大地

大地

Superstar chefs are a dime a dozen. The new foodie hero: the farmer.

明星厨师已经不稀奇了。新的老饕主角：农夫

In 1934, when Gertrude Stein was invited to return to America from Paris to deliver a series of lectures, the thing that troubled her most, according to her companion, Alice B. Toklas, was “the question of the food she would be eating there.” A French friend who’d made a trip to the United States had returned with tales of “very strange” fare, including “tinned vegetable cocktails and tinned fruit salads.” The ladies went anyway and managed to suss out wild rice and “unrivalled T-steaks and soft-shell crabs,” but they were right to be afraid.

在1934年，当时有人邀请格特鲁德·斯泰因①从巴黎返回美国，来进行一系列的演讲。据她的同伴爱丽丝·B·托克拉思回忆，斯泰因最感到困扰的一件事就是“在那儿吃的食物问题。”一个法国友人去一趟美国，回来就讲述那儿“诡异”的食物，其中包括“罐头蔬菜鸡尾酒和罐头水果色拉”。女士们躲得远远的，还把菰米和“无与伦比的T骨牛扒和软壳蟹”给挑出来，但是她们感到害怕是对的。

The America of 1934 was a place where such “culinary improvements” as processed meats and canned goods were all the rage; chain grocery stores had been introduced 10 years earlier. After World War II, when women poured into the workforce, taste was further sacrificed in the name of “convenience products.” By 1959, things were so bad that A. J. Liebling wrote a piece in The New Yorker railing against processed cheese that wasn’t “cheesy,” lobster tails “frozen as long as the Siberian mammoth,” and synthetic vanilla that wasn’t “vanillary.” I was born a year later, and until my neighbor put in an asparagus bed I had no idea that the gray-green, brine-soaked mush that came from the Green Giant can bore little resemblance to the real thing. It would be many more years before I found out that grocery-store carrots had been bred to have blunt ends so they wouldn’t puncture the plastic bags in which they were shipped.

1934年的美国，像肉类制成品和罐头食品等作为“烹饪进步”的代表在当时非常流行。而还早10多年前，美国就引入了连锁食品商店。二战以后，女人们涌入劳动大军，在打着 “方便食品”的旗号之下，味觉被进一步地牺牲了。1959年之前的东西实在太难吃了，A·J·雷柏林就此在《纽约客》上撰写文章抨击加工奶酪没有“奶酪味儿”，龙虾尾“冷冻的时间跟西伯利亚冻土里的猛犸一样久”，合成香草散发的根本不是“香草的味道”。我在那一年之后才出生。直到我的邻居开垦了一块种莴笋的小苗圃，我才认识新鲜蔬菜。之前我一点也不知道原来绿巨人冷冻蔬菜公司生产的那些盐水泡发的灰绿色蘑菇，和新鲜实物一点也不像。也是在多年之后，我才明白食品商店卖的胡萝卜是特意让它的末端长成钝圆形，为的是在装运的时候它们不会把塑料包装带给戳破。

I, Julia Now, of course, in the wake of the ever-burgeoning “farm to table” movement, gorgeous, green-topped, and very pointy carrots abound at local farmers’ markets as well as on restaurant menus across the country. Not only do we know the names of the carrots (Purple Haze, Rainbow, White Satin), we know the names of the farmers who grow them. Likewise, those of the makers of -artisanal—and suitably “cheesy”—cheeses, and even the fishermen who pull fresh lobsters from their nets. Just as American chefs became superstars over the past three decades, so have the farmers, fishers, foragers, ranchers, and artisans become heroes of local food movements and beyond.

当然，我，茱莉亚·那尔，紧紧跟随着蓬勃发展的“从农场到餐桌”运动，在当地的农贸市场有很多漂亮的胡萝卜还附着绿叶，末端尖尖的，在全国的餐厅菜单上也找得到这样的蔬菜。我们不仅知道胡萝卜的名称（紫雾，彩虹，白丝缎），我们还要知道种植它们的农夫的名字。同样，那些生产手工（或指有奶酪味儿）的奶酪制作者的名字，甚至是那些用网捉新鲜龙虾的渔民，无一不包。正如在过去的30多年里，许多美国厨师成为了超级巨星，这些农夫，渔民，牧人，农场主和点心师当然也可以成为当地食品运动甚至更多活动的主角。

One of the fall’s most beautiful cookbooks, Harvest to Heat: Cooking With America’s Best Chefs, Farmers, and Artisans, celebrates not only the farmers’ increasingly high profiles but their symbiotic relationships with the chefs, who now plan menus and create dishes al-most exclusively according to what they have on offer. So not only do we get the recipe for Thomas Keller’s Lamb Saddle With Caramelized Fennel, we meet Keith Martin of Pennsylvania’s Elysian Fields Farm, who “talks with his lambs on a regular basis.” All that chatting apparently pays off—Keller was so impressed that he became Martin’s partner. But, like most of his colleagues, Keller doesn’t stop there. A browse through a recent tasting menu at Per Se, his Michelin three-star restaurant in Manhattan, reveals an omelet made with Squire Hill Farm’s Ameraucana hen egg, agnolotti with Salvatore Brooklyn ricotta, Cavendish Farm quail, a salad that includes peppers and arugula from Eckerton Hill Farms, and Sterling white-sturgeon caviar.

这个秋季最漂亮的食谱之一，就是《田野到餐桌：和美国最棒的大厨，农夫和点心师一起做菜》，书中赞不绝口的不仅有农夫渐渐上升的地位还有他们与大厨之间的共生关系，现在无论大厨们设计菜单还是创作新新菜式，几乎无一例外全都照着农夫们提供的食材而决定。因此不仅我们拿到名厨托马斯·凯勒的羊脊肉配焦糖茴香这道菜的菜谱，我们还拜访了宾夕法尼亚州的福地农场主人基斯·马丁，他“定期会和他的羊羔说话。”所有这些和小羊的谈话都有回报——给凯勒留下了很深的印象，他也就成了马丁的合作伙伴。但是，和他大多数的同事一样，凯勒并没有就此止步。去凯勒位于曼哈顿的米其林三星的Per Se餐厅扫一眼最近的尝鲜菜单，就能发现煎蛋卷用的材料是斯夸尔山农场Ameraucana品种的母鸡下的蛋，意大利肉饺用的是萨尔瓦多布鲁克林的意大利乳清干酪，卡文迪西农场的鹌鹑，一道沙拉里面有着产自爱克顿山农场的胡椒粉和芝麻菜，以及纯正的白鲟鱼子酱。

The detailed provenances and constant naming of names have some diners crying uncle, but wouldn’t you rather know that your eggs, for example, are from happy heirloom hens (as were the ones your great grandparents used to eat) rather than mass-produced ones that may well have salmonella? I’m happy to know my arugula will not turn up on the plate tasting like a plastic bag, and that my lamb nibbled only on tender herbs and grasses. Poor Liebling—he lived in an era when food, as he put it, “did not know its own mind.” These days we know its mind—hell, its very heart and soul—and its maker.

十分详细的产地和持之以恒地标出名称让一些食客觉得有点吃不消，不过难道你不会希望知道你吃的鸡蛋，例如，是产自快乐的传家宝母鸡（就是和你曾祖父母他们所吃的是一样的），而不是那些大规模生产的母鸡，它们还很可能携带沙门氏菌呢？我很高兴知道我盛在盘子的芝麻菜不会里吃起来像塑料袋儿。我的小羊只吃鲜嫩的植物和嫩草。可怜的雷柏林——在他身处的时代，当时的食物正如他指出的那样，“不知道食物自己的心灵。”现在我们知道了食物的心灵——也就是它的内心和灵魂——以及它的生产者。

 

 

①格特鲁德·斯泰因(Gertrude Stein, 1874-1946)，旅居法国的美国女作家。在欧美人们把她视为对20世纪西方文学产生重要影响的人物。

②托马斯·凯勒（Thomas Keller），美国人，米其林三星名厨。