中英双语新闻-美国的中餐业急需新鲜血液

Eating Beyond Sichuan
在美国吃中餐

By NINA ZAGAT and TIM ZAGAT
Published: June 15, 2007

TWENTY years ago, American perceptions of Asian food could be summed up in one word: “Chinese.” Since then, we have developed appetites for Korean, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese fare. Yet while the quality of the restaurants that serve these cuisines, particularly Japanese, has soared in America, Chinese restaurants have stalled. For American diners, the Chinese restaurant experience is the same tired routine — unimaginative dishes served amid dated, pseudo-imperial décor — that we’ve known for years.
20年前，在美国人看来，亚洲菜只用“中餐”这一个词就可以代表了。后来，我们又开始习惯了韩国菜、日本菜、泰国菜和越南菜。然而，在这类餐馆，尤其是日本餐馆的数量猛增的同时，中国餐馆在美国的发展却停滞了。美国人发现，中餐馆多年来一直是那老一套一毫无创意的菜品，加上饭店里陈旧的仿宫廷式装潢。

Chinese food in its native land is vastly superior to what’s available here. Where are the great versions of bird’s nest soup from Shandong, or Zhejiang’s beggar’s chicken, or braised Anhui-style pigeon or the crisp eel specialties of Jiangsu? Or what about the tea-flavored dishes from Hangzhou, the cult-inspiring hairy crabs of Shanghai or the fabled honeyed ham from Yunnan?
中餐在它的故多可比在这里要丰富得多。那些著名的山东的燕窝汤、浙江的叫化鸡、安徽的炖乳鸽以及江苏的脆鳝都到哪儿去了呢?还有杭州的茶叶风味特色菜、上海流行的炒毛蟹和云南有名的火腿呢?

Like so many other aspects of Chinese life, the culinary scene in China is thriving. Restaurants have become a place for people to spend their newfound disposable incomes. Cooking methods passed down within families over the centuries have become more widely known as chefs brought the traditions to paying customers. Today, there are a number of regional cuisines known in China as the Eight Great Traditions (Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang cuisines). Unless you’ve visited China, they most likely have never reached your lips.
正如中国生活的其他许多方面一样，中国的餐饮业眼下也十分兴旺发达，餐馆也成了人们常去的消费场所。厨师们各展传统手艺，使得一些家族传承多年的烹饪方法越来越为人们所知。如今中国流行的八大菜系（徽、粤、闽、湘、苏、鲁、川、浙），除非你亲自去趟中国，否则这些菜大部分你是尝不到的。

That’s because the lackluster Cantonese, Hunan and Sichuan restaurants in this country do not resemble those you can find in  China. There is a historic explanation for the abysmal state of Chinese cuisine in the United States. Without access to key ingredients from their homeland, Chinese immigrants working on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey that nobody back in their native land would have recognized. To please the naive palates of 19th-century Americans, immigrant chefs used sweet, rich sauces to coat the food — a radical departure from the spicy, chili-based dishes served back home.
这是因为在美国的所谓广东、湖南或四川饭馆跟中国的是不一样的。中餐在美国的糟糕状态可以从历史上找原因。在19世纪印年代，在美国修建铁路的中国移民工人在缺少家乡原材料的情况下，自创了一些诸如炒面、炒杂烩等美式中国菜，这些菜在中国估计是没人见过的。为了迎合19世纪美国人对中餐的幼稚口味，移民厨师喜欢给菜浇上甜腻旅重的汁——这严重背离了他们家乡以香、辣为基调的做法。

But today, getting ingredients is no longer an issue. Instead, the principal obstacle to improving Chinese fare here is the difficulty of getting visas for skilled workers since 9/11. Michael Tong, head of the Shun Lee restaurant group in New York, has said that opening a major Chinese restaurant in America is next to impossible because it can take years to get a team of chefs from China. Chinese restaurateur Alan Yau planned to open his first New York City restaurant last year but was derailed because he was unable to get visas for his chefs.
现在，要找原材料已经不是难事。美国的中餐难以提高的原因主要是。9-11以后，有经验的厨师经常很难拿到签证。纽约“顺利园”中餐集团的老板Michael Tong说，如今在美国新开一家大的中餐馆简直就不可能，因为要安排一批中国厨师到美国来可能要花好几年的时间。华人餐饮业巨子Alan Yau去年曾计划开他在纽约的第一家中餐馆，但最后因为无法为厨师办到签证而搁浅。
  
If Henry Kissinger could practice “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” perhaps Condoleezza Rice could try her hand at “dumpling diplomacy”? China and the United States should work together on a culinary visa program that makes it easier for Chinese chefs to come here. With more chefs who are schooled in China’s dynamic new restaurant scene, we would see a transformation of the way Chinese food is served in this country.
既然当年基辛格可以开展“乒乓外交”，那赖斯现在是不是也可以试试“饺子外交”?中国和美国应该合作推出一项餐饮业签证计划，这样中国的厨师前往美国就能更容易。有了更多在中国新兴餐饮业中锻炼过的厨师，美国的中餐应该可以得到改观。

[本帖最后由 wz9th 于 2007-6-19 19:38 编辑]