A short history of American food (whatever that is)
Your Thanksgiving table may have been smaller this year, but if it was still full of squashes, corn pudding, turkey and cranberry sauce, thank Native Americans -- those foods are indigenous. But that apple pie is international -- apples are from Kazakhstan and the pie part is from England.
不同於以往的盛宴，今年你的感恩節餐桌可能比較簡單，但是如果仍然充滿了南瓜，玉米布丁，火雞和蔓越莓醬，那就要感謝美國原住民-這些食物是土生土長的。但是蘋果派是國際性的-蘋果來自哈薩克斯坦，派的做法來自英國。隨著時間的發展，蘋果派逐漸變成了一種典型的美國食物。從一句美國俚語可以看出蘋果派在美國人心中的地位——As American as apple pie，意思是「典型的美國式的」，例句：Leather jackets are as American as apple pie and Harley-Davidsons（著名的美國摩託車品牌）.
It's hard to define what "American food" is and yet many historians have tried. Yale Professor Paul Freedman is one of them and last year published "American Cuisine and How It Got That Way."
雖然很難定義什麼是「美國食品」，但是許多歷史學家嘗試過。耶魯大學的保羅·弗裡德曼（Paul Freedman）教授就是其中之一，並於去年出版了《美國美食及其發展方式》。
"The exuberance of American dining is its saving grace," says Freedman. "... Despite the fact that many things are, you know, not all that good for you."
弗裡德曼說：「美式飲食的興盛在於它可以節省很多錢……儘管事實上，你知道，它們其中很多食物對人體沒有好處。」
Americans get pretty excited about food, as does much of the world, but historians like Freedman say we actually share some key culinary traits that are uniquely American in origin and we're not talking about throwing everything in the deep fry. Fast food will always be an American hallmark, even though we're eating less of it these days, but we're more than McDonald's and cheese-in-a-can and we've even exported some very American ways of eating. Yes, France. You've learned a thing or two from us, too.
美國人和世界上的大多數人一樣，對食物都感到非常興奮，但是像弗裡德曼這樣的歷史學家說，我們實際上擁有一些起源於美國的獨特烹飪特色，而並不是在指將所有食物都扔進油鍋裡炸。 儘管我們現在吃的比以前少了，快餐也將永遠是美國的標誌，但我們擁有比麥當勞和罐裝奶酪更多的食物種類，甚至出口了一些非常美國的飲食方式。 是的，法國也從我們那裡學到了一兩件事。
Vocabulary：
exuberance:n. 豐富，茂盛；健康
culinary:adj. 烹飪的；食物的
To understand what our tastebuds all have in common, let's look at five key developments in the history of America's eating habits.
為了了解我們口味的相似之處，讓我們看一下美國飲食習慣歷史上的五處發展。
1) The good old days when sugar was healthy 糖還代表著健康的舊時光
Up until the late 1800s, people preferred to eat the foods that filled them up. Dairy, meat, hominy, oatmeal and sugar were staples -- vegetables, not so much. Vitamins wouldn't be fully appreciated until the 20th century.
直到1800年代後期，人們更喜歡吃能讓他們有飽腹感的食物。 乳製品，肉類，玉米粥，燕麥片和糖是主食，而蔬菜則不多。 直到20世紀，維生素才能得到充分的重視。
"They didn't like spices because they think they created indigestion and were a distraction from the actual food," says Freedman, who noted that spices were considered the "food of the poor."
弗裡德曼說：「他們不喜歡香料，是因為他們認為香料造成了消化不良，並且和實際食物的食物不同。」他指出香料被認為是「窮人的食物」。
Vocabulary：
Historian Sarah Lohman says that it wasn't quite as bland as it sounds. Mary Randolph's 1824 cookbook, "The Virginia House-Wife," calls for chili peppers.
歷史學家莎拉·洛曼（Sarah Lohman）說，並不像聽起來那麼平淡。 瑪麗·蘭道夫（Mary Randolph）1824年的烹飪書《維吉尼亞家庭主婦》（The Virginia House-Wife）呼籲使用辣椒。
"It's really, really influenced by indigenous cultures and, in particular, by enslaved people who come from the Caribbean, by enslaved people who come from Africa or African descendants," says Lohman.
洛曼說：「這確實受到了土著文化的影響，特別是受到了來自加勒比海地區的奴役者，來自非洲或非洲後裔的奴役者的影響。」
Vocabulary：
enslave：vt. 使某人成為奴隸
descendant：n. 後裔，子孫
2) Food travels around the country 食物環遊全國
In the 19th century, while New Englanders were eating brown breads and brown stuffing, the South had its pork, molasses, greens, griddled cornmeal and corn breads.
在19世紀，當新英格蘭人正在吃黑麵包和棕色餡時，南方則有豬肉，糖蜜，綠色蔬菜，烤玉米面和玉米面包。
Black cooks had a hand in our cuisine from the very beginning. From South to North, their contribution was so ubiquitous its significance has been long overlooked.
黑人廚師從一開始就參與我們的烹飪。從南到北，他們的貢獻無處不在，其重要性被人們忽略了很長時間。
Vocabulary：
Knowledge Extension：
brown breads：黑麵包
黑麵包通常是指用大量的全穀物麵粉製成的麵包，通常用小麥製作，有時也含有一些深色的原料，比如糖蜜或咖啡。在加拿大，英國和南非，它簡單地指全麥（wholemeal）或全麥麵包（whole wheat bread）。在海事和新英格蘭除外，在那裡意味著用糖蜜製成的麵包。在美國的某些地區，與白麵包相比，這種麵包（white bread）簡稱為小麥麵包（wheat bread）。
Just one example is the story of ice cream. James Hemmings, Thomas Jefferson's enslaved chef, traveled with the family to France, learned the art of making ice cream and brought it back to the US along with copper cookware, European-style mac 'n' cheese and French fries.
冰淇淋的故事就是一個例子。託馬斯·傑斐遜（Thomas Jefferson）的奴隸廚師詹姆斯·海明斯（James Hemmings）與家人一起前往法國，學習了製作冰淇淋的技巧，並將其與銅炊具，歐式奶酪和炸薯條一起帶回了美國。
Historian Jessica Harris is lead curator for the exhibition "African/American: Making the Nation's Table" at the Museum of Food and Drink in New York City. She said other Black chefs traveled early on with aristocrats as they left the South for summer homes in places like Newport. Later Black Pullman operators moved west along with the railroads, bringing their families and their familiar food. After the Civil War, the Great Migration brought Black cuisine just about everywhere.
歷史學家傑西卡·哈裡斯（Jessica Harris）是紐約市飲食博物館「非洲/美國人：製造國家的餐桌」展覽的首席策展人。她說，其他黑人廚師很早就與貴族一起旅行，他們離開南方前往紐波特等地的避暑別墅。後來，Black Pullman運營商隨鐵路一起向西移動，帶來了家人和熟悉的食物。內戰之後，大遷徙帶給各地幾乎所有黑人美食。
"It's about looking at history, looking at culture, looking at any of those things as science through the spyglass of food," said Harris. "And it's a great spyglass because it's one everybody shares."
Then in the late 19th century, it's New England's filling, yet perhaps monochromatic, food that comes to the forefront.
「這是關於縱觀歷和文化，通過食物的望遠鏡將所有這些東西看成科學。」哈裡斯說道。「這是一個很棒的望遠鏡，因為它是所有人共享的。」
在19世紀後期，新英格蘭地區的食物開始盛行。這類食物也許看似單調乏味，但卻衝到了最前沿。
Knowledge Extension：
Civil War（美國內戰）：美國內戰是一場發生於1861年至1865年的美國內部戰爭，是忠於聯邦的北方州和脫離聯邦組成美國邦聯的南方州之間的戰爭。內戰的爆發主要原因是長期存在的關於奴役黑人的爭論。1861年4月，在亞伯拉罕·林肯就任美國總統的一個月後，分裂勢力襲擊了南卡羅來納州的薩姆特堡，導致戰爭爆發。
內戰是美國歷史上研究和著述最多的時期之一，至今仍是文化和史學辯論的主題。它是最早的工業戰爭之一。鐵路、電報、蒸汽船、鐵殼船和大規模生產的武器被廣泛使用。民用工廠、礦山、造船廠、銀行、交通和食品供應的動員都預示著工業化在第一次世界大戰和第二次世界大戰以及隨後的衝突中的影響。
African/American: Making the Nation's Table
展覽網址：https://www.mofad.org/about-aa 內含展覽介紹、日曆等信息。
3) The pure joy of home economics class 家庭經濟的純粹喜悅
Scientific ideas around food have always existed, but in the late 1800s, people began to prioritize invisible components of food learning, such as how to avoid illnesses like scurvy, beriberi and pellagra. Vegetables became a bit more important -- albeit cooked for long periods of time.
關於食物的科學思想一直存在，但是在1800年代後期，人們開始優先考慮學習食物中的無形部分，例如如何避免壞血病，腳氣病和糙皮病。蔬菜變得更加重要-儘管過去已經烹飪了很長時間。
A woman's kitchen became her laboratory and her cookbooks were her study materials. What was thought of as "nutrition" was incredibly important and yet women couldn't learn how to cook from Mom, nor did they want to.
女性的廚房便成了她的實驗室，她的食譜就是她的學習材料。「營養」在食譜中的地位躍然紙上，但是她們既無法向老一輩學習如何做飯，也不願意這樣做。
Vocabulary：
"The idea was that you shouldn't just do everything the way your mother did because that was, first of all, drudgery," says Laura Shapiro, an historian who writes about women and food. "It was really hard work and it wasn't modern."
「我們的想法是，你不應該像母親那樣去做所有事情，首先是因為這是苦差事。」一位寫有關婦女和食物的歷史學家蘿拉·夏皮羅（Laura Shapiro）說道，「這真的很辛苦且不現代。」
Starting in 1890, Fannie Farmer began turning hearty New England dishes into sophisticated meals, though sometimes that meant your plate was all white or all brown. The textbook she wrote later became "The Fannie Farmer Cookbook" and its popularity lasted for decades, until usurped by "The Joy of Cooking" in the 1930s.
Shapiro says Farmer's writing was rather dry but she did have her fun. Farmer invented the ginger ale salad that congeals canned fruit in gelatin and soda.
從1890年開始，房利美農夫（Fannie Farmer）開始將豐盛的新英格蘭菜餚變成精美的飯菜，儘管有時這意味著您的盤子全是白色或全是褐色。她後來寫的教科書成為《房利美農民食譜》，其流行持續了數十年，直到在1930年代被《烹飪的喜悅》所取代。
Her book came out right as families were moving further away from their home base and spreading out across the country.
"You are this young bride and you have to cook in your new home and you don't know how," says Shapiro. "Once you learn, you can do all this wonderful cooking and your husband will be healthy and he won't become an alcoholic."
That's a lot of pressure to put on your meatloaf. Thankfully, Americans got some help when we really didn't earn it.
夏皮羅說，關於農夫的寫作相當枯燥，但她很開心。農夫發明了薑汁沙拉，將罐裝水果凝結成明膠和蘇打水。
她的書剛出版的時候，很多家庭正遠離家鄉，並在全國各地蔓延。
夏皮羅說：「你就是這個年輕的新娘，你必須在新家裡做飯，而且你不知道怎麼做。」 「一旦你學習，你就可以做出這些所有很棒的烹飪，您的丈夫會很健康，而且不會酗酒。」
當你明白這一點，就會知曉做飯的時候其實要背負很多「壓力」。萬幸，當我們無所適從時，美國人卻獲得了一些幫助。
Vocabulary：
4) When we get what we don't deserve 當我們得到我們不應得的
Immigration, migration and variety in manufacturing are where we start to see America really start to form eating habits that separate us from other countries. While every country in the world has immigration, in America it happened on a large scale and very early on.
Historian Sarah Lohman spent years leading tours and classes about the lives of immigrants for New York City's Tenement Museum and traveled to 12 different parts of the country for her book, "Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine."
移民，遷移和製造業的多樣化是使美國真正開始與其他國家區分開的飲食習慣的原因。雖然世界上每個國家都有移民，但在美國是大規模發生，而且發生得很早。歷史學家莎拉·羅曼（Sarah Lohman）花費了數年的時間，為紐約的唐人街博物館（Tenement Museum）進行了關於移民生活的導覽和課程，並遊遍了美國的12個不同地區，創作了《八種味道：不為人知的美國美食的故事》。
"At the same time that domestic science is becoming a part of the American food landscape, that's also when we're seeing a huge influx of immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, particularly Jewish immigrants," says Lohman.
洛曼說：「與此同時，國內科學正在成為美國食品領域的一部分，這也是我們看到來自義大利和東歐的大量移民，尤其是猶太移民湧入的時候。」
Lohman says Eastern Europeans brought their love of sour foods, Italians brought on the garlic. Their food changed when the reached America, with Italians in particular opting for foods like olive oil and aged cheeses. Back in Italy, these were expensive exports only, but in the States Italians could afford them and they used them liberally.
羅曼說，東歐人帶來了對酸味食物的熱愛，義大利人帶來了大蒜。他們的食物在到達美國後發生了變化，尤其是義大利人選擇的橄欖油和陳年奶酪等食物。在義大利，這些只能昂貴的出口，但在美國，義大利人負擔得起這些食物，並大量使用。
Vocabulary：
separate(from sth/sb) :單獨的；獨立的；分開的
garlic:n. 大蒜；蒜頭
Knowledge Extension：
immigration和migration的區別：
immigration：n. 外來移民 是移居到文字主語所在的國家裡來
migration：n. 遷移 單純的遷移，移動，沒有明顯的方向性
That's also true for Chinese cuisine which spread steadily across the country just as prejudice was growing against Chinese people. Kevin Kim researches the history of Chinese people in the Deep South and is working on a project about the continued displacement of urban immigrant communities for the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum.
對於中國美食來說，也是如此，在對中國人的偏見日益加劇之時，它在全國範圍內穩步傳播。凱文·金（Kevin Kim）研究了深南方地區中國人的歷史，並正在為史密森尼·安納科斯蒂亞社區博物館（Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum）開展有關城市移民社區持續流離失所的項目。
Vocabulary：
"One of those contradictions and complexities is that Chinese food in that early period is marked by exclusion," says Kim. "It's marked by racism but at the same time there is this hunger for something exotic and yet familiar."
「這些矛盾和複雜性之一是，早期的中國食品以排斥為特徵。」金說道。「這是種族主義的標誌，但與此同時，人們也渴望獲得異國情調卻又熟悉的東西。」
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was aimed at keeping out Chinese laborers who came to the US for plentiful jobs, but the Act contained exceptions. Merchants who owned stores and grocery stores were exempt and later on, so too were restaurant owners. The number of Chinese restaurants doubled from the early part of the 19th century to the mid-20th
1882年的《排華法案》旨在將進入美國從事大量工作的中國勞工排除在外，但該法案中有例外。擁有商店和雜貨店的商人免稅，後來餐館老闆也免稅。從19世紀初期到20世紀中期，中國餐館的數量翻了一番。
Kim explains that these restauranteurs brought their own Asian flavors and cooking methods but adapted them by growing or using local ingredients. Broccoli wasn't used in China but appears on Chinese menus here. Chinese cooks living in African American and Caribbean neighborhoods added collard greens or fried chicken to their menus.
Kim解釋說，這些餐廳老闆帶來了自己的亞洲風味和烹飪方法，但通過使用種植和使用當地食材對其進行了適應。西蘭花在中國沒有使用，但在這裡出現在中國菜單上。居住在非裔美國人和加勒比海地區的中國廚師在菜單上添加了羽衣甘藍或炸雞。
Another boom comes when immigration opens up in 1965, bringing people from many parts of Asia. While immigration begins to melt its way into American meals, more variety came as American manufacturing moved like warp speed into a new era.
1965年，隨著移民的開放，又掀起了另一波熱潮，從亞洲各地帶來了很多人。移民開始逐漸融入美國的飲食方式，隨著美國製造業的發展以驚人的速度邁入了新時代，更多的品種出現了。
Vocabulary：
broccoli:n. 西蘭花
collard greens:n. 羽衣甘藍
Knowledge Extension：
著名的美式中餐食物：
左宗棠雞（General Tso's chicken）
李鴻章雜碎（Chop Suey）
幸運餅乾（Fortune Cookie）
5) With industrialization comes flavors and more flavors
隨著工業化的發展，口味日益豐富
Processed foods like cake mixes and powdered eggs existed before the great World Wars, but they reached new levels when the wars were over. Innovations like canned and frozen foods that fed troops en masse were still being made at lightning speed and manufacturers needed to find a new market for them.
在大戰之前就存在諸如蛋糕粉和蛋粉之類的加工食品，但在戰爭結束後它們達到了新的水平。諸如罐裝和冷凍食品之類方便軍隊食用的創新食品仍在以迅雷不及掩耳之勢進行，製造商需要為其尋找新的市場。
So, companies focused their attention on women at home. Grocery stores were game: Their produce requires a lot of manpower and much of it ends up getting thrown out, unlike those rows and rows of canned tomatoes.
因此，公司將注意力集中在家庭婦女身上。雜貨店是場競爭：他們的產品需要大量的勞動力，而且很多東西最終都被扔掉了，與那些成排的罐裝西紅柿不同。
Vocabulary：
"The food industry wants you, to this day, to think that cooking is an incredible drag and an imposition on your time," says Freedman. "Otherwise, you'll buy potatoes and mash them and they don't really make a whole lot of money out of your buying potatoes. They make money out of your buying instant mashed potatoes."
「直到今天，食品行業都希望你認為烹飪是對時間拖累和負擔。」 Freedman說道。「否則，您將購買土豆並將其搗碎，他們實際上並不會從您購買的土豆中賺很多錢。他們是通過您購買即食土豆泥賺錢的。」
Shapiro says manufacturers created the notion that women were always busy, always running out of time. So, they were "creating a world in which every day, every meal was an emergency."
夏皮羅說，製造商提出了這樣的觀念：女性總是很忙，總是沒時間。因此，他們正在「創造一個每天，每頓飯都是緊急情況的世界」。
Vocabulary：
"Never say that women welcomed it," says Shapiro, railing against the images portraying happy women in ads for quick mixes. "That is just bullshit. The women put up a huge resistance. The food industry was astonished."
夏皮羅說：「不要說女性對此表示歡迎。」她抨擊了在快速混合廣告中描繪快樂女人的形象。「這只是胡說八道。婦女們提出了巨大的抵抗。讓食品工業感到震驚。」
Decades later as people do start to pack their schedules, those processed foods are still there. But instead of that one can of tomatoes, you now have Italian-style canned tomatoes, Spanish-style canned tomatoes and, even more inexplicably, low-sodium canned tomatoes. Shouldn't they have been low-sodium to begin with? Who needs high-sodium canned tomatoes?
幾十年後，隨著人們開始整理行程，那些加工食品仍然存在。但是，你現在擁有的不是一罐西紅柿，而是義大利式罐頭西紅柿，西班牙式罐頭西紅柿，甚至更莫名其妙的是低鈉罐頭西紅柿。他們難道不應該從一開始就用低鈉罐頭嗎？誰需要高鈉番茄罐頭？
"Variety comes in to mask the idea that things are processed," says Freedman. "It kind of distracts attention from the fact that industrial food loses some of its flavor and freshness by the very fact of its being processed."
「多樣性是來掩蓋食品被加工過的真相。」 Freedman說道。「這讓人們忽略了工業食品由於其加工過程而喪失了一些風味和新鮮度的的事實。」
Vocabulary：
Now we eat so many, many things, both processed and fresh, both familiar and exotic. We love it all as evidenced by the massive popularity of food television, food magazines, food museums and food exhibitions. That's a worldwide phenomenon.
"Most people like to eat and like to come together around food," says Catherine Piccoli, Acting President of the Museum of Food and Drink. "But it also is something that allows us to learn about one another."
現在，我們吃了很多東西，有加工的也有新鮮的，有熟悉的也有異國風味的。食品相關的電視節目，雜誌，食品博物館和食品展覽會的大受歡迎證明了我們的一切。這是世界範圍的現象。「大多數人都喜歡吃東西且喜歡一起吃飯。」食品和飲料博物館代理主席凱薩琳·皮科利（Catherine Piccoli）說。「但這也使我們彼此了解。」
Vocabulary：
Freedman found through his research that in the mid-20th century, the sheer variety of flavors in our supermarkets astonished people visiting from all over the world. Now, that variety is found everywhere, but historians argue it started in America first. Americans have long been willing to try new things, both in the supermarket and while eating out.
弗裡德曼（Freedman）通過他的研究發現，在20世紀中葉，我們的超市中種類繁多的口味使來自世界各地的人們感到驚訝。現在，這種多樣性隨處可見，但歷史學家認為，它最早起源於美國。美國人長期以來都願意在超市和外出就餐時嘗試新事物。
"A hallmark of American cuisine is variety and variety includes exuberance," says Freedman. "Americanization has come to the world, not by McDonald's, but by eclecticism."
弗裡德曼說：「美國美食的標誌是多樣化，而多樣化則包括繁榮。」 「美國化不是通過麥當勞，而是通過折衷主義而走向世界。」
Vocabulary：
be willing to：樂意做某事
eclecticism：n. 折衷主義
原文連結：http://dwz.date/epd9
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