印尼最吓人的美食

The dog's singed carcass lay rigid – jaws locked open, muzzle high, all four legs protruding skywards. Across the market, a butcher bisected another canine corpse, beheaded it and jointed it for sale. Below the table holding the dead body, live cats slunk and mewled, while dogs so scrawny as to be bereft of nutritional value lay curled in a hopeless doze.
一只狗烧焦的尸体僵硬地躺在那儿——开着的口鼻高高向上,四脚朝天。在市场的另一端,一个屠夫肢解了另一条狗的尸体,砍掉了它的头,把身体切成大块出售。在放着那具尸体的桌子下方,一只猫偷偷地走过,喵喵地低泣着。其他还活着的狗都骨瘦如柴,好似失去了任何营养价值,蜷缩在那儿绝望地打着盹。

It was a typically Saturday morning in the Minahasa meat section of Indonesia’s busy Tomohon Market, located in the volcanic highlands of North Sulawesi. Bats, neatly separated from their wings, gaped in a silent, toothy scream; a python spilled its strangely pallid guts; bush rats impaled on sticks lay piled up like kebabs. An iron-heavy, slightly faecal smell filled the air. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts, football shorts and fake Lacoste, blouses, the shoppers looked indistinguishable from any other Indonesian market crowd. But almost all were Minahasa people, famous for their bizarre – yet delicious – cuisine.
这是印度尼西亚最繁忙的托莫洪市场(Tomohon Market)内,米纳哈萨(Minahasa)肉类区的一个典型的星期六早晨。托莫洪市场位于北苏拉威西岛的火山高地。整齐截掉翅膀的蝙蝠张着嘴,露着牙,无声地叫着;一条大蟒蛇苍白的内脏从剖开的腹部暴露出来;老鼠一只只被棍子刺穿身体,像烤肉串一样堆在一起。空气中弥漫有一种淡淡的粪便气味挥之不去。穿着牛仔裤和T恤、运动短裤和仿冒的鳄鱼牌衣服以及上衣的顾客,看起来和印度尼西亚其他市场并无差别,但他们几乎全部是以奇特却又极其美味的食物而闻名米纳哈萨人。

Although they left the forest centuries ago, Minahasa people still eat many of the same meats that their highland forerunners did 6,000 years earlier, including wild boar, snake and bat. “At Easter, there will be monkeys and turtles in the market,” said expedition leader Michael Leitzinger, who runs the nearby Mountain View Resort & Spa. “They eat them for a treat just as we might have turkey for Christmas.”
虽然米纳哈萨人在几世纪之前就离开了森林,但他们吃的肉类,有很多仍旧跟6000年前居住在高地上的祖先吃的一样,包括野熊、蛇和蝙蝠。“在复活节的时候,市场上还会有猴子和乌龟出售,”探索领队迈克尔·赖辛格(Michael Leitzinger)说,他经营着附近的一个高地度假别墅和水疗场所。“他们在请客款待别人的时候会吃这些东西,就像我们可能会在圣诞节的时候吃火鸡一样。”

Today's Minahasa people are overwhelmingly Christian. During the 19th Century, the Dutch colonial government worked to eliminate all forms of Minahasa ritual, from headhunting and sacrifice to multi-family houses and sarcophagus burials. Protestant missionaries pushed Christian doctrine so effectively that in 1857, 10,000 Minahasa converted in a single day.
如今的米纳哈萨人大部分都是基督教徒。19世纪的时候,荷兰的殖民政府取缔了米纳哈萨当地所有形式的祭祀仪式,包括割取首级献祭、多家庭混居以及石棺下葬等。清教传教士如此有效地推动了基督教信条的传播,以致于在1857年有1万的米纳哈萨人在一天之内改信了基督教。

Even with the conversion, though, statues of tonaas – historic leaders with magical powers – are as common as churches in the town of Tomohon. And in the Woloan district just outside of town, cigarettes and cups of cap tikus, a local moonshine distilled from palm sap, rest below a sacred tree near the ruins of an ancient stone sarcophagus. They are offerings to the ancestral spirit that inhabits it.
虽然信仰上经历转变,但是历史上拥有法力的领袖,托那(Tonaa)的塑像在托莫洪镇上仍跟教堂一样普遍。在镇子外的Woloan区,香烟和被称作“老鼠牌”(cap tikus)的烈酒——这种酒是从棕榈树的树液中提炼出来的——被放置在一棵位于古老石棺废墟旁的圣树下,被当作用来献给居于这片土地上的古老神灵的供品。

Blood magic has been banned from the sacred megalith of Watu Pinawetengan on the slopes of the nearby Soputan volcano, apparently because the caretaker objected to cleaning up the gore. But Minahasa black magicians still make animal sacrifices at a secret cave each full moon.
位于索普坦火山(Soputan volcano)附近的斜坡上,有一块名为“Watu Pinawetengan”的神圣巨石,这里禁止使用血腥的魔法,很显然是因为巨石的看管者拒绝清洗遗留在上面的血渍。但是米纳哈萨黑魔法的法师仍在满月的时候在秘密的山洞里用动物来做祭祀品。
“It's usually a white chicken for white magic, but can be black or white for other types of magic,” explained Veronica, a local magician.

Veronica is Catholic, and like almost all Minahasa, has a Christian name, but she sees no contradiction between her faith and her magic practice, believing that saints are just another name for spirits. For her, both magic and the habit of eating ancient forest foods are signs of an unusually resilient culture. “Minahasa culture is a very strong culture,” she said. “No matter how modern the world is, they will stick to the old ways.”

“白魔法一般会使用一只白鸡,但是在用其他种类的魔法时,白色或黑色都行,”当地一位法师维拉妮卡(Veronica)解释道。

维拉妮卡是一名天主教教徒,跟几乎所有的米纳哈萨人一样,用着一个基督教的名字,但是她不认为她的宗教信仰和魔法力量存在冲突。她相信圣人只是神灵的另一个名字。对于维拉尼卡而言,魔法和食用古老森林食物的习惯都是一种非同寻常的、具有持久力的文化的特征。“米纳哈萨文化就是一种生命力很强的文化,”她说。“无论这个世界已变得多么现代化,米纳哈萨人将会一直坚持古老的生活方式。”

And, indeed, strict rules govern the Minahasa menu. “We don't eat dogs from our hometown,” said Adam Pongoh, my Minahasa guide. As such, the dog catchers who round up animals from other towns at night are widely resented elsewhere in Indonesia.

的确,米纳哈撒人吃的东西有严格的规定。我的米纳哈萨导游亚当·邦高(Adam Pongoh)告诉我说:“我们不吃自己镇上的狗。”因此,那些在夜晚从其他镇上捉狗的人在印度尼西亚的其他地方受到了普遍的憎恨。

When Pongoh's father, Junus, started selling spices at the Tomohon Market more than 35 years ago, both the endangered tarsier (a tiny, bug-eyed primate) and the endangered kuskus (a nocturnal marsupial that's unique to the Sulawesi region) were regularly on sale. Following a government clampdown a few years back, it's mercifully hard to find threatened species nowadays.

当邦高的父亲尤努斯(Junus)在35年前开始在托莫洪市场卖香料的时候,濒临灭绝的眼镜猴(一种小型的大眼灵长类动物)和斑袋貂(苏拉威西地区独有的一种夜间行动的有袋类动物)在当时仍在出售。之后政府打压了对这些动物的售卖行为,使得在今天要找到濒危动物非常之难。

Most exotic meats in the Tomohon Market are delicacies to be cooked at home as a special treat rather than served in restaurants. Python, Pongoh said, was becoming increasingly rare: “It tastes like chicken, and we use the same spices, but chicken is half the price.”

托莫洪市场上绝大多数的奇特肉类都是买回家作为特别料理的美食,而不是餐厅的菜。邦高说蟒蛇肉正在变得越来越稀有:“它吃起来像鸡肉,我们使用料理鸡肉相同的辛香料,但是鸡肉的价格要便宜一半。”

来源:BBC

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