Summer’s Greatest Vegetable: Corn or Tomato?
夏季最美味蔬菜：番茄还是玉米？

At first you think, no contest. Surely not even tomato’s botanical status as a fruit could disqualify it from the title of Greatest Summer Vegetable. A tomato is summer: gorged with sun, ridiculously voluptuous, drunk on stillness and time.

起初你会想，这没什么可比的。就连番茄在植物学上的水果属性，都动摇不了它“夏季最佳蔬菜”的称号。番茄就是夏天：贪婪地吸收阳光，饱满得出奇，沉醉在宁静和时间之中。

Its heft in the hand is a promise. It has grown fat from a life of leisure; maybe you could, too. Its skin catches the light like a balloon’s. Cut it open, and there’s a sigh. Inside are shadowy crevices, hoards of juice. You half eat, half drink it.

掂在手里的重量就是保证。在悠闲的一生中它变得丰满厚实，或许你也可以这样。它的表皮像气球一样发亮。切开，你会感叹。迂回的裂缝内聚藏着汁水，你得一半吃，一半喝。

But — it feels like sacrilege to confess — I like tomatoes best in winter, whole San Marzanos from Italy in a can, their stores of sunshine breaking down into warm ragù. They bring a memory of brightness to the long dark.

这感觉像是个不敬的坦白——但我最喜欢冬天的番茄，一整罐意大利圣玛扎诺(San Marzanos)番茄。它们贮藏的阳光会渗入温暖的肉酱之中，为漫长的黑夜带来明亮的记忆。

Corn I eat only in summer. I have to wait for it, which makes me want it more. It is a communal waiting, family and friends scanning the farmers’ market and reporting back, “Not yet.” Then the first ears appear, plucked golden from the pot, followed by contemplative crunching and a slight shaking of heads. Not yet.

我只在夏天吃玉米。我必须等待，而等待让我更加渴望。这是一个集体性等待。家人和朋友会巡视一圈农贸市场，再报告一句“时机未到”。然后第一抽玉米穗冒了出来，待到金黄从盆中拔出，沉思着大嚼特嚼之后，轻轻摇头。时机未到。

Patience is required, a surrender to the season. As the days pass, each haul is a little less stiff, a little juicier. And finally there is the corn I dream of all year, tasting of earth and sun as if the two could never be parted. Eating it is an animal business, all hands and teeth, mowing down the kernels row by row.

耐心是需要的，要向季节投降。时间一天天过去，每一次采购回来的都少了一些生硬，多了一些汁水。最终，我等来了盼了一年的玉米，口中泥土和阳光的味道似乎两者永不会分离。吃玉米是一件非常野蛮的事情，双手并用，还要嘴啃，一排一排地收割颗粒。

But there’s more to it than the devouring. One night as I debated with my husband (a tomato partisan), my 9-year-old daughter held up her hand. “Corn,” she said firmly. “Because it’s something you do together.”

但吃玉米不止在于享用。一天晚上，当我在与丈夫（番茄党）争辩时，九岁的女儿举起了手。“玉米，”她坚定地说。“因为这是要一起去做的事。”

I had forgotten the ceremony of shucking, husks falling to the floor like shrugged-off coats, strands of silk everywhere. Ice chimes in glasses, and smoke storms off the grill. No one is in a hurry for dinner, and when it comes, some of the most sophisticated people I know lunge across the table to roll their corn right through the stick of butter.

我都忘了剥玉米皮的仪式。掉在地上的外皮像是扭身脱掉的外套，穗丝满地。冰块在玻璃杯里作响，烟雾在烤架上缭绕。没人着急吃晚餐。而到了吃晚餐的时候，我认识的那些最有修养的人都冲到了餐桌的另一边，直接用玉米在黄油棒上滚过一圈。

It’s summer, and there are no more rules. School’s out. Forever.

现在是夏天，不再有什么规矩。学校放假了。彻底放假了。

来源：纽约时报