吃就吃出名堂来!

开篇：润墨网以专业的文秘视角，为您筛选了一篇吃就吃出名堂来!范文，如需获取更多写作素材，在线客服老师一对一协助。欢迎您的阅读与分享！

More Food for Thought

By Rudi Lynes

Looking back at last month's article I noticed that I ended with "to be continued". Strange. It's as if there was no continuity between all these articles; as if this column was not one long babbling brook of boll...er, observations. Anyway, I was talking about restaurants and eating and that's what the topic is this time too. I like this topic because I am always hungry to one degree or another. Honestly, I have never been so full that I couldn't eat more. I can be satisfied...but if put to the test I can always go further. It's a good thing that I am also extremely lazy otherwise I would have gone the same way as Elio, my (now deceased) goldfish, a long time ago.

What I actually want to talk about is how people from different parts of the world mix up how to eat foreign foods. Like, sometimes in Europe you will see people eating Chinese food in a Western way. They will each order and eat one dish each. They might even have starters and a main course. Worse still, they have soup for starters. The same thing happens the other way around in China. A lot of Western restaurants here cater mostly to locals and therefore serve Western food in a Chinese way.

Usually, a Western meal consists of several courses. To take a basic example, people start with something small like soup, salad or a snack. When this is finished the waiter will take the plates away and bring the main courses. Each person has their own main course, which will contain a type of meat or fish, some vegetables and a form of carbohydrate such as potato, pasta or rice. When this has all been chewed and swallowed up some diners will order a dessert. Dessert is not really a dish. It exists merely to sweeten the taste buds after a hearty meal. In many ways eating dessert is similar to the way Chinese people might eat fruit after a meal, except fruit doesn't have as much capacity to break your weighing scales and stop your heart from pumping.

If you see a Western restaurant in China in which there are a lot of foreigners eating, it will more than likely serve food in this way. Most don't. Quite often customers will order dishes communally. Starters, main courses and desserts will be served at the same time and be placed in the middle of the table and shared. Diners will try to break off pieces of fillet steak with chopsticks and will (this I find really weird) follow a mouthful of penne carbonara with a spoon of chocolate mousse. Menus offer incomplete main courses. Chicken means just chicken with no vegetables. They have to be ordered separately.

What I'm not sure of is whether Western restaurants in China serve food and their customers eat it in this fashion because they don't know how to do it the Western way or they don't want to. At the end of the day who really cares? As long as you enjoy yourself it doesn't matter if you lick your food off the ceiling. However, I find that I appreciate Chinese food a lot more when I eat it the Chinese way. I presume it works that way for all types of cuisines.

Speaking of eating food the Chinese way, it strikes me as odd that when you see a list of great things that were invented by Chinese, Sichuan hot pot is never included. It should be up there with paper money and gunpowder. Nothing exemplifies the joys of communal eating more than a group of people sitting around a boiling pot of food and nothing starts the weekend off better than a good boozy hot pot shared with a rowdy bunch of friends all eager to shake off the dust off a hard week of work. I've been eating it regularly for years now. Nonetheless, on a Friday afternoon when I get a text message that reads "hot pot?" I still get a tingle of anticipation down my spine.

Another great thing about hot pot is that it never gets boring because you can always experiment with different ingredients. My latest discovery was carrots. Sounds strange but it really works. As I'm on the subject, what about that ma lasoup they use? Isn't it amazing? On one hand it could easily function as an alternative to Novocain or, perhaps, a chemical weapon (can you imagine having scalding ma la soup dropped on you?). Yet on the other hand there isn't anything else known to man that has as much flavour.

Right, I promise to write about a non-food related topic next issue. In the meantime eat Western food, eat Chinese food and if you go for hot pot spare a moment to give thanks to the genius that invented it.

回顾了一下上月的文章，我发现我在结尾处用了“未完待续”。奇怪啊。所有这些文章在彼此之间似乎是没有连续性的呀；而这个栏目似乎也不是一个讲起来没完没了的……呃，见闻录。不管怎样，我谈过了餐厅和饮食，而那也正是本次的话题。我喜欢这个话题，因为我总是或多或少地感觉到饿。说实在的，我从来没有吃得这么饱过，撑得都不行了。我会适可而止的……不过如果激一激我，我总是可以再多吃一点儿的。还好，我极为懒惰，不然，在很久以前，我就会跟我那条（现已故去的）金鱼――“埃利欧”是一样的下场了。

我真正想谈的是世界各地的人们是如何将异域饮食的吃法混为一谈的。比如，有时候在欧洲你会看到人们用西方的方式来吃中餐。他们会各自点菜，各吃各餐。甚至他们还可能要前菜和主菜。更糟的是，他们用汤做前菜。同样的事情反过来也会在中国发生。这里的许多西餐厅主要是为了迎合本地人的需要，因而是以中国的方式来上西餐的。

通常，一顿西餐包括几道菜。简单举例来说，人们在开始时会来点儿汤、沙拉或点心之类的小吃。用罢之后，服务员会将盘子撤走，换上主菜。每个人都有他们自己的主菜，主菜里会包括某类肉食或鱼肉、一些蔬菜以及某种形式的碳水化合物，如土豆、意大利面或米饭。在这些统统被咀嚼下咽之后，有些食客还会点要一份甜点。而甜点不是一道真正的菜肴。它的存在仅仅是为了在用过丰盛的饭菜之后让味蕾溢发香甜之感。在很多方面，吃甜点都跟中国人可能在饭后吃水果的做法相类似，只不过水果远不会令你压坏体重秤、让你的心脏停止跳动。

如果你在中国看到一个有很多外国人在里面进餐的西餐厅，那么那里极其有可能是按这种方式来上菜的。而大多数西餐厅都不会如此。相当常见的是，顾客们会共同来点菜。前菜、主菜和甜点会被一同端上，放在餐桌中央，以供分享。食客们会试着用筷子将牛扒撕成几块，而且会在吃下一口意大利酱汁面之后再来上一勺巧克力慕斯（我发现这点十分奇怪）。菜单上提供的是并不配套的主菜。鸡肉的意思就是纯鸡肉，不带蔬菜。它们要分开来点。

让我搞不清的是，中国的西餐厅和里面的顾客分别按照这种方式上菜和进餐是否是因为他们不知道如何按西方的方式来做，还是他们就不想去做。说到底谁会真的在意呢？只要你自己尽兴，就算你到天花板上将饭菜舔光也无所谓。然而，我发现当我用中国的方式来进餐时我却更能体味中餐。我想，这种做法对各式菜肴来说都会奏效。

谈到以中国的方式进餐，有件事让我感到诧异：当你查看一份罗列着中国人发明的重要物品的名单时，四川火锅从来就没有被归入其中。它应该是与纸币和火药同属一列的。若想以实例诠释聚餐之乐，什么都比不上一群人围坐在放有食料的沸锅之前；若想周末有个好开始，什么都比不上与一帮吵吵闹闹、全都渴望着将一周工作的艰辛一抖而散的朋友开怀畅饮大吃火锅。我定期都会去吃，到现在已经持续数年了。尽管如此，当我在一个礼拜五的下午接到一个内容为“火锅？”的短信时，我仍会在脊背上一激灵，满是期待。

关于火锅的另一大好处是，因为你总是可以尝试不同的配料，所以它绝不会让人生腻。而我最新的发现就是胡萝卜。听起来有些奇怪，但真的可行。既然我在谈论这个话题，那么他们（在餐馆里）所用的麻辣汤底怎么样？不令人惊奇么？一方面，它无疑可以被当作是奴佛卡因（注：一种局部麻醉剂）的替代品，也许还可以被当作一种化学武器（你想过让滚烫的麻辣汤底往你身上浇么？）。而另一方面，就没有什么其它人所共知的东西也拥有如此浓厚的风味。

好了，下期我保证会写一个跟饮食无关的话题。在这一期间，去尝尝西餐吧，尝尝中餐吧，而如果你是去吃火锅，可要抽空感谢一下发明此物的天才啊。

知识链接

1. ...as if this column was not one long babbling brook of boll...er, observations.

Rudi在文章第一段写下了这句话，好像有点儿让人看不太明白。其实，搞清楚两个地方就容易理解了：首先“babbling brook”就是那种在流淌过程中不断与岩石相撞，发出许多噪音的小河或小溪；其次，“boll...”是表示Rudi本身想用“bollocks（胡说八道）”但又觉得不好，便又改词了，之所以没有把“boll...”删掉是想起到一种幽默的行文效果。所以，前后一联系，就知道了Rudi其实想要表达“as if this column were not just one long meaningless stream of rubbish”的意思，只不过是用一种幽默的方式来表达的。

2. ...but if put to the test I can always go further.

在文章第一段中，出现了这句话。有个地方需要注意一下――“put to the test”。它说的可不是参加什么考试或比赛，而是说有人在Rudi已经饱餐一顿之后用话激他能不能再多吃一点儿。

3. my (now deceased) goldfish

在文章第一段中，我们注意到Rudi在括号中用到了“now deceased”。“deceased”本身是一个表达“过世”之意的委婉语，但在这里却用到了一条金鱼身上，似乎不太合适。其实，Rudi是故意这么用的，是为了营造一种幽默效果。

4. ...a rowdy bunch of friends all eager to shake off the dust off a hard week of work.

在文章倒数第三段出现了这句话，其中“shake off the dust off”可能让人不能一下子明白其意。这个词组来源于人们的一种行为：过去，人们是在土路上骑马出行，当他们到达目的地之后，就会发现身上沾满了灰尘，因而就会“shake off the dust”。所以，就用“shake off the dust”来表示在长时间出行或工作之后，找个机会放松一下，恢复一下精神。