Culture | World in a dish
Culture | World in a dish
The rise of chilli crisp is a study in how foods become fadsIn lockdown, people in the West discovered an age-old Chinese condimentLockdown期间，西方民众发现一款古老的中国调味品
For some, cooking during lockdowns was a chance to try out the kind of time-consuming, intricate food preparation that the rush of ordinary life makes impossible. Endless loaves of sourdough were produced, along with bubbling kombucha. For others, it was an experience of drudgery. Making three meals a day, especially if your diners included small children, was tedium defined—an endless loop of eggs and beans and eggs and toast and beans and toast and eggs.Lockdown期间让一些人有机会尝试一些费时、复杂的料理，而这在忙碌的平日难以实现。他们做出了数不尽的酵母面包，煮出了气泡口感的康普茶。对其他人来说，Lockdown期间准备一日三餐乏味且劳累，若家里有小孩就更是如此——没完没了的循环：鸡蛋、豆子、鸡蛋、吐司、豆子、吐司、鸡蛋……康普茶（Kombucha），又名红茶菌，是一款起源于2000多年前中国秦朝的发酵饮品，因其具有解毒和提神的特性被视为保健佳品。后来，随着贸易的发展，康普茶传入俄罗斯高加索地区和日本，后又传至欧美各国，康普茶的消费在整个欧洲逐渐流行开来。Kombucha二次发酵后会产生大量气泡，不用添加什么苏打水气泡水就能够拥有迷人的气泡口感。Enter condiments. They satisfied both tribes. For the enthusiasts, it was a chance to make the dips and drizzles usually provided by the local deli. For the weary, a jar of something spicy or sour was an easy way to enliven the umpteenth cheese toastie. Chilli crisp—a glowing red oil, heady with chilli and heavy with crisp fragments of garlic and shallots as well as fermented black beans and sesame—became the sauce of the moment. The place it has secured in many fridge doors since then hints at how foods become fashionable.谈到调味品，喜欢做饭的人和厌倦做饭的人的需求，它都能满足。前者可以用调味品自制当地熟食店供应的蘸料和调味料；后者只需用一瓶酸味或辣味调料就能轻易给吃过无数次的奶酪吐司增添一番风味。辣椒酱——红油泛光，辣椒醉人，加上满满的酥脆大蒜、红葱头以及黑豆豆豉和芝麻，成为了当下最为火爆的调味品。之后，辣椒酱在众多家庭的冰箱里占据了一席之地，表明了一些食物是如何开始流行起来的。umpteenth: if something happens for the umpteenth time, it happens again after having happened many times before – used when you are annoyed that it has happened so often. 第无数次（个）的People in China may have been bemused by the revelatory joy with which those in countries such as America seized on chilli crisp. They have been eating varieties of the stuff for centuries. Lao Gan Ma, made in the south-western province of Guizhou, is the most famous brand. Its founder, Tao Huabi, started selling noodles coated with the sauce in 1989, setting up a factory a few years later. Her face peers out sternly from every label on the 1.3m bottles the company says it now produces a day. (Heinz’s plant in the Netherlands makes about 10m bottles of ketchup a week.)辣椒酱突然引起美国等地人们的注意，成为喜闻乐见的产品，中国人可能对此不解。几百年来，中国人吃过各种辣椒酱，其中最负盛名的要数产自中国西南部贵州省的老干妈。1989年，老干妈创始人陶华碧开始出售这种酱料的拌面，几年后开了一家工厂。老干妈公司表示，目前日产量为130万瓶，瓶身的商标是陶华碧的大头照，她神情严肃，直勾勾看着你。（亨氏在荷兰的工厂每周生产约1000万瓶番茄酱。）It took a pandemic to bring the delicacy to the rest of the world’s attention. Chilli crisp had many of the necessary characteristics to be a hit. It is spicy, but not overly so. It is delicious slathered on noodles, as originally intended, but it can also be added to fried eggs and other dishes familiar to Americans. It satisfies humans’ love of crispy foods, rooted in an evolutionary preference since crunchiness is often an indicator of freshness.疫情使美味的辣椒酱走出了中国国门。辣椒酱具有爆火所需的许多特点。它辣度适中。虽然老干妈最初是用来拌面（这种搭配确实美味），但它也可以给煎蛋等常见美国菜调味。人类喜爱脆的食物，因为进化过程中，人类发现，口感酥脆往往说明食物新鲜，辣椒“脆”则满足了这一偏好。Usually tastemakers visit restaurants and interview chefs to immerse themselves in what people are cooking and eating, says Kevan Vetter of McCormick’s Flavour Forecast, which predicts and influences which tastes become popular. In lockdown that was no longer possible. Instead they had to watch what cooks, both home and professional, were making via social media. The answer, along with banana bread, was chilli crisp.味好美（McCormick）有一档口味预测栏目，能够预测并左右哪些味道会受人们欢迎。该节目的Keve Vetter表示，通常来说，美食家会造访饭店，采访大厨，沉浸在人们烹饪、享用的食物中。封锁期间，节目无法探店。于是，他们退而求其次，观看社交媒体上业余及专业厨师的烹饪视频。除了香蕉面包，让他们眼前一亮的便是辣椒酱。Today’s question is not whether people will keep eating it. The liberation of post-pandemic dining has not dulled the delight of the condiment. The East Asian population in America and Britain is growing. Many new brands have joined Lao Gan Ma. Like salsa, which once seemed exotic, chilli crisp is set to become a pantry staple.现在的问题不在于辣椒酱是否会继续受到追捧。疫情过后，用餐选择变得自由，但人们对辣椒酱的喜爱并没有消退。英美的东亚人口在增加。老干妈走红后，许多辣椒酱品牌雨后春笋般出现。和番茄辣酱一样，辣椒酱虽然是舶来品，也注定会成为必备调味品。The question is whether amateurs will keep making it. Nobody bothers making ketchup: as a condiment is assimilated, people develop a taste for the mass-produced version. And in the case of chilli crisp, Ms Tao might argue that the commercial option is as authentic as it gets.
问题在于，业余烹饪爱好者会不会继续自制辣椒酱。他们不会想着去自制番茄酱，因为一种调味品被一个地区接受的同时，人们会慢慢习惯量产产品的口味，不会选择自制。就辣椒酱而言，老干妈可能会坚称，量产产品的口味就和自制版一样原汁原味。备注：本文出现的chilli crisp应该指的是老干妈香辣脆油辣椒。该产品由洋葱、辣椒、豆豉、花椒、大豆油制成，口感中包含脆的元素。拌面、拌馄饨、做凉拌、蘸馒头……搭配百变，多样吃法。WH，Stay hungry, stay foolish.Trista，女，虽然我是无业游民，但是我并没有骄傲琚儿，女，QE在职，梦想能仗翻译/音乐/健康走天涯Francis，男，但诗句的终极意义，在于你
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