of the limpid purity of its waters. That is why I ended up, on that warm October Sunday, making a day trip with friends to the shores of the lake. I was with Gwen, an old classmate from Sichuan University, and our ringleader was Li Jing, a glamorous Shanghainese divorcée in her thirties to whom Gwen had introduced me. The Shanghainese are notoriously snooty and rarely associate with the Westerners who now reside in their city. But Li Jing had lived in France, spoke fluent French and English, and worked for an international company. She was unusually open-minded, and she loved to eat. So she persuaded a rich and well-connected friend to drive us out of Shanghai in his jeep, along the new crab expressway towards Suzhou.
全中国公认最好的大闸蟹，出自苏州附近的阳澄湖，因为那里碧波荡漾、水质清淳，适合大闸蟹的生长。所以，在那个和暖的十月周日，我跟几个朋友来了个阳澄湖一日游。同行的一位朋友叫格温，是川大的老同学；还有“煽动”我们去吃蟹的李静，离了婚的上海女人，魅力四射、美艳动人，是格温介绍我认识的。上海人的傲慢自大恶名在外，据说根本不屑于跟旅居上海的西方人来往。但李静在法国小住过，英语、法语流利得很，而且在一家跨国公司供职。她的性格开朗、思想开明，真是非同一般，对吃的热爱也是一样。于是她找到个朋友，叫他开着吉普带我们出城，开上沪苏之间新建的高速公路，奔向大闸蟹。
As I savoured the last, tantalising morsels of meat in my crab, I glanced over at Li Jing. Dark hair falling about her shoulders, she was sucking at the coral-red ovaries of her own, female crab, her fingers shiny with its most intimate juices. Everyone in the dining room was locked in silent concentration, the only sounds the determined crunching of shells and a gentle, pervasive slurping. Once, our taciturn companion, the son of a Chinese admiral, aloof with his own self-importance, broke his silence to say, ‘Remember that the crab is very cooling (han), you should drink some wine with it, otherwise you’ll get a stomachache.’ He nodded in the direction of the warm Shaoxing wine, infused with heating ginger. I took my wine cup in fingers stained yellow by crab semen, and raised it to my lips. The warm alcohol went straight to my head.
我津津有味地品尝着自己手里那只大闸蟹稀少却诱人的嫩肉，一边瞥了眼李静。黑发披肩的她拿着一只母蟹，正吮吸着丰富的蟹黄，手指上都沾着亮晶晶的油脂。桌上的每个人都默默而专注地吃着，唯一的声音是蟹壳“咔嚓”的碎裂，和每个人轻轻的“吸溜吸溜”。开车带我们来的是个中国高级将领的儿子，他不是个看重自己身份地位的人，这一路上都谦虚而寡言，此时却打破沉默说，“注意哦，蟹是大寒的，要边吃边喝点酒，免得胃痛。”他朝桌上温好的绍兴酒点点头，那酒还泡了也属于热性食物的姜。我用沾满黄色蟹膏的手指拿起酒杯，送到唇边。温暖的酒精立刻就上了头。
By the time we had finished our lunch, the trays on the table were piled with crab debris. We sat around for a while, drinking wine and chatting. ‘This is one of the best hairy crab restaurants in the area,’ said Li Jing. ‘It may look plain, but the crab they serve here is a “green food product”, not like the industrialised crabs you find in Kunshan. They are reared outside, just over there, on a diet of fish and snails rather than artificial feed. Even national leaders come here to eat.’
吃完这顿午饭，桌上的托盘里已经堆满了大闸蟹的“遗骸”。我们多坐了一会儿，喝酒聊天。“这里算是这片特别好的一家大闸蟹餐厅了，”李静说，“看着可能不起眼，但是他们这里的大闸蟹是‘绿色食品’，和昆山那些工业化养殖的蟹完全不一样。这些大闸蟹就是在那边户外养殖的，不喂人工饲料，吃的都是小鱼和小虫。国家领导都会来这里吃的。”
Soon after we visited the restaurant, a crab scandal blew up in the Chinese national press. Officials from the Taiwanese health ministry had examined a shipment of hairy crabs imported from the Yangcheng Lake, and found them to be contaminated with residues of an antibiotic that has been linked to cancer, AOZ. Yangcheng crab breeders insisted that they didn’t use AOZ, and that the problem must lie with crabs from elsewhere that were being passed off as the real thing. According to the official Chinese media, local crab-eaters were undeterred by this cancerous little rumour, and blithely went on eating crabs for the rest of the season. But the story left a bad taste in my mouth. For the rest of my stay in Shanghai, I found myself avoiding hairy crab wherever possible.
我们光顾那家餐厅不久，中国的媒体曝光了一场有关蟹的丑闻。台湾卫生机构检查了一批次的进口阳澄湖大闸蟹，发现全部含有呋喃唑酮代谢物AOZ，这种抗生素跟癌症有关。阳澄湖的养蟹人坚称他们没有使用AOZ，肯定是有人拿别处有问题的蟹来替代了真品。中国官方媒体报道说，来苏州吃蟹的人根本没对这含有“癌症”二字的小小谣言上心，整个吃蟹季依然无忧无虑地品尝着美味。但每每想起这件事，我嘴里总泛起一股苦涩。在上海剩下的日子里，我几乎都在有意无意地尽量避免吃大闸蟹。
Gwen and I left Li Jing and her friend at the table, and wandered out to look at the crab farm. Over the entrance, a large signboard showed a photograph of the former General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, gazing into a basket of live crabs at the restaurant. Inside, the crabs lived in large cages suspended in an inlet of the lake. One of the crab-keepers showed us around, and pulled out a great hairy crab in his hand. He grinned as it waved its legs around in futile protest. What with the sun, the fresh air and the lightheadedness brought on by the wine, we were in a good mood. Until we noticed the state of the water. An oily scum swirled on the surface, with a mass of grubby flotsam that had drifted in from the lake. The legend of the pure Yangcheng waters, like so many others in China, had failed to keep pace with an industrialised reality. The thought of the crabs we had just eaten, raised amid such filth, was suddenly unappealing.
李静和那位朋友还在桌上，格温和我先起了身漫步出去，看看那片养蟹场。进门的地方有个很大的广告牌，上面的照片里，一位高官正看着餐厅里的一篮活蟹。养蟹场的湖水里挂了浸水的大笼子，蟹就养在笼子里。有个养蟹人领着我们参观了一下，然后用手拉了只个头很大的大闸蟹出来。大闸蟹挥舞着八条腿儿作无用的抗争，养蟹人露出憨厚的笑容。阳光正好，空气清新，酒意微醺，我们心情相当好，直到注意到水的状况。水面上旋转着油乎乎的泡沫，还有大量从湖里飘来的肮脏废料。阳澄湖的水曾经是那么清澈纯净，现在却和中国其他的很多传说一样，没有跟上迅速工业化的现实。想着刚刚吃过这样的水里养出来的蟹，我们突然有点不舒服。
Three-quarters of the half-million or so food-processing plants in China are small and privately owned. For their owners, it’s often cheaper to pay the occasional fine than to invest in safe production. Once I wheedled my way into an illegal factory making preserved duck eggs on the outskirts of Chengdu. It was a small, fly-by-night workshop in a filthy yard. The workers there told me that their eggs took a mere seven-to-ten days to mature rather than the traditional three months: a sure sign, said the friend who accompanied me, that they were ‘fast’ preserved eggs, speeded-up by additives like ammonia.
中国一共有五十万左右的食品加工厂，其中四分之三是私营小企业，偶尔交点罚款，成本要比投资安全生产小多了。一次我去了成都郊区一个生产皮蛋的非法工厂，其实就是垃圾遍地的院子里一个小小的“黑心小作坊”。那里的工人们告诉我，传统的皮蛋要做三个月，而他们的只需要七到十天。陪我去的朋友说，这么短时间做出来的“快速皮蛋”，肯定是加了氨这一类的添加剂。
Every time I look in a Chinese newspaper these days, it is full of food scares. Ten years ago, such stories were few and far between, and those I did come across seemed almost comical — like that of the Shanghai eel farmer who kept his eels on the human contraceptive pill to make them plumper. Now the tales are nastier, and they come thick and fast: 300 people in Shanghai poisoned by pork tainted by the drug clenbuterol; duck eggs doctored with an industrial dye; fifty babies killed by fake formula milk. It’s partly, of course, because the Chinese newspapers are more frank than they used to be when in comes to discussing unpleasant issues. But it’s also because of runaway economic growth, poor regulation and widespread corruption.
现在，每当看中国的报纸都会发现满篇的食品安全问题。十年前，这样的报道还十分稀少，而我在遍寻美食的过程中遇到的一些，与其说让人担忧，不如说觉得好笑。比如养鳝鱼的上海农民，为了让鱼养得肥一点，喂它们吃了避孕药。现在这些报道却让人恶心，而且呈现急剧恶化的趋势：上海有三百人吃了喂“瘦肉精”的猪肉，食物中毒；用工业染色剂作假的鸭蛋；假奶粉让五十个婴儿不幸丧生。当然，这种情况一方面是因为中国的报纸在更坦白和透明地去报道这些并不让人开心的新闻；但更重要的原因是经济发展得有些失控，相关法律法规又不健全，以及弥漫全国上下的腐败风气。
The Chinese government was so embarrassed by the global furore that it sprang into action. Officials announced a crackdown on small, poorly regulated food-processing firms, and conducted a nationwide inspection into food safety. The results were unsettling. Inspectors found illegal industrial materials such as dyes, mineral oils, paraffin wax, formaldehyde and malachite green used in the manufacture of all kinds of ordinary foods: flour, sweets, pickles, biscuits, dried fungi, melon seeds, beancurd and seafood. The scale of corruption in the food regulation system was made clear when the former head of the Chinese Food and Drug Administration was executed for taking bribes.
引起全球公愤让中国政府颜面尽失，他们痛定思痛，开始行动。官员们纷纷宣布，要整治取缔那些缺乏监管措施的小型食品加工公司，并且在全国范围内进行食品安全检查。检查结果令人不安。检查员们发现，像面粉、糖、腌菜、饼干、干菌、瓜子、豆腐和海鲜等各种各样常规食品的生产过程中，非法使用染色剂、矿物油、固体石蜡、甲醛、碳酸铜染料这些化学品早就是家常便饭。中国食品药品监督管理局的原局长因为受贿被捕，食品法规系统中的腐败程度也由此一目了然。
The contamination of Chinese food products hit the international headlines in the spring of 2007. Ironically it was concern at the health of animals, rather than people, that started it. When American cats and dogs started dying in odd circumstances, the cause was found to be a Chinese-made ingredient in their food: wheat gluten that had been doctored with the chemical melamine, a cheap protein-enhancer. The world started looking at Chinese imports with greater scrutiny. American journalists dredged up years-worth of US Food and Drug Administration reports documenting rejected imports from China: mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides; prunes stained with chemical dyes; shrimp tainted with carcinogenic antibacterials. The United States had turned back over a hundred shipments of Chinese food products in a single month that spring. And these were just the imports that had been intercepted.
中国的食品安全问题首先登上国际媒体显著位置，是在二零零七年春天。讽刺的是，开始这一切的，是对动物而非人类健康的关心。美国的一些宠物猫和宠物狗离奇死去，有关人士研究后发现致死原因是猫粮狗粮里中国制造的材料小麦蛋白中加入了三聚氰胺这种廉价的化学蛋白强化剂。全世界都开始对从中国进口的食品更为仔细地筛查检验。美国记者深挖了美国食品和药物管理局多年的报告，其中记录了被打回中国的进口商品：有非法农药残留的蘑菇、加了化学染色剂的梅子、沾染了致癌抗菌药的虾。那年春天，在短短一个月的时间里，美国就遣返了一百批次的中国食品，这些还只是在港口就被拦截下来的。
So it’s not just middle-class paranoia that has made some of my Chinese friends hesitant about eating meat in the last few years, and my Hong Kong friends wary of ingredients imported from Mainland China. My own enjoyment of eating in China has been clouded by growing anxiety about what’s actually in the food on the table. Those tempting prawns, stir-fried with black beans and chilli; that sweet-and-sour carp… Fish farms in China seem to slip a lot of banned antibiotics and fungicides into their ponds, so these may well be tainted by residues. Those tender chunks of belly pork with jujubes… growth hormones, anyone? What about the questionable chemicals used in the manufacture of deep-fried doughsticks, or the lead oxide that is a traditional additive to preserved duck eggs? Most chickens now are battery farmed, almost certainly, in conditions that I’d rather not think about in England, let alone in China. Furthermore, I’ve watched those peasants with cans of pesticides on their backs, drenching their beans and cabbages.
所以，过去几年来，我的一些中国朋友不大想吃肉，香港的朋友也对从中国大陆进口的食材非常警觉。这并不单纯是中产阶级的妄想偏执。我自己对中国菜的喜爱，也因为越来越担心盘中餐里到底注入了什么，而蒙上一层阴影。那些诱人的豆豉辣椒炒大虾、那条糖醋鱼……中国的养鱼场好像经常往池塘里放一些禁止使用的抗生素与杀菌剂，所以这些食物上很可能有残留；那一块块软嫩的红枣炖猪腩……生长激素，有谁想吃的吗？还有做油条时用的那些令人疑窦丛生的化学品、通常都会添加到皮蛋里的氧化铅，有谁想吃的吗？另外，我也目睹过那些背上背着一罐罐杀虫剂的农民，把他们种的豆子和卷心菜浇透（而且很多人告诉我，自家吃的菜上面是绝对不喷农药的）。
Even before the pet-food scandal, a Chinese official who had once been responsible for controlling doping in sports, Yang Shumin, warned that athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics might fail their drugs tests if they dined out in restaurants, because so many anabolic steroids were routinely pumped into Chinese meat. In an attempt to avert panic in the sports world, the government hastily promised that all the food served in the Olympic Village would be purchased from selected suppliers, wrapped in tamper-proof packaging and delivered by tracked vehicles. Furthermore, the kitchens would be guarded round the clock, and all the ingredients used in cooking for the athletes would first be tested on mice! Their pledges were hardly reassuring for those of us living outside the sterile, armed-guarded, mouse-tested confines of the future Olympic Village.
早在猫狗粮丑闻之前，一位曾经负责过竞技体育药物监控的中国官员就曾警告过即将参加二零零八年北京奥运会的运动员，要是他们去外面的餐厅吃饭，很有可能通不过比赛药检，因为中国的肉类中注入大量合成类固醇早就是既成事实。为了避免引起国际体育界的恐慌，政府赶忙承诺，奥运村一切食物的供应商都会精挑细选，食品会用防拆封袋装好，运送的车辆也会进行详细跟踪记录。另外，村里的厨房也会有人二十四小时守卫监管，所有用于为运动员们做饭的食材都会首先用小白鼠做实验！然而，对于我们这些“村外人”来说，这个守卫重重、有小白鼠做实验的“无菌”奥运村是进不去的天堂，政府这些信誓旦旦对我们没有任何安抚作用。
In England I eat as much organic produce as possible, avoid factory-farmed meat and poultry, and steer clear of junk food, mostly. In China, such fastidiousness is impossible. What’s a professional omnivore to do?
在英国，我尽量吃有机食品，不去碰工业化农场出来的肉禽蛋，且大多数情况下不沾染垃圾食品。但在中国是不可能做到这么讲究的。我可是个专业的“杂食动物”，能怎么办呢？
Aside from the deliberate adulteration of food by corrupt manufacturers, the pollution is so dire in many parts of China that it poses a direct and grave threat to human health. According to the government’s own figures, 10 per cent of Chinese farmland is dangerously contaminated with excessive fertilisers, heavy metals and solid waste, and a third of the rural population lacks access to safe drinking water. Many rivers are so filthy that their waters are toxic in contact with human skin. The newspapers are filled with terrifying stories about poisoned lakes and reservoirs, their waters unfit even for irrigation. According to a World Bank report, which the Chinese government tried to suppress, 700,000 Chinese people die prematurely every year because of air and water pollution.
贪便宜的制造商故意在食物中掺假是一个方面的问题，另一方面中国大部分地区严重的污染更是对人体健康造成直接的重大危害。政府数据显示，百分之十的中国农业用地都因为过量农药、重金属和固体废料而高危污染；有三分之一的农村人口无法享受安全的饮用水。报纸铺天盖地地报道受到毒素污染的湖和水库，其水质已经不适合灌溉，读来真让人心惊肉跳。最近世界银行公布了一份报告，每年有七十万中国人因为空气和水污染早逝。
Anyone living in China knows that these are not just abstract statistics. If you go out on to the streets of Beijing on a bad day, you can sense the pollution as you inhale. You will probably choke on it. Often when I go back to Chengdu or Changsha these days, I develop a cough, a headache and an asthmatic wheeze. While I’m in China, I drink Chinese tea all the time, because I adore it. Once in a while, though, when I feel that I’ve had enough tea, I drink a mugful of bai kai shui, plain boiled water, instead. It’s usually a shocking experience. In Hunan, one memorable mugful of bai kai shui tasted of petrol and God-knows-what other chemical effluents. Even when the taste is not so extreme, the water, unmasked by tealeaves, tends to have a metallic tinge. Often, I want to spit it out immediately — but what’s the point, when the same water is used to cook all the food I eat?
只要住在中国，你就知道，这绝不只是一个抽象的数据。要是哪天天气不好，你来到北京的街道上，呼吸之间就能感受到严重的污染，可能还会被污浊的空气呛到。现在，我回成都和长沙，经常都会咳嗽、头痛甚至哮喘。我爱喝中国茶，所以在中国的时候随时都把它作为饮品。不过，偶尔喝茶喝够了，还是会喝杯白开水。这种时候，如果喝的不是蒸馏水，味道通常会让我震惊不已。我记忆犹新：有杯白开水喝起来有石油和不知什么化学废水的味道。就算有的味道没这么极端，失去了茶叶的掩护，水里总有一股淡淡的金属味。通常，我想马上把它吐出来——但当我吃的所有食物都是用同样的水煮的时候，那又有什么意义呢？
One day when I was living in Hunan, I went to visit a friend in Zhuzhou. Zhuzhou is on the World Bank list of the world’s most polluted cities (China lays claim to sixteen of the top twenty on that list). It was a terrifying place, a blighted metropolis where the chimneys of the local metallurgy and chemical plants spewed their vile, gaseous excrement over the entire landscape. I waited for my friend in a taxi outside his work unit. The view through the car windows was apocalyptic, trails of white smoke shrouding everything, blotting out the sun. One chimney on a lower slope sent its filthy plume directly into the compound where he worked. The air was so foul that I, an outsider, scarcely dared breathe. I ate very little at lunch, because although the food was delicious, I was thinking of the tainted earth in which the vegetables must have sprouted, the corrupted water in which the fish had probably been farmed. I didn’t want to let any of it into my body. How anyone could live there I did not know.
有一天，我住在湖南，我去株洲看望一位朋友。株洲被世界银行列为世界上污染最严重的城市之一（中国在这20个城市中排名16位）。这是一个可怕的地方，一个被破坏的大都市，当地冶金和化工厂的烟囱把它们肮脏的气体排泄物喷到整个景观上。我在他的工作单位外面的出租车里等我的朋友。透过车窗看到的是世界末日的景象，白烟的踪迹笼罩着一切，遮住了阳光。在一个较低的斜坡上的一个烟囱把它的脏烟直接送到了他工作的院子里。空气太脏了，我这个局外人几乎不敢呼吸。午餐时我吃得很少，因为虽然食物很美味，但我想到的是蔬菜一定是在污染的土地上发芽的，鱼可能是在污染的水里养殖的。我不想让它进入我的身体。我不知道怎么会有人住在那里。
The world is currently deeply enamoured of China, and everyone wants to go there on holiday. Flick through any travel magazine and you’ll very likely come across an article on the glamorous Shanghai restaurant scene, or perhaps, in the right season, on the delights of hairy crabs. But you don’t see much mention of the country’s terrible environmental problems. When I was in New York recently, I met up with another Chinese food writer who lived there. She had just returned from China, where she had been flabbergasted by the pollution. ‘It’s appalling,’ she whispered to me. ‘Why doesn’t anyone talk about it?’
世界现在深深地迷恋着中国，每个人都想去那里度假。翻阅任何一本旅游杂志，你很可能会看到一篇关于迷人的上海餐厅场景的文章，或者，在合适的季节，关于大闸蟹的乐趣的文章。但你没看到太多关于这个国家可怕的环境问题的报道。最近在纽约时，我遇到了另一位住在那里的中国美食作家。她刚从中国回来，那里的污染让她目瞪口呆。“太可怕了，”她小声对我说。“为什么没人提起？’
My ex-pat friends in Shanghai and Beijing, particularly those with small children, don’t like to think too much about the food, air or water they are forced to ingest. They try to calm their fears by making small adjustments to their lifestyles: not eating at street stalls or more dubious restaurants, for example. Even in fine establishments, there there are certain things they avoid like the plague. Once, when lunching with my Italian friend Davide in our favourite Shanghai restaurant, I was tempted to order the slippery whitefish, a local speciality. Davide raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you looked at the water recently?’ he said. One top Shanghai chef, internationally renowned, confessed to me that the greatest challenge of working in China was trying to source decent ingredients.
我那些上海和北京的朋友，特别是有小孩的，很忌讳在食物、空气和水这样的问题上想太多。他们略略地调整了自己的生活方式，想以此来平复内心的恐惧，比如不吃路边摊、不吃卫生问题成疑的餐厅。就算在比较好的餐厅，他们也是有些讲究的。有一次，我和一位意大利友人在我俩最喜欢的上海餐厅吃饭，本想点当地特产银鱼，结果朋友横眉倒竖。“你最近注意过水质吗？”他说。有位国际驰名的上海顶级厨师对我坦白，在中国当厨师，最大的挑战是探寻安全放心的食材。
Now, when I’m in China, I find I eat far less meat, fish and poultry that I used to, because I just don’t trust them. Of course I want to eat everything, because the cooking is as fabulous as ever, and I’m as curious as I always have been about Chinese food. But can I face such a cocktail of hormones and chemicals? My fears are not greatly eased by headlines in the China Daily that say: ‘Most vegetables safe: official’. The only foods I eat with complete confidence are the wild bamboo shoots, wild vegetables and farmhouse produce I encounter in remote rural areas.
现在，每当重返中国，我就会发现能吃的肉禽蛋比以前又减少许多，因为我已经不信任这些食材的安全了。我当然是想什么都尝一尝的，因为味道还是一样的好，我对中餐的好奇心也分毫未减。但我能冒吃下多种激素和化学品的风险吗？《中国日报》用醒目的大标题写道，“官方认定：大多数蔬菜都是安全的”，却没怎么平复我的情绪。我唯一能带着完全的信任入口的，是在最最偏远的农村山区遇到的野笋、野菜和农家自己出产的东西。
It’s as if my gastronomic libido is slipping away. In the old days, in Sichuan, my hunger was a free and joyful thing. The food before me was fresh, free-range and wholesome, and I wanted to devour it all. But in the last ten or fifteen years China has changed beyond all recognition. I’ve seen the sewer-like rivers, the suppurating sores of lakes. I’ve read the newspaper reports; breathed the toxic air and drunk the dirty water. And I’ve eaten far too much meat from endangered species. In China I have to throw all my principles to the wind if I am continue in my vow of eating everything. The only way to recover my wanton old appetites is to draw a deliberate blind over all the evidence, to switch off my brain, and to eat without thinking. And I’m not sure I can do it anymore.
好像我的美食性欲正在消失。在过去的四川，我的饥饿是一种自由和快乐的东西。摆在我面前的食物是新鲜的、自由的、有益健康的，我想把它们都吃掉。但在过去的十年或十五年里，中国已经发生了前所未有的变化。我见过下水道似的河流，湖水化脓的溃疡。我看了报纸的报道，呼吸了有毒的空气，喝下了脏水。我吃了太多濒危物种的肉。在中国，如果我继续信誓旦旦地要吃所有东西，我就得把我所有的原则都抛到九霄云外。唯一能恢复我那放肆的老胃口的方法就是故意对所有的证据视而不见，关掉我的大脑，不假思索地吃东西。我不确定我还能不能再这样做了。
Not long ago, I was back in Chengdu for a lightning visit, to research a couple of articles and catch up with friends. A businessman acquaintance had invited me out for dinner. Our taxi pulled into the driveway of a restaurant on the outskirts of town. A grubby red carpet ran up the wide steps from the street and across the vast empty lobby, stained by the filthy soles of thousands of greedily stampeding feet, rushing in from their taxis and company cars. Girls in red silken dresses stood in rows to welcome us; glittering chandeliers hung overhead. Inside, the restaurant was decorated in the newly fashionable ‘European style’, with padded, upholstered chairs that looked a bit French.
不久以前，我回成都待了短短几天，为几篇文章做研究，顺便见见朋友。一个认识的生意人邀我吃晚饭。我们坐上出租，停在郊区一家餐厅的门外。红地毯从门口宽宽的台阶一直延伸到空旷的大堂，上面有很多一看就很匆忙的脚印，都是从出租或包的大巴上下来就直奔进来的。穿着丝绸连衣裙的服务员站成一排欢迎我们，闪闪发光的枝形吊灯挂在头顶。餐厅内部是刚刚流行起来的“欧式装潢”，厚实的布艺椅看着有点儿法国风情。
Although few Chinese people would eat like this at home, it was a typical restaurant dinner. ‘Hen lang fei (very wasteful)!’ said my host, with an embarrassed laugh. But he had ordered all that food himself, knowing that it was more than we could finish: his apologetic comment was made purely for my benefit, because he sensed that I, as a foreigner, might disapprove. We both knew that at this dinner hour, across the country, tables groaned like this with wasted food. In provincial capitals such as Chengdu and Changsha, there were super-restaurants that could seat five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, even four thousand guests simultaneously. And no one ever finished what was on the table. Even in remote county towns, I had witnessed scenes of such gargantuan excess that they could have been part of a medieval morality play.
很少有中国人在家也这么吃，这是很典型的一顿饭馆晚餐。“很浪费！”请我来的朋友说，尴尬地笑了一声。我们都知道，现在是饭点儿，全国应该有很多这样的餐桌摆着注定要被浪费的食物，想来十分悲哀。在成都和长沙这样的省会，有些大型酒家能同时容纳五百人、一千人、两千人甚至四千人就餐，没有一家是“光了盘”的。就连在偏僻的城镇，我也目睹了十分夸张的铺张浪费，感觉是中世纪道德剧里的场景。
The rest of the party was already assembled. I took my place at our table, in the main dining hall. None of us was really hungry, but someone was paying for the dinner on company expenses, and it doesn’t look good in China to sit before a modest table. My friend therefore ordered a fanfare of scarlet prawns with an elaborate garnish; a whole fish, steamed; crabs smothered in chilli and garlic; a whole knuckle of pork; chicken, duck and beef in great quantities; expensive wild mushrooms; soups and dumplings. To me, it all seemed like vulgar food: garish to look at and taste; enhanced by food colourings, chicken powder and MSG. We toyed with it, but no one was really eating. Most of it would go into the pigswill in an hour or two.
其他要一起吃饭的人都已经到了。我在大厅的桌前落了座。大家其实都不饿，但这餐是有人用公司公款请的；而且在中国，要是菜点得少、点得便宜，请客人面子上是挂不住的。于是我那个朋友点了一盘奢华的大虾，盘上是十分精美的装饰；还有一条蒸鱼、避风塘炒蟹、酱肘子、大量的鸡鸭牛肉、昂贵的菌类以及汤和饺子。我们都忙着夹菜，但没人真正在吃。一两个小时后，这桌上大部分的菜都会被倒掉。
In some ways, such decadence is perfectly understandable. Anybody over fifty in China lived through Mao’s terrible famine and the ensuing decades of rationing. Not long ago, peasants rubbed pieces of pork fat around their woks to lend a hint of meaty flavour to their vegetables, before putting the fat carefully away so it could be used again. Some people have told me they actually had dreams about pork in the 1960s. In some ways, China is still living through an extreme reaction to those years of deprivation. The profligacy is part of a vast, collective sigh of relief that it’s over, that there is meat on the table, and that the puritanical Mao failed to to stifle one of the greatest pleasures of Chinese life.
从某些方面来说，这样讲排场是完全可以理解的。中国五十岁以上的人都经历过“大跃进”之后的大饥荒，以及接下来长达几十年的计划经济。不久以前，农民们还要用猪油在锅里擦一圈，好让菜有点荤腥的味道；还会把没用完的猪油小心放好，下次还用。有些人还跟我说，六十年代那会儿，他们做梦都想着吃一口猪肉。在某些方面，中国人依然还活在对那些贫穷匮乏的极端反应中。这么肆意浪费挥霍，是因为以前穷怕了、饿怕了，而那样的日子终于结束了，桌上有了肉，全国人民共同长舒了一口气。那些“极左”的激进岁月中，清教徒式的生活方式令中国人生活里最大的愉悦遭到了压抑，现在是该报复性地满足一下了。
It is also cultural. The banquet in China is a social institution. If you are hosting a dinner for family members and friends, it’s an expression of love and generosity. For clients and colleagues, it might be a demonstration of wealth and power, and a chance to win ‘face’ — that peculiar Chinese concept that expresses a person’s social and professional dignity. In either context, you must overwhelm your guests with food, the best you can offer. The best, of course, is almost always meat, fish and poultry rather than grains and vegetables. At a proper banquet, you may not be offered rice at all.
也有文化上的原因。在中国，吃酒席是一种社交制度。请亲戚朋友吃饭，能显示你对他们的爱与慷慨大方；请客户和同事吃饭，能展现你的财力和权力，是挣面子的好机会，显示你有地位，办事牢靠专业。无论请谁吃饭，你都要让客人面前摆满大菜，尽你所能来置办最体面的一桌。当然，大菜通常都是大鱼大肉，很少出现谷物和蔬菜，特别体面的大宴可能都不会上米饭。
The Chinese are also afflicted increasingly with the diseases of plenty that are so familiar in the Western world: obesity, diabetes and cancer. Grandparents who once went hungry stuff their grandchildren with fast food and sweets. I’ve seen some of my middle-aged friends, dining out almost every night, become plump and pasty.
另外，中国人也越来越被普遍存在于西方世界的很多疾病所累：肥胖症、2型糖尿病（2），还有癌症。曾经挨过饿的爷爷奶奶们拼命给孙子孙女喂快餐和糖果。我见过一些人到中年的朋友，几乎每天晚上都出去吃，身子越来越胖、脸色越来越苍白。【注：（2）2型糖尿病，原名成人发病型糖尿病，一般在三十五到四十岁以后发病。患有这种病症的病人占糖尿病患者的百分之九十以上。】
Many people frown on the traditional style of banqueting. The Chinese authorities, clearly troubled by visions of the nation’s wealth squandered in a litter of half-eaten meals, issue occasional circulars urging moderation and banning the holding of banquets at public expense. And for businessmen, the endless round of feasts they must attend in the course of their work can be a torment, particularly because they usually involve forced bai jiu toasts and unavoidable drunkenness. One former colleague of mine, an Englishman working as a sales rep in Henan Province, became so sick in the course of his professional socialising that a Beijing doctor diagnosed him as suffering from ‘banquet fever’.
很多人不喜这种传统风格的豪宴。中国政府显然觉得国家财富都在这些铺张浪费的公款吃喝中挥霍掉了，为此忧心忡忡，会偶尔发些通告，倡导艰苦朴素、严禁公款吃喝。而做生意的人无休止地参加各种不得不去的工作宴会，也真算得上是种折磨了。特别是这些宴会上经常需要举着白酒推杯换盏，免不了喝个烂醉如泥。我之前在英国的一位同事，后来到了河南做销售代表，他去各种工作上的社交场合真是去得恶心了，北京的一个医生诊断说，他患上了“恐宴症”。
When I eat in these flashy, extravagant restaurants, I find myself thinking nostalgically of my first year in Sichuan, when I was so moved by the frugality of the way people ate. I remember lunches of egg-fried rice livened up with morsels of meat, or a few simple vegetable stir-fries. I yearn also for the dishes that I lived on as a student, sitting on a stool in the Bamboo Bar and the other small restaurants around Sichuan University: the delicious fish-fragrant aubergines, the duck hearts with chilli, the stir-fried silk gourd, the twice-cooked pork with green garlic. Every so often I still find one of these mom-and-pop places, tucked away in a small street that has somehow escaped the demolition crews, serving unfashionably traditional dishes in a white-tiled shed with formica chairs and tables, and I think I’ll be disappointed. But then the food arrives, and tastes as good as I remember, and it warms my heart. I forget, for a while, about the pollution and the hormones. And it reminds me why I fell in love with China, and why my first book about Sichuan cookery demanded to be written.
每当在这些奢侈俗艳的餐厅吃饭时，我都会不由自主地怀念起在四川的第一年，那时候人们吃得多么经济俭省啊，实在让我动容。还记得那些蛋炒饭的午餐，加一点点肉，或者配一点简单的炒菜，就让人兴高采烈。我还深深地怀念留学生时期吃的那些饭菜，有时候坐在“竹园”的小凳子上，有时候在川大周围别的小餐馆里：美味的鱼香茄子、卤鸭心、炒丝瓜、蒜苗回锅肉。现在我偶尔还能找到一家这种家庭小餐馆，藏在不知为什么躲过了拆迁队的小街小巷里，墙上贴着白瓷砖，桌椅都是粗糙的胶合板，菜单上是不流行的传统菜。我以为肯定会失望的，结果菜一上来，味道还是和记忆中的一样好，还让我的心整个温暖起来。在那短短的时刻，我忘记了污染和激素。面前这些好菜，让我想起了自己爱上中国的原因，想起了第一本书一定要是川菜食谱的原因。
‘Just think how many lives we are eating,’ said Gwen, ‘Ten thousand, twenty thousand?’
“你想想吧，我们吃掉了多少条生命啊，”格温说，“一万？两万？”
It was true. Each spoonful of soup was a confusion of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of small fishy lives.
没错。每一勺汤里都有数十条甚至数百条小鱼的生命。
‘I feel so guilty,’ said Gwen, sipping her soup. It was a Shanghainese soup — a pale, slightly thickened broth filled with wisps of something that might have been tofu or eggwhite, but on closer inspection was a mass of tiny, thread-like fish. Each strandy creature had two black eyes on its pin-like head, about the size of specks of black pepper.
“我觉得好愧疚啊。”格温边喝着汤边说。那是一碗上海式的鲜汤：汤色雪白，有点浓稠，上面漂着小碎丝，可能是豆腐或者蛋白。但仔细一看，原来是针一样的小鱼。每一条细小的鱼针尖一样的脑袋上都有两个黑眼睛，大概胡椒籽大小。
One evening, I was having dinner with Gwen in a Shanghai restaurant.
一天晚上，我跟格温在上海一家餐馆吃饭。
‘Somehow it seems worse to eat so many,’ said Gwen. ‘Much worse than, say, eating a single eel.’
“不知道怎么的，吃这么多，感觉很糟糕，”格温说，“嗯，比只吃一条鳝鱼糟糕多了。”
What she said made me shiver, and I, too, finished my soup with a feeling of guilt.
她的话让我打了个冷颤。我也和她一样，带着愧疚之情喝完了汤。
There’s a nineteenth-century English engraving called ‘Fatal effects of gluttony: A Lord Mayor’s Day Nightmare’. Dedicated to ‘all the city’s gourmands’, it depicts a fat London merchant lying in bed, suffering the consequences of his carnivorous self-indulgence. A swarm of animals lay siege to him in a terrifying hallucination: ducks, geese, cow, pig, stag, wild boar, sturgeon, flying fish, they besiege him within the curtains of his bed. A lobster tries to pinch his nose, and an enormous turtle straddles his chest.
十九世纪，英国出了个雕塑作品，叫做“暴饮暴食可能致死：梅耶大人的白日噩梦”，并宣称献给“全城的美食家”。雕塑表现了一个肥胖的伦敦商人躺在床上，因为自我放纵、食肉过多而痛苦不堪。他产生了可怕的幻觉，感觉自己被一大群动物包围了：鸭、鹅、牛、猪、鹿、野猪、鲟鱼、飞鱼……它们钻进床帘，把他团团围住，一只龙虾挥舞钳子想去夹他的鼻子，一只巨大的乌龟正压在他胸口上。
As a scholarship student in Chengdu, I longed to taste the exotic foods that had graced the tables of emperors. Now, I feel a dawning revulsion. Is there anything a Chinese gourmand will not eat? Alligator flesh, the downy antlers of the young deer, rabbit’s kidneys, the palms of chicken’s feet, those orangutan lips… a riot of animals, pillaged for our titillation. Sometimes it seems beyond satire, as pretentious as the food served at Petronius’ ‘Banquet of Trimalchio’.
在成都拿奖学金读书的时候，我活得很节约，十分渴望能尝一尝曾经在皇帝的御膳桌上大放异彩的珍馐佳肴。而现在呢，我只感觉自己越来越厌恶这些东西。像我这样的中餐美食家，充满探索热情的中餐美食家，会有什么东西不吃的吗？短吻鳄的肉、小鹿柔软的鹿角、兔子的肾、掌中宝（鸡爪中间的那块脆骨），还有猩唇……只为我们的口舌之快，多少动物要被夺取生命。有时候这些美味看起来真是比讽刺还讽刺，就像罗马讽刺作家佩特洛尼乌斯作品《特里马尔奇奥的晚宴》中上的菜那样，矫揉造作、浮华虚无。
Sometimes, when I think of what I’ve eaten in China, I imagine that I’ll end up like this. There’s an entry in one of my 1999 notebooks that reads: ‘In the last three days I have eaten: snails, frogs, snakes, sparrow gizzard, duck tongues, fish heads, duck hearts, tripe; also half a duck, most of a carp, duck’s blood, at least five whole eggs, smoked bacon, and stewed aromatic beef.’ I’m ashamed to say that this kind of excess is not unusual. A vegan friend of mine once told me that all the animals I’d eaten in the course of my life would sit in judgement over me after I was dead. ‘Most people,’ he said, ‘would just have a row or two of judges: a cow and a pig, a sheep and a chicken. But you — imagine, them, Fuchsia, they’d be like the audience in a football stadium, tier upon tier: civet cats, dogs, snakes, frogs, fat-tailed sheep, muntjac, eels, etc. etc.’
有时候，想想我做美食作家的生涯中都吃过些什么，不难想象自己也会遭受这样的结局。我在一九九九年的笔记本中写道：“过去三天来我吃了蜗牛、牛蛙、蛇、麻雀肫、鸭舌、鱼头、鸭心、牛肚，还有半只鸭、大半条鱼、鸭血、至少三个鸡蛋、烟熏培根和五香牛肉。”更令我羞愧的是，这种大吃大喝并不少见。有一次，一个严格吃素的朋友告诉我，这辈子吃的所有动物，等我死后，都会来审判我。他说：“大多数人可能就是一两排法官：一头牛和一头猪，一只羊和一只鸡。但是你，想象一下吧，扶霞，你的法官肯定会像足球场的观众一样，一排排地坐着：果子狸、狗、蛇、牛蛙、肥尾羊、麂、鳝鱼，数都数不清。”
In the course of my duties as a professional food writer, I am offered such esoteric delicacies at every turn. Often the circumstances make it hard to refuse. A bowl of shark’s fin soup placed before me by a generous host; the eyes of the other guests fixed on me expectantly, hoping that I am able to appreciate the honour. We all know that a single bowlful of shark’s fin soup costs hundreds of yuan. I hesitate. Then, with a guilty conscience, I smile, sip, and praise it for its soft, strandy texture, the subtle savours of the broth.
作为专业的美食作家，我也是要履行职责的，而每一次都有人请我尝尝圈内人才吃得到的美食。这些情况下通常是很难拒绝的。大方的主人往我面前放一碗鱼翅汤，别的客人满含期待地望着我，希望我也能领人家的情。大家都知道，这么一小碗鱼翅汤就要几百元。我犹豫了一下，接着带着满心的愧疚，笑一笑，喝一口，赞扬这柔软丝滑的口感，以及高汤清淡却回味无穷的绝妙。
The bronze ritual vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties are among the most ancient and potent symbols of Chinese civilisation. Wine jugs, cooking pots and steamers, they are decorated with geometric designs based on the stylised faces of monstrous animals with curled horns and staring eyes. You can see them in the oriental collections of most world-class museums. On some bronzes, the animals resemble tigers, bulls or birds; on others they are more abstract. No one knows exactly what these menacing beasts meant to the people of the Shang and Zhou, but they are known in China as tao tie. This word means, in modern Chinese parlance, ‘a fierce and cruel person, or a glutton’; tao tie was also the name of an ancient villain known for his voracity, according to one antique text. The fierce animal designs of the sacrificial bronzes, one of the most recognisable symbols of Chinese civilisation, have for centuries been bound up with the idea of monstrous greed.
商周的祭祀用青铜器是中国最古老的文物，也最能代表中国文明。这些青铜器中就有酒罐、大锅和蒸锅，上面装饰着一些几何图案，还有一些虚构的怪兽的脸，有弯曲的角与目露凶光的眼睛。有些青铜器上的动物很像老虎、牛或者鸟，有些上面的则更为抽象。没人知道这些长相凶狠的动物对于商周的人们有什么意义，但中国人称它们为“饕餮”。现代汉语中，“饕餮”的意思是“凶狠残忍的人；吃货”。我还从一本古书上读到过，古时候有个以凶残暴虐闻名的恶人，也叫作“饕餮”。作为中国数千年文明最具有代表性的象征，这些祭祀用青铜器上雕刻了凶狠的动物，千百年前就记录了洪水猛兽般的暴虐贪婪。
The influential archaeologist, K. C. Chang, in an essay on ancient Chinese food history, once suggested that those threatening animal designs may have been emblazoned on the ritual vessels used by the Shang and Zhou ruling classes as a reminder of the dangers of gluttony. Like the memento mori of medieval Europe — those images of death that were intended to remind people of their mortality — they may have been a warning to the ‘meat-eaters’ of their day that greed was monstrous and corrupting.
在业内颇有影响力的考古学家张光直曾在一篇阐释中国古代饮食历史的文章中推测，那些令人望而生畏的动物图案被刻在商周统治阶级祭祀用品上，可能是想提醒，暴饮暴食会引起大忧患，就像欧洲中世纪总用死亡的意向来提醒人们遵纪守法、恪守道德；这些意向也许是警示当时的“肉食者”，贪婪便如同巨兽，能使道德沦丧、腐败横行。
In recent years, as I eat in China, the shadow of the tao tie has seemed to loom more and more insistently over the dinner table. It makes me feel sick at heart. The banquets that once seemed to be a glorious perk of my job have begun to feel like an occupational hazard, a minefield of ethical, environmental and health issues. I find myself torn between my old habit of omnivorousness, and a moral loss of appetite. A horned tao tie beast watches me as I sip my shark’s fin soup, staring at me with its ancient, beady eyes. I can no longer meet its gaze.
近几年，每当在中国吃饭，我都越来越觉得餐桌上有饕餮可怕的阴影。我曾经觉得，能来参加这么多宴会、吃到这么多佳肴，都是因为我做这份工作的职务之便；现在却觉得这是一片充满道德、环境与卫生问题的雷区。一边是多年习惯的杂食与好吃，一边是道德谴责让我没有胃口，真是太矛盾了。喝鱼翅汤的时候，头顶尖角的怪兽饕餮就那么盯着我，那双从远古而来、咄咄逼人的眼睛怒目圆睁。我不敢直视这目光。我和清朝伟大的美食家袁枚产生了强烈的共鸣。他参加了一场有四十道菜之多的奢侈晚宴，为这种铺张浪费而瞠目结舌，回到家还需要一碗清粥来舒缓腹内的饥饿。
I feel a rising sense of panic. This is my life, my work, to eat in China. I have built a career on it. For more than a decade I have been a professional glutton. My cast-iron digestion has protected me from the immediate risks of eating everything, though I have been reckless in my omnivorousness. My intellectual fascination is undimmed. But I just can’t do this anymore. The food-writer has lost her appetite.
我感到越来越恐慌。这是我的生活，我的工作，在中国吃饭。我在这上面建立了一个事业。十多年来，我一直是一个职业饕餮。我的铁的消化保护了我免受吃任何东西的直接风险，尽管我的杂食性是鲁莽的。我对知识的迷恋是无可调和的。但我不能再这样了。这位食品作家已经没胃口了。
My loss of appetite creeps up on me. I soldier on, attending feast after feast, but I’m actually eating less and less. A mulish resistance sits on my stomach. I taste things, pick at them, write my notes. And then I go home to wherever I am staying and fill up on instant noodles because they are the only food I can face. I feel a kind of kinship with that great Qing Dynasty gourmet Yuan Mei, who went home after a forty-course dinner party, appalled at its vulgar excesses, and needed a bowl of rice porridge to assuage his hunger. After each trip, I fly back to England with dull skin and drab hair, feeling rundown, and it takes me a few weeks to recover.
我食欲不振。我一个接一个地参加宴会，但实际上我吃得越来越少了。我的胃里有一种骡子般的抵抗力。我尝东西，挑东西，写笔记。然后我回到我住的地方，吃方便面，因为方便面是我唯一能面对的食物。我觉得和那个清朝美食家袁枚有一种血缘关系，袁枚在一次四十道菜的晚宴后回家，对其粗俗的过分行为感到震惊，需要一碗米粥来缓解他的饥饿感。每次旅行后，我都会带着暗淡的皮肤和灰白的头发飞回英国，感觉筋疲力尽，需要几周时间才能恢复。
Of course I’m aware that, at some level, my distaste is also a metaphor. I’m weary not only of this constant feasting, but also of travelling, and of China. For years I have given everything to this country, and it’s wearing me out. I’m tired of always being the perfect diplomat; I’m exhausted by the crazy, peripatetic lifestyle.
当然我也知道，从某种程度上来说，“胃口没那么好”也可以作为一种隐喻。我不仅是厌倦了这无休止的宴饮，还厌倦了在外漂泊、厌倦了中国。这么多年，我把一切都献给了这个国家，现在，它反过来把我弄得筋疲力尽。我烦透了永远摆出一副中英文化使者的完美模样。这总是身处异乡的疯狂生活方式让我不堪其苦。
As I sit at these debauched Chinese dinner tables, I think of the looming food crisis of which scientists are warning. Climate change is beginning to damage food production; China and India are switching to meat-based diets that demand more land; water tables are falling; and the global population is rising. The era of cheap food and surpluses may be over. How mad this profligacy will seem, in the not-too-distant future, when we are fighting over oil and water, perhaps even grain. These banquets — tables laden with fish and meat, platefuls of shrimp and chicken that end up in pigswill — will seem like an hallucination, echoes of a few greedy, giddy decades sandwiched between periods of rationing and scarcity. Decades when we forgot the value of things.
坐在丰盛奢华的中国晚餐桌前，我心里想的是科学家们的警告，说食品危机即将全面来袭。气候变化正逐渐破坏粮食生产；中国和印度正在往以肉食为基础的饮食过渡，这又需要更多的土地；地下水急剧减少，地球人口却在上升。廉价食品与食物过剩的年代也许很快就要结束。在不久的将来，我们会为了油和水，甚至可能是谷物粮食而抢个你死我活。那时候，眼前这些奢侈浪费看起来该是多么疯狂啊。这些大宴，桌上重重叠叠地放着根本吃不完，甚至连吃都不会吃的大鱼大肉、一盘盘的虾与鸡鸭，以后的人再看，可能觉得是个幻觉。这是在计划经济的年代和资源稀缺的年代之间那么短短的几十年，人类贪婪而浮华的岁月，忘记了事物价值的岁月。
There are pages of despair in my diaries, now, among the recipes and sketches.
除了菜谱和草图，我的日记里还写满了乡愁与绝望。
I’m always missing someone, something. Now I’ve eaten my fill; I just want to go home. I don’t want to spend my life consuming rabbitheads and sea cucumbers. I want to grow vegetables in my own garden, to cook shortbread and steak-and-kidney pie.
我总是在想念某些人、某些事。我已经吃饱了，只想回家。我不想一辈子总在吃兔头和海参。我想在自家的花园里种种菜，做点酥饼和牛肉腰子饼这种传统的英国食物。
The tao tie beast, with its gluttonous associations, may be a symbol of Chinese civilisation, and the Chinese may do gluttony better than anyone, but I wonder, in the end, aren’t we all just as bad? What’s the difference, really, between eating shark’s fin and caviar? Or cod, or bluefin tuna? They are all, now, endangered species. A third of the food bought by British households ends up being thrown in the bin. And look at us, flying around the world on holiday, eating beef reared on ranches that used to be rainforest, buying unseasonal produce flown in from the other side of the world. Think of the increasing amounts of land being given over to growing grain for ethanol production. If feeding your car on grain that could be used to nourish poor African farmers isn’t the mark of the tao tie, I don’t know what is.
象征暴饮暴食的怪兽饕餮，也许只是中华文明的一个意向，而中国人设起宴来，也许比任何人都要讲排场。但我心想，说到底，我们所有人不都是同样糟糕吗？说实话，欧洲餐桌上最奢侈的鱼子酱，又和鱼翅有什么区别呢？鳕鱼呢？蓝鳍金枪鱼呢？现在，这些全都是濒危物种了。英国家庭购买的食物中，有三分之一都扔进了垃圾箱。看看我们这些伪君子吧：一到假日就满世界飞，吃牧场上养的牛，觉得自然健康，但这些牧场曾经是珍贵的雨林；我们还购买世界其他地方涌进来的非应季食物，大家都是行走的二氧化碳喷射器；想想全世界越来越多的土地都用来种植用于乙醇燃料的谷物，如果用本该供给非洲贫农的谷物来供给你的车还不算饕餮的话，我不知道还有什么能算了。
The Chinese do seem to eat everything, one must admit. But in a sense they are just a distorting mirror, magnifying the voracity of the entire human race. The Chinese word for ‘population’ is ‘people mouths’, and in China there are now 1.3 billion mouths, all munching away. China itself is like a big mouth eating. And it is hungry for more than just Chinese ingredients. The Chinese are slurping up the seafood of the world’s oceans. And now that they have discovered dairy products, they want our milk, too, to feed their children, and their growing appetite for it is inflating milk prices on global markets. It’s the same with timber, mineral and oil, which feed Chinese economic development. China has become the world’s largest consumer of grain, meat, coal and steel. It may look rapacious, but the Chinese are really just catching up with the greed of the rest of the world — on a dizzying scale.
不得不承认，中国人好像是什么都吃。但从某种程度上说，“无所不吃的中国”只不过是面哈哈镜，放大了全体人类贪婪的心。汉语说“人口、人口”，人就是口。现在，中国有十三亿大吃大嚼的口。中国本身也是一张吃个没完的大嘴，狼吞虎咽的不只是中餐食材。中国人也与贪婪的西方人一样，开始消耗世界各地大洋中的海鲜。乳制品也在中国发展起来了：中国的孩子也要喝牛奶，日益增长的需求量造成全球市场牛奶价格飙升。原木、矿物和石油这些满足中国经济发展需求的资源也是一样。中国已经变成全球最大的谷物、肉类、煤炭和钢铁消费国。看上去这形象可能有点穷凶极恶，但别忘了，中国压抑克制了那么久，其实只是在追赶全世界贪婪的脚步，只不过动作快了点、规模大了点而已。
Stop when hunger is satiated, breathing becomes strong, limbs are strengthened and ears and eyes become sharp. There is no need of combining the five tastes extremely well or harmonising the different sweet odours. And efforts should not be made to procure rare delicacies from far countries.
古者圣王制为饮食之法，曰：“足以充虚继气，强股肱，耳目聪明，则止。不极五味之调、芬香之和，不致远国珍怪异物。”（3）【注：（3）本段文字节选自《墨子·节用中》，附上白话译文：古代圣王制定饮食的法则是：“只要能够充饥补气，强壮手脚，耳聪目明就行了。不穷极五味的调和与气味芳香，不招致远国珍贵奇怪的食物。”】
More than two thousand years ago, the sage Mozi wrote of ancient laws regarding food and drink:
两千多年前，贤者墨子写下了古代的饮食之法：
Sitting over my instant noodles, late at night after another unsettling banquet, I often find myself thinking about my Hunanese friend Liu Wei. In his modesty and restraint, his compassion, and his vegetarianism, he seems to embody a rather better attitude to eating, and, indeed, to life. Yet although his frugality looks counter-cultural in an era of widespread gluttony, it actually resonates with another, equally rich and ancient strain of Chinese thought.
参加完一场又一场令人不安的宴会，我深夜回家，面前总得摆碗清粥。每当这个时候，我都不由自主想起湖南的朋友刘伟之。他那么谦逊质朴，那么克己复礼，那么充满悲悯，那么坚持素食。是啊，他所代表的对待饮食的态度，乃至对待生命的态度，看上去的确优于我。在这样一个全民暴食的年代，他的节俭竟有点与主流文化格格不入，然而却和中国古代同样富庶时代的思想产生了共鸣。
Confucius, living at around the same time, did not eat much, and took care that the amount of meat he consumed did not exceed the amount of rice. His example has been used as a model for generations of Chinese children, urged by their parents to eat up their rice or noodles, and not to be distracted by their appetite for the accompanying dishes of fish or meat. And while businessmen and officials in early twenty-first century China stuff their faces with meat, fish and exotic delicacies, many people live at home on a simple diet of mainly grains and vegetables.
和墨子大概同一时代的孔子，吃得不多，也很注意每顿吃的肉量不要超过吃的饭。中国父母把他作为榜样，叫孩子们不要剩饭、剩面，不要因为桌上的鱼肉就忘记碗里的主食。而二十一世纪初，当那些“先富起来”的生意人和有权有势的官员们埋头于酒池肉林与异邦珍馐时，很多人家的家常菜也都是简单的米饭青菜。
For the irony is that, despite the conspicuous consumption of banquet culture and that grotesque old stereotype of ‘eating everything’, the traditional diet of the Chinese masses could be a model for the entire human race. It’s the way the older generation, the poor and the wise still eat: steamed rice or boiled noodles, served with plenty of seasonal vegetables, cooked simply; beancurd in many forms; very few sweetmeats; and small amounts of meat and fish that bring flavour and nourishment to the table. Unlike the typical diet of the modern West, with its profligate emphasis on dairy products and animal proteins, the traditional Chinese diet is minimal in its environmental impact, nutritionally balanced, and marvellously satisfying to the senses. After all my gastronomic adventures, I don’t know if I can think of a better way to live.
讽刺的是，尽管存在炫耀铺张的宴饮文化，尽管在成见颇深的西方人眼里，中国人都是一群怪物，“什么都吃”，中国大众的传统饮食却可以作为整个人类社会学习的范本。这是老一辈的生活方式，是穷人家和智者仍在坚持的饮食：主食是一碗蒸饭或者煮面；大量简单烹饪的应季蔬菜；各种各样的豆腐；极少量的果脯；再来一点点能够增添风味、供给营养的肉和鱼。西方现代的典型饮食本身就是很奢侈的，含有大量的乳制品和动物蛋白。中国传统饮食则不同，把对环境的影响减到了最小，而且营养均衡又讲究色香味，极大地满足眼鼻口腹。对美食与烹饪进行了那么多的探索，这始终是我心中最好的生活方式。
And strange though it may sound, after all these tales of greed and omnivorousness, sometimes I think I’ll end up becoming a vegetarian.
这话听起来可能匪夷所思，但经历了这么多大吃大喝与暴饮暴食之后，我有时觉得，自己最后可能会吃素。
Perhaps, for the privileged in China, as in many other places, life has always been a struggle between the gentleman and the glutton, restraint and voracity. Liu Wei and me, sitting at dinner, he with his bowl of rice and beancurd, I with my shark’s fin soup and stir-fried duck tongues, are just a continuation of this age-old tradition.
也许，中国的特权阶级和其他很多地方的贵族一样，总要在彬彬有礼的绅士风度与暴饮暴食的贪婪豪宴、克制约束的清规戒律与放浪挥霍的铺张排场中挣扎。刘伟之和我，都会坐在餐桌前，他面前是米饭豆腐，我面前是鱼翅汤与爆炒鸭舌；这种对比，不过是长久以来传统的延续。
0 条评论