Many may remember the 1998 film?Mulan, the tale of a young Chinese girl who pretends to be a man to take her ailing father’s place in the army.
很多人還記得1998年上映的迪士尼動畫電影《花木蘭》。在這個故事中，一名中國少女扮作男子替代她年邁體弱的父親從軍。
In a joint promotion for the original animated feature, McDonald’s released a condiment called SzeChuan sauce for a limited time.
在配合這部原版動畫片的聯合推廣活動中，麥當勞限時推出了一款名為「川醬」的調味醬。
Hong Kong-born Kevin Pang, who was raised in the United States, remembers it well from his teenage days.
香港出生、美國長大的凱文·龐（音）對這款自己少年時代的調味醬記憶深刻。
「It tasted very much like American Chinese food, it was too sweet. The texture was very gloopy, very sticky, and I think it was a little bit too out there for an American audience. If you eat chicken nuggets, you have barbecue sauce, you have hot mustard, but you don’t have this vaguely Asian style sauce. It was a novelty,」 recalls Pang.
他回憶說：「那個醬嘗起來非常像美國的中餐，太甜了。特別黏稠。我認為它有些過於適應美國人的口味了。吃雞塊的時候，會塗燒烤醬、芥末醬，但你不會塗抹這種亞洲風格的醬。這是一個新鮮事物。」
Interest in the sauce soon dissipated and it was forgotten until 2017, when an episode of cartoon show?Rick and Morty?– which featured a mad scientist and his adventures with his grandson – mentioned the SzeChuan sauce.
人們很快對這款調味醬失去了興趣並將它遺忘。直到2017年，動畫片《瑞克和莫蒂》的其中一集提到了這款川醬。這部動畫片講的是一位瘋狂的科學家帶著孫子探險的故事。
Fans of?Rick and Morty?began demanding the return of SzeChuan sauce, and a few months later, McDonald’s announced it would be revived – but for one day only – on October 7, 2017.
《瑞克和莫蒂》的粉絲們開始要求重新供應川醬。幾個月後，麥當勞宣布將在2017年10月7日再次限時供應川醬——但僅此一天。
However, on the day, the fast-food chain was completely unprepared for the onslaught of people who turned up to get their hands on the sweet, Asian-style sauce.
然而，當這一天到來時，麥當勞對於前來索要這款亞洲風味甜醬的人潮毫無準備。
Each McDonald’s only had two dozen packs of the sauce to give away, and customers who had queued for hours were very angry, shouting: 「We want sauce!」 At one outlet in Newark, in the American state of New Jersey, the police had to be called in to calm things down.
每家麥當勞門店只準備了20多包川醬，這讓那些排隊數小時的顧客非常生氣。他們高喊：「我們要川醬！」美國新澤西州紐瓦克的一家門店不得不通過報警來平息事態。
Sachets of the sauce have appeared on eBay selling for up to $250 each.
這種小包裝醬料在易趣網上的標價一度達到每包250美元（約合1720元人民幣）。
However, the sauce created by McDonald’s lacks any authentic Sichuan flavor. Sadly for fans of the too-sweet McDonald’s sauce, there is no such thing as a generic 「Sichuan sauce」 in the Chinese province, says cook and food writer Fuchsia Dunlop.
然而，這款由麥當勞開發的醬料根本不是正宗的四川風味。英國廚師兼美食作家鄧扶霞說，在中國四川省根本沒有通稱「川醬」的東西，這對麥當勞這款甜醬的粉絲們來說非常遺憾。
「A really good Sichuan meal is like a roller-coaster ride – you have spicy notes, sweet and sour notes, numbing and gentle flavors,」 says the British cook who has been researching Chinese cuisine for 25 years. That’s a far cry from what McDonald’s was trying to emulate.
這位研究中國烹飪長達25年的英國廚師說：「一頓地道的川菜大餐就像是過山車——有辣，有酸甜，有麻，也有柔和的口感。」這與麥當勞試圖模仿的東西大相逕庭。
Sichuan cuisine is one of the eight great cuisines of China and is famous for its fiery dishes. But Dunlop says it’s a common misconception that the cuisine focuses only on heat.
川菜是中國八大菜系之一，以火辣著稱。但鄧扶霞說，認為川菜只專注於火辣是一種常見的誤解。
「There’s the stereotype that it is all just fiery and hot, and of course Sichuanese love using chillies and Sichuan pepper (hua jiao) – with its lip tingling sensation – but that’s just one part of the story. Sichuan is about complex multilayered flavors,」she says.
她說：「有人認為川菜只有火辣，這是一種刻板印象。當然，四川人喜歡使用辣椒和花椒——讓你的唇齒發麻——但這只是一個方面。川菜有複雜的、多層次的味道。」
「The really interesting thing about Sichuan cuisine is its diversity of flavors. When I was studying to be a chef there, we learned 23 complex flavors. It is like French classic sauces, but with different balances of sweet, sour, spicy and tingly,」 she says.
她說：「川菜真正有趣的地方在於它有多種味道。我在那裡學習廚藝的時候，我們學到了23種複雜的味道。這就像法國的經典醬汁，只是甜、酸、辣、麻的比例各不相同。」
「Sichuan pepper is what makes Sichuan cuisine different from other spicy cuisines like Hunan, where they use a lot of chilli but don’t use [the numbing Sichuan pepper],」 says Dunlop.
鄧扶霞說：「花椒使川菜不同於其他以辣為特色的地方菜。比如，湘菜也使用大量辣椒，但不使用讓舌頭髮麻的花椒。」
While Sichuan is one of the most popular regional cuisines in China, it only really caught on in the West 20 years ago, says Dunlop. 「From the 1990s Sichuan food took off – you had all these people from all over China going to live in America and England and they wanted to eat their favorite food, which was Sichuan food.」
她說，儘管川菜是中國最受歡迎的地方菜系之一，但直到20年前，川菜才真正開始在西方流行起來。「從上世紀90年代起，四川美食開始受到歡迎——中國各地的人開始到美國和英國等地生活，他們希望吃到自己最喜歡的食品，也就是四川美食。」
Currently Sichuan hotpot is a hugely popular dish in China and the West, but Dunlop says dishes such as mapo tofu, gong bao chicken, and hui guo rou (twice-cooked pork) are all famous and express the techniques and flavors of Sichuan cooking.
目前，四川火鍋在中國和西方都大受歡迎，但鄧扶霞說，像麻婆豆腐、宮保雞丁和回鍋肉這樣的菜餚同樣有名，並且展現了川菜的烹飪技巧和味道。
In Hong Kong, a cultural and culinary crossroads of the East and West, chef Kenny Chan Kai-tak, 65, is keen on passing down how to cook Sichuan cuisine. The executive chef at Sichuan Lab in Wan Chai was born in Hong Kong to a family of chefs originally from Sichuan.
在香港這個東西方文化和飲食的交匯之地，65歲的廚師陳啟德（音）熱衷於傳承川菜的做法。
He finds the fiery cuisine more difficult to learn how to cook because of the various combinations of chillies that can be used to elicit layers of spice.
他發現，辣味菜餚的烹飪更難學習，因為這些菜餚將各種辣椒進行不同的組合以產生多層次的味道。
「Sichuan cuisine allows your taste buds and the tip of your tongue to feel a 『dancing sensation』. But not all Sichuan food is spicy – it can have surprisingly different kinds of spice, some that are mild, some that are extra hot, and their aroma can change depending on if they are cooked with meat or seafood. A spice that seems to be light in taste can have a very long, but strong aftertaste that hits you hard,」 Chan says.
陳啟德說：「川菜讓你的味蕾和舌尖產生『跳舞的感覺』。但不是所有的川菜都是辛辣的——它的味道多得驚人，有些是微辣，有些是超級辣，其味道會根據你是做肉菜還是海鮮而產生變化。有的調料看似口味清淡，但強烈的餘味會給你帶來回味長久且巨大的衝擊。」
"Only one-third of Sichuan cuisine has spiciness in it. The reason why Sichuan food has varying levels of spice is because the province’s food is a mix of culinary styles, as immigrants from neighboring provinces brought different eating habits and cultures,」 Chan says.
他還說：「只有三分之一的川菜是辣的。川菜之所以有各種各樣的味道，是因為周邊省份的移民帶來了不同的飲食習慣和文化，因此它是不同地區烹飪風格的混合物。」