英文什錦菜 ： I Lost My Appetite Because of Covid

 I Lost My Appetite Because of Covid. This Sichuan Flavor Brought It Back.

 

By Tejal Rao

Jan. 20, 2021

新冠毀食欲         麻辣來雄起

-----新冠敗胃奈之何？  唯有川味！

【美】德金·饒 （譯音）           摘譯自《紐約時報》

When I got sick and lost my sense of smell — a common neurological symptom of Covid-19 — the foods I loved became muddled and ugly. My brain was incapable of interpreting the delicious information floating around me, unable to detect, let alone identify, any of the aromas I took in through my nose. Without smells to guide me, my sense of taste faded and food flattened out, going gray and muted, dull and lifeless. Cheese became rubber and paste. Popcorn turned into thorny foam. The bland squish of a roast-chicken breast made me recoil. My appetite dwindled, until I was brought back to the pure pleasures of eating by a classic Sichuan flavor: mala.

罹患新冠後，典型神經係統症狀使我喪失了嗅覺——愛吃的東西吃起來變了樣，不堪入口。我的大腦已經無法解讀周圍彌漫的美味信息，聞不到，更別說識別出撲鼻而來的任何一種香味。氣味一失，味覺則弱，美食成了果腹之物，全無色香味形  可言。奶酪入口像橡膠加漿糊。爆米花吃起來像粗糙的發泡泡沫。烤雞胸肉嚼起來如同嚼蠟，令我反胃。眼看胃口日減，一款經典川味卻讓我重新享受到用餐的樂趣-------這就是麻辣。

The word translates to numbing (ma) and spicy (la), and it’s a result of a partnership between Sichuan peppercorns and chiles. “Flavorwise, it’s so intriguing,” said Jing Gao, who was born in Chengdu and now owns the Chinese food company Fly by Jing, which specializes in Sichuan ingredients like chile crisp and dried peppers. Mala is just one of many flavors in Sichuan cuisine, but it’s immensely popular, in part because it’s unlike any other. “That’s because there’s a texture to the flavor,” she said.

 

 

 

 

麻辣即麻木（麻）加辛辣（辣），係川椒和幹辣椒相結合的產物。高金（譯音）告訴我：“麻辣風味著實妙不可言”，高生於成都，是“金飛”中餐食材公司的老板，主營幹辣椒和花椒等川菜食材。麻辣僅是川菜諸多味道中的一種，卻大行其道，部分原因是其味道獨一無二。高告訴我：“這是因為麻辣有質感。”

You experience that texture as a buzzing current through your mouth and lips，, thanks to a molecule called hydroxy-alpha sanshool found in Sichuan peppercorns。 The pepper has plenty of flavor, too. The writer Fuchsia Dunlop compares peppercorn plants to vines grown to make wine grapes — capable of producing fruit that’s deeply expressive of its terroir. 

花椒含一種物質，稱為山椒素，因而麻辣會帶來一種口唇嗤嗤過電的質感，辣椒吃起來也是勁道十足。作家扶霞·鄧洛普將結花椒的灌木比作結釀酒葡萄的蔓藤——其果實都是生長環境的真實寫照。

Mala has become so popular that it has been commercialized and exported to huge success — not just through mala hot-pot restaurants, which continue to open all over China and beyond, but in packaged mala-flavored snacks like potato chips, nuts, soup packets and jerky. “You can mala anything,” said Jason Wang, turning the flavor into a verb. Wang’s chain of New York restaurants, Xi’an Famous Foods, specializes in the foods of Xi’an, but in a new cookbook named after his restaurants, he includes a mala beef dish finished with a slip of chile oil.

If Wang is right, and you can mala anything, his simple recipe is a gift, and a way to keep my appetite up while I’m still recovering — however long that might take.

如今麻辣大行其道，麻辣火鍋店不斷在中國遍地開花，且飄洋過海，加上麻辣薯片，麻辣堅果，麻辣湯包，乃至麻辣肉幹這類袋裝麻辣小吃的加持，麻辣已經在商業化和向外拓展方麵獲得巨大成功。傑森·王把“麻辣”當動詞用，說：“無所不能麻辣”。王在紐約經營一家連鎖餐館，稱為“西安名吃”，主打西安菜，王最近推出一部以自己餐館命名的菜譜，其中竟包括了一款潑紅油的麻辣牛肉。

照王的說法，則無不可麻辣，王的烹調方法簡單卻乃天賜我也，新冠康複期再長，麻辣都能隨時讓我胃口常開。