The humblest paella beloved by chefs
品尝令人惊艳的西班牙海鲜饭
Josefa Navarro was hunched over a large stove in the long, narrow kitchen of her restaurant, Paco Gandia, stirring a murky broth of rabbit and snails in a large paellera. The shallow pan was balanced on a small, blackened frame that overhung a bundle of fiercely burning kindling. It was hot, 80C, but Navarro wasn’t sweating. The fire spat and recoiled, but she was patient and serene against the wild gesticulations of the blaze. Experience has taught her to be this way.
在 Paco Gandia 餐厅那个又长又窄的厨房里，大厨何塞法·纳瓦罗（Josefa Navarro）弯腰站在一个巨大的火炉前。她正在搅动着一大平锅的黑乎乎的肉汤，里面有着兔子肉和蜗牛肉。这一平锅被平放于一个小型的黑色架子上，这一架子之下则是团团烈火。这里的温度很高，达到了80摄氏度，但是纳瓦罗并没有流汗。火焰吐露着它的火舌，一弹一回。对比火焰的骚动，纳瓦罗始终保持着耐心，永远是一副平静的模样。这一平静来自于其丰富的经验。
Navarro has stood in this spot almost every day for 30 years. Each day she dresses in the same immaculate chef's whites that hang off her slender frame, and ties her auburn hair in the same tight ponytail. Each day smells like burnt wood and tastes like bitter saffron, and each day she makes the same paella from the same recipe for customers who have been visiting her for years. And it has to be this way; consistency makes her paella one of the best in Spain.
纳瓦罗在过去的30年里几乎天天都要站在这同一个地方。每天她都要穿上同一件干净洁白的厨师服，将其苗条的身材掩于厨师服之下，并将她那赤褐色的长发扎成紧紧的一条马尾。每一天纳瓦罗都要同木头燃烧的气味和藏红花的刺激味道打交道。她每一天都会用同样的配方为她的顾客做出同样的海鲜饭，这些顾客都是她的常年客了。也正是因为这种对专一配方的坚持，才使得纳瓦罗的平底锅饭成为西班牙最负盛名的美食之一。
"The hardest thing about cooking a paella is making sure it always tastes like the one before," Navarro said. "My customers come here because they want a paella that tastes like forever."
“烹制平锅盖饭最困难的一点就是你得确保这次做出的能保持跟之前一模一样的味道，”纳瓦罗说，“我的客人们来到我的餐厅就是因为他们想尝一尝这一永恒不变的美味。”
Her customers are some the best chefs in the world. Ferran Adria, of El Bulli fame, and Joel Robuchon, the most Michelin-starred chef in the world, have both declared Navarro's paella the best they have ever eaten. They appreciate its simplicity and marvel at its consistency. Indeed, in the age of frozen paellas in tourist-clogged cities, Paco Gandia has become a site of pilgrimage for serious gourmands searching for an authentic version of Spain's most symbolic dish.
纳瓦罗的客人中间有一些是享誉世界的名厨。Ferran Adria 是著名的西班牙餐厅斗牛犬餐厅的大厨，Joel Robuchon 则是世界上米其林星级最高的大厨。他们俩都称纳瓦罗的海鲜饭是他们至今吃过的最美味的海鲜饭。他们赞赏纳瓦罗海鲜饭的简单以及惊讶于其对原始风味的坚持。的确，在如今游人如织的城市里，海鲜饭大多已采取冷冻的方式保存。而 Paco Gandia 则成为了虔诚的美食家们寻找最真实的西班牙标准美食的朝圣之地。
It all began by accident in the village of Pinoso, where Navarro set up the small restaurant with her husband in 1985. She admitted that back then she had no desire to cook paella for a living, nor to be a chef of any kind. She knew how to cook because her mother had taught her, but it was not something of which she was excessively fond. Nevertheless, recently married and with lack of a better alternative in Alicante’s dusty interior, the pair decided to turn her skill into a business. It was, Navarro confessed, an uninspired decision that led to a life's work.
这一切都源于Pinoso村庄里的一次偶然。纳瓦罗于1985年同丈夫一块儿在那里开了一家小餐馆。她承认那时候她完全没有想通过烹制海鲜饭来谋生，也没想过要成为什么大厨。她的厨艺是母亲教给她的，但那时烹饪并不是她的兴趣所在。之后，由于觉得在阿里坎特（Alicante）已经找不到其他更好的工作，纳瓦罗夫妇决定将这一烹饪技艺发展成一门商业。纳瓦罗也承认到这只是一个非常平凡的决定，而这一决定造就了她今后一生的事业。
Before she opened her doors she decided she would not deviate from the techniques that her mother had taught her as a teenager – techniques that had been used by local families for decades. Like her mother, Navarro cooks the paella over a burning pyre of sticks cut from local grapevines called sarmiento; she uses only local products; and, most importantly, she employs few ingredients and extracts the maximum flavour from them.
在纳瓦罗开张之前，她就做好决定不会脱离母亲在她还是个青少年的时候教给她的烹饪技巧——这些技巧已经被当地的家庭使用了好几十年了。同其母亲一样，纳瓦罗是将海鲜饭放置于一堆燃烧的柴堆上进行烹制，柴堆里的燃烧物取自于当地的葡萄藤，西班牙语叫做“Sarmiento”。纳瓦罗只使用当地的食材，而且最为重要的是，她只会使用很少量的原料，但会将这原料的味道发挥到极致。
Navarro has always been conscious of recreating the traditions and flavours of the region. She was never tempted to adopt the practices of Spain’s most famous rice culture in neighbouring Valencia, where rice was first introduced by the Moors in the 8th Century and paella invented in the mid-19th Century. Indeed, unlike the Valencians, who often pack their paellas full of myriad ingredients, from vegetables to seafood, Navarro’s recipes are more austere, reflective of the aridity of the region. It is little surprise then, that Paco Gandia offers only three paellas: one with vegetables, one with rabbit and one with both snails and rabbit.
纳瓦罗一直有着再创传统和再现该地区风味的想法。她从未受到动摇去接受邻市巴伦西亚（Valencia）那全西班牙最为著名的米饭文化。米饭最初于公元八世纪的时候由摩尔人引入巴伦西亚，之后于十九世纪中叶在该地诞生了海鲜饭。Navarro的海鲜饭的确与巴伦西亚的海鲜饭不同。巴伦西亚人经常会给海鲜饭添加无数的配料，包括蔬菜和海鲜。而纳瓦罗的配料则十分简朴，这也是当地干旱气候的一个反映。令人稍有吃惊的是，Paco Gandia 的菜单上只提供三种海鲜饭：蔬菜海鲜饭、兔肉海鲜饭以及兔肉、蜗牛肉海鲜饭。
"If you put too many things on your menu," Navarro said, "you end up spreading yourself too thin – being good at a lot, but not excellent at anything."
“如果你往你的菜单上摆上过多的东西，”纳瓦罗说，“你就会陷入这样一种局面：能够做好很多东西，但没有一项是拿手的。”
Unlike the techniques she uses, her cooking routine is very much her own. "In the kitchen, there is only me and my relationship with the paella," she said. Her day starts early, at 5:30 am. Firstly, she fries the rabbit, which she buys direct from a local slaughterhouse, and cleans the snails, which she picks from the rosemary bushes that populate the nearby hills. She then places the cut-up meat and the molluscs in large, brown ceramic pots. She adds water and begins to make a rich broth.
不同于其使用的烹饪技巧，纳瓦罗的烹饪日程安排则有其自己的特点。“在厨房里，存在的只有我和我同海鲜饭之间的联系，”她如是说。纳瓦罗的一天开始于早上的五点半。首先，她会先把兔子肉进行油炸，兔子肉都是直接从当地的一家屠宰场买来的。然后再清洗蜗牛，这些蜗牛都是纳瓦罗从附近小山上的迷迭香花丛中挑拣来的。她接着就会将切好的肉以及软体动物放入一个棕色的大陶壶。往里面加水后就开始烹制浓郁的肉汤了。
When the first orders come to the kitchen, around 2 pm, she lights the mini-pyre of dried grapevines and places the pan – the size of which depends on the number of the guests – on its stand. The sarmiento lights quickly, and when the flames are sufficiently fierce, she adds the broth of rabbit and snails to the paellera. After three minutes, when the liquid starts boiling, she pours in the rice. She uses senia or bahia rice, two Spanish grains that Navarro believes are the most difficult to cook.
第一批订单大概会在下午两点的时候到来。纳瓦罗这时就会把由干燥的葡萄藤做成的小柴堆点上火，然后放上平底锅——这个锅的大小取决于客人的数量。柴堆燃烧得会非常快，当火焰足够大的时候，她就把兔肉和蜗牛肉肉汤倒入平锅中。三分钟之后，当肉汤煮开时，就会倒入米饭。纳瓦罗会用senia大米或bahia大米，她相信这两种西班牙大米是最难以烹制的。
"With this type of rice, there is a very short period in which it gives its best flavour and bite," she said. "It is very easy to ruin, unlike the more common bomba rice used in Valencian paellas, but it goes better with this paella."
“用这种大米的话，其保持最佳口味和口感的时间较短，”纳瓦罗说，“味道很容易就被破坏了，这不像巴伦西亚海鲜饭常用的bomba大米，但是这种大米更适合我做的海鲜饭。”
Navarro then adds salt and three pinches of high-quality saffron, which turns the rice yellow and gives it its hay-like taste, and manipulates the stack of kindling underneath the paellera. She pulls it back and forth, adjusting the ferocity of the fire so that the flames spill over into the pan. "This way the rice picks up a hint of smokiness," she explained. Finally, she stirs the rice into the thickening stock; a technique frowned upon by most paella chefs, who leave the rice to rest.
纳瓦罗接着往里头加盐和三小捏高质量的藏红花，藏红花会让米饭变成黄色并使其具有干草的味道。纳瓦罗调整了一下平底锅下面的火候，并不停地将平底锅前后挪动，调整火力从而让火焰能够直接跳入平底锅中。“通过这种方式是想让米饭能够有稍许的烧焦，”纳瓦罗解释说。最后，她将米饭搅拌进了浓汤，这一方法为大部分的海鲜饭大厨所不解，他们通常的做法是将米饭先放置在一边。
After about 20 minutes, the liquid has reduced and the rice sticks flat to the pan. Navarro doesn't have to taste it to know it's done. She plucks the pan out of the fire and leaves it to rest.
大约二十分钟之后，锅里的汤汁减少了些，米饭也平整地贴着锅底。纳瓦罗不需要通过品尝来知道海鲜饭有没有熟。她将锅从火上拿开，将其先摆在一边。
She repeats this process between 10 and 15 times a day, so that by the end of the lunch service, at around 5 pm, she has been in the kitchen for 11.5 hours. "That's the reason that we are only open for lunch," she confessed. "I leave the kitchen exhausted."
她每天会重复这一制作过程十到十五次，所以每当到午餐供应结束时，大约下午五点左右，纳瓦罗在厨房总共已经待了十一个半小时了。“这也是为什么我们的餐厅只有在中午开张，只供应午餐，”她承认到，“每次我离开厨房的时候，整个人都是精疲力尽的。”
Nevertheless, it is a period that usually flows without incident, without fuss and – except for the crackle of burning wood and scrapping of the iron pan – without noise. It is a routine in which she squeezes use out of every second, and with which she believes she has reached her maximum potential.
然而，这一过程的进行当中没有任何意外，没有任何的忙乱和噪音——除了燃烧的木头的爆裂声和钢铁锅的碰撞声。在这一过程中，纳瓦罗充分利用好每一秒的时间，她相信在这短短的时间里她能够发挥出她的最大潜能。
"I think that after all these years, I am making the best paella that I could make," she said. "My personal perfection has been reached."
“我认为在这么多年之后，我现在在做我能做到的最好的海鲜饭，那么我的自我完善就算是达成了。”纳瓦罗说。
Navarro, although grateful, tries not to get carried away with her mounting accolades. Her job has never been about glamour. She does not speak in the same romantic terms as the critics that praise her food, nor does she pretend to be one of the modern chefs that are elevating food to the realm of art. For her, making rice is just a job: sometimes she doesn't mind it, sometimes she hates it.
纳瓦罗虽然心怀感恩，但并没有因为越来越多的赞美而有所改变。她的工作从来都不是富有魅力的。她不会像美食评论家那样用充满浪漫主义色彩的词汇去赞美她的料理，也不会试图去成为一个将食物上升为一种艺术的现代大厨。对于她来说，烹制海鲜饭只是一个工作：有时她一点都不在乎，有时也会讨厌它。
"I don't even eat paella anymore," she said sheepishly, "I've had too much of it in my life."
“我甚至再也不吃海鲜饭了，”纳瓦罗充满倦意地说道，“我一生当中吃过的海鲜饭够多了。”
Navarro is a humble chef. She takes pride in satisfying her clients and is proud of her reputation. Beyond that, she is not sure what to say, except that when she returns to her stove tomorrow, she hopes the paella will taste the same as it did today.
纳瓦罗是一位谦虚的大厨。她以满足客人的需求以及所获得的名声为荣。此外，她不确定到底该说些什么。她除了能确定明天什么时候该回到她的炉子前，她还希望之后的海鲜饭还能够拥有跟今天一样的味道。
来源：好英语网
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