The Gifts She Gave
伟大的朱丽叶·查尔德食谱指引我们前进

WHEN aspiring young food writers ask how I learned the trade — Was culinary school the first step? A journalism degree? Apprenticeship in a three-star kitchen in France? — I brace myself to disappoint them. I didn’t do any of those (extremely practical and admirable) things.

每当踌躇满志的年轻美食作家问我是怎么学会这门手艺的——第一步是上烹饪学校吗？新闻专业毕业的吗？在法国的米其林三星餐厅当过学徒吗？——我的回答一定让她们很失望。上面这些（特别实用而值得钦佩的）事情，我都没做过。

“The thing is,” I begin, “I was named after Julia Child.”

“关键是，”我是这样开头的：“我这名字就是根据朱丽叶·查尔德(Julia Child)起的。”

地中海风味的番茄酱，旁边是朱丽叶·查尔德的食谱书《掌握法式烹饪的艺术》。

Child was born 100 years ago Wednesday, and without her, the phrase “aspiring food writer” would probably have never been uttered in the United States. Being named for her was certainly a nudge in the direction of food, but I didn’t grow up with a silver spoonful of chocolate mousse in my mouth. I simply watched my parents make dinner (sometimes beef bourguignon, more often burgers) and absorbed their notion that food was interesting and entertaining, not just fuel.

本周三（本文最初发表于上周，此处意为上周三——编注）是查尔德的100周年诞辰。如果没有她，“踌躇满志的美食作家”这个说法可能永远都不会出现在美国人的语言中。以她命名当然对于我走上跟美食相关的职业有推动作用，但我的成长环境并没有让我接触到那么多美食。我只是看过我的父母做菜（有时候是勃艮第牛肉，更多的时候是汉堡包），接受了他们对食物的看法：食物不只是用来填饱肚子的，它是有趣而令人愉快的。

This didn’t happen in many New York families in the 1970s. Parents who did cook served meals of “wheatloaf” and carob cake; those who didn’t were busy raising their consciousnesses while the children ordered in Chinese food.

这种情况在上世纪70年代的纽约家庭并不常见。那些做饭的父母也只不过会做些“大块的长方形全麦面包”和角豆蛋糕；那些不做饭的父母忙着提升精神层次，孩子们只能叫中餐外卖。

Today, the “family dinner” (preferably home cooked, from responsibly sourced ingredients) is widely considered a necessity, and even toddlers have favorite chefs.

如今，大家普遍认为有必要做“家庭餐”（最好是在家制作，配料来源可靠），连蹒跚学步的婴儿都有自己最喜欢的大厨（意指给婴儿做饭的母亲或父亲——译注）。 

It was Child — not single-handedly, but close — who started the public conversation about cooking in America that has shaped our cuisine and culture ever since. Her “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was published in 1961, just as trends including feminism, food technology and fast food seemed ready to wipe out home cooking. But with her energy, intelligence and nearly deranged enthusiasm, Child turned that tide.

正是查尔德——差不多可以说是凭她一己之力——开启了公众关于美式烹饪的大讨论，从而形成了我们今天的烹饪方法和饮食文化。她著作的《掌握法式烹饪的艺术》(Mastering the Art of French Cooking)一书出版于1961年。当时，女权主义、食品科技和快餐这三股潮流好像正合力要摧垮家庭烹饪。但是凭着她的活力、智慧和近乎疯狂的热情，查尔德扭转了潮流。

Today, in an age of round-the-clock food television and three-ingredient recipes, her book strikes many cooks the way it does the writer Lisa Birnbach, who told me: “Here’s the thing about Julia Child and me. While she has been a figure in my life for a long time, I have never actually used her cookbook.”

如今，有24小时播放的美食频道，还有仅需3样配料的菜谱，很多人对她的书的看法跟作家丽莎·比恩巴赫(Lisa Birnbach)一样。丽莎这样跟我说：“朱丽叶·查尔德对我来说是这样的：虽然很久以来她都是我生命中的偶像，但是我从来没有真正按照她的烹饪书上说的去做菜。”

Indeed, it can be daunting. Not only are many recipes long and detailed, but they often call for ingredients that are no longer easy to find, like ground thyme and frying chickens, and equipment like ramekins and asbestos mats. Her insistence that tomatoes be peeled, chickens trussed and eggs beaten with a fork, not a whisk (all elements of the professional training she imbibed) now seems needlessly persnickety.

按照她的烹饪书做菜真的让人望而生畏，不仅是因为很多菜谱又长又烦琐，而且因为其中提到的许多配料和用具现在很难找到，比如磨出来的百里香和煎鸡肉，小模子和石棉垫。她坚决要求西红柿要去皮，鸡在烹饪的时候要用绳子捆起来，鸡蛋要用叉子而不是搅拌器打散。所有这些她接受的专业培训，现在看起来都过于挑剔。

But in its fundamental qualities, the book and its many successors in the Child canon aren’t dated at all. Their recipes remain perfectly written and rock-solid reliable. And many home cooks, including me, have a Julia Child recipe or two that will always be a part of their repertory. They are recipes that, unlike her cassoulet, come together in minutes, not days.

但是就其基本的品质而言，这本书以及后来很多按照查尔德的标准写作的烹饪书，并没有完全过时。里面的菜谱仍然是完美而且绝对值得信赖的。很多在家做饭的人，包括我，擅长做的菜里面都有一两样来自朱丽叶·查尔德的菜谱。当然这一两样菜都是那种可以在几分钟内做好的菜，而不是那种需要花几天时间做的菜，比如豆焖肉。

These are not the showpieces you make once in a lifetime (and talk about forever) like her coq au vin or pâté en croute. They are under-the-radar basics, like the tomato sauce with Provençal notes of orange peel and coriander seeds that my family makes every September, when bushels of overripe plum tomatoes arrive at local farm stands. Do we peel and seed the tomatoes? No. Do we have cheesecloth on hand for wrapping the herb bouquet? Sometimes. But is it always Julia Child’s recipe, and a great one? Absolutely.

这不是那种你一辈子只做一次（但是会炫耀一辈子的）的用来卖弄的菜，比如查尔德的酒闷仔鸡或者馅饼，而是那种不起眼的家常菜，比如含有普罗旺斯橘皮和芫荽籽的番茄酱。我家里每年9月份都会做这种酱，因为那时候当地农场的摊位上到处都是熟透了的李子形番茄。我们给番茄去皮去籽吗？从来不。裹草本香料卷的时候，手上涂一层乳酪吗？有时候这样做。但不管怎样，它都是查尔德的菜谱。好吃吗？绝对好吃。 

Alpana Singh, a sommelier in Chicago, often makes clafoutis from the master recipe on Page 655.

阿帕娜·辛格(Alpana Singh)是一名芝加哥的酒侍，她经常做克拉芙缇(clafoutis)蛋糕，它在这本大师菜谱的第655页。

“You’re just making a batter and pouring it over some gorgeous seasonal fruit,” she said. “I love it because it’s like a Dutch baby pancake, but it’s somehow an elegant dessert, and it’s not too sweet.”

 “就是做一个鸡蛋牛奶面糊，然后倒在当季的新鲜水果上面，”她说。“我很喜欢这款蛋糕，就像荷兰宝宝薄饼(Dutch baby pancake)，但是它显得优雅，而且不会太甜。”

The notion that Child’s fundamental recipes have lost their relevance makes some cooks downright indignant.

那些认为查尔德的基础菜谱已经没有实用性的看法，让一些厨师义愤填膺。

“I don’t see how there could be an easier recipe,” said Reges Linders, a home cook in Arlington, Mass., referring to the book’s classic gratin dauphinois. And indeed, after rubbing the baking dish with garlic and slicing the potatoes 1/8-inch thick, there isn’t much more to be done except pour in milk, cheese and a half-stick of butter.

“我觉得她的菜谱够简单的了，”来自马萨诸塞州阿林顿的瑞吉·林德斯(Reges Linders)在提到书中经典的奶油烤土豆的时候，这样说。确实如此，用蒜把烤盘擦一遍，把土豆切成1/8英寸的薄片，之后就没有太多要做的了，只需要倒入牛奶、奶酪和半条黄油。

What of the many modern cooks who recoil from recipes with carbohydrates and butterfat? Well, Ms. Linders countered, she still uses Child’s marinade seche for grilled pork tenderloin: “really just a dry rub, but so good; it’s the allspice that really makes it” and “her braised leeks make a great side dish for almost anything.”

很多现代厨师看到有碳水化合物和乳脂的菜谱就望而却步，你怎么看待这种情况呢？嗯，林德斯女士回答说，她做烤猪腰的时候还是会用查尔德提到的干腌调味粉：“加一点味道好极了，甜胡椒起到了提味的作用”，还说“炖韭菜真是最好的配菜，跟什么都配”。

“Mastering the Art of French Cooking” was an odd beast from the beginning, an attempt to forge a mind-meld between professional French chefs and untrained American housewives, many of them content with the era’s convenience foods like frank-and-bean casseroles and Tang.

《掌握法式烹饪的艺术》一书从一开始就是个怪物。它努力想在专业的法国大厨和没有受过培训的美国家庭主妇之间建立一种思想上的联系，而很多美国主妇满足于新时代的方便食品，比如法兰克福香肠青豆砂锅菜和“果珍”(Tang)饮料。

During the nearly 10 years she worked on it, Child had an absolute conviction — shared by almost no one — that her book would be useful to American cooks. The manuscript was rejected by the original publisher; another house cautiously agreed to take it on, offering a $1,500 advance to be shared with the book’s French co-authors, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck.

在她写作这本书的10年间，查尔德坚信她的书对美国厨师有帮助，虽然几乎没有人认同她的看法。原来的出版社拒绝出版该书；另一家出版社很谨慎地同意出版，但是只给了1500美元的预付款，而且是三位作者一共给了这么多。本书的另外两位作者是法国人——路易斯特·贝尔托勒(Louisette Bertholle)和西蒙·贝克(Simone Beck)。

“They expected it to sell a few thousand copies,” said Bob Spitz, the author of “Dearie,” a new biography of Child.

“出版社以为只能卖几千册，”鲍勃·施皮茨(Bob Spitz)说。他写了一部关于查尔德的新传记，名叫《亲爱的》(Dearie)。

But the review in this newspaper by Craig Claiborne (in the section then known as “Food Family Fashions Furnishings”) was glowing, calling the book “comprehensive, laudable and monumental.” (An accompanying headline raved “Text is Simply Written for Persons Who Enjoy Cuisine.”) And more significantly, Child began her popular programs on public television.

但是克雷格·克莱堡(Craig Claiborne)在本报上发表的一篇书评（发表在当时称为“食物家庭时尚家具”的版块上），热情洋溢地称赞本书“全面、值得称赞、具有纪念意义”。（副标题是“本书写给热爱美食的人”）更重要的是，查尔德开始在公共电视台上主持一个大受欢迎的节目。

“It was going on television in 1963, the same year as the Beatles, that made it possible for her to become a popular icon,” Mr. Spitz said.

“她是在1963年上电视的，跟甲壳虫乐队同一年。那个节目使她成为广受欢迎的偶像，”施皮茨说。

Her books have now sold more than six million copies and inspired cults around certain recipes, made up of cooks who may have nothing else in common. Virginia Willis, a cook and writer in Atlanta, and Scott Anderson, a yoga teacher in the Bay Area, are both devoted to the book’s Reine de Saba, or Queen of Sheba, a dense and nearly flourless chocolate cake that is virtually foolproof and very beautiful, ringed with toasted sliced almonds.

她的书现在已经销售了600万册，其中有些菜谱得到了很多人狂热的追捧，而这些人来自各行各业，除了对这些菜谱的疯狂喜爱再无共同之处。弗吉尼亚·威利斯(Virginia Willis)是亚特兰大的一名厨师和作家，斯科特·安德森(Scott Anderson)是旧金山湾区的一名瑜伽教练；他们都非常喜欢书中的“塞巴皇后”(Queen of Sheba)蛋糕，那是一种很浓的、几乎不含面粉的巧克力蛋糕。这款蛋糕制作起来很简单，又很漂亮，周围有一圈烤杏仁片。

And her French potato salad, made without mayonnaise but with warm potatoes, shallots, herbs and glugs of olive oil, is equally loved by Mary Hubbard, a retired teacher in Texas who said it reminded her of her German grandmother’s recipe, and by Alex Young, the chef at Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Mich.

查尔德的法式土豆沙拉，不含蛋黄酱，但是有热土豆、青葱、草本香料和一大勺橄榄油。玛丽·哈伯德(Mary Hubbard)和艾利克斯·扬(Alex Young)都很喜欢这款沙拉。前者是一位得克萨斯的退休教师，她说这道菜让她想起了她德国外婆的配方；后者是密歇根州安阿伯市“英格曼公路旅馆”的大厨。

Many cooks fall back on her pillowy gougères, super-impressive but fast cheese puffs. One is Ken Oringer, the chef at Clio and other restaurants in Boston, who has pushed for, and just received, permission to erect a bronze statue of Child in the city. She lived in nearby Cambridge from 1963 to 2001, and died in California in 2004.

很多厨师都采用查尔德的奶油酥饼配方。其实这是一款质地柔软的起司泡芙，它制作简单，但是吃完之后，让人难以忘怀。其中一位厨师就是肯恩·奥仑杰(Ken Oringer)，他在波士顿克莱奥(Clio)餐馆和其他一些餐厅做过大厨。他提议在该市竖立一个查尔德的铜像，最近刚刚获得批准。查尔德从1963年至2001年住在附近的剑桥市，2004年死于加利福尼亚。

“She loved bone marrow and truffles and pigs’ trotters, but the gougères are the pure essence of Julia as a chef,” Mr. Oringer said. In other words, the recipe is precise, encouraging and functional.

“她喜欢骨髓、块菌和猪蹄，但是奶油酥饼是她作为大厨的经典之作，”奥仑杰说。换句话说，这个配方精确、有用、鼓舞人心。

The same goes for Child’s no-boil method for hard-cooked eggs.

同样经典的还有查尔德的“不沸腾”煮鸡蛋法。

“One of her favorite things to make for lunch when we were working was SA-LADE NI-ÇOISE!” said Sara Moulton, the chef, breaking into the fluty warble that spawned a thousand parodies. She was Child’s assistant on television and book projects, and said that because of her, she is incapable of taking certain shortcuts in the kitchen.

“我们一起工作的时候，她最爱做的午餐是尼—斯—沙—拉—！”莎拉·莫尔顿(Sara Moulton)模仿查尔德，把菜名断开来说。查尔德在电视上做节目和写作时，莫尔顿是她的助手。她说，受查尔德的影响，她在厨房里根本不会偷工减料。

“I can’t not peel asparagus and broccoli because of her,” Ms. Moulton said. “I feel her looking over my shoulder.”

“受她的影响，我不能忍受不给芦笋和西兰花去皮，”莫尔顿说：“我感觉她在旁边看着我呢。”

Many cooks feel the same. For Judith Norell, a vegetarian and owner of the Silver Moon bakery in Manhattan; for the writer Julie Powell, who spent a year cooking every recipe in the book for the blog that became “Julie & Julia,” the movie; and for the chef Laurent Géroli at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Ky., Child’s famously fussy method for ratatouille — in which the eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes are all diced small, cooked separately — is still the only way.

很多厨师有同样的感受。比如，朱迪思·罗维尔(Judith Norell)，素食者，曼哈顿银月亮面包店(Silver Moon bakery)的店主；朱莉·鲍威尔(Julie Powell)，她为了写博客花了一年的时间把查尔德书上的菜做了个遍，这件事后来拍成了电影《朱莉和朱丽叶》(Julie & Julia)；劳伦·瑞豪利(Laurent Géroli)，肯塔基州路易斯维尔的布朗酒店的大厨，对他来说，查尔德制作炖菜的方法虽然出了名的麻烦，却是唯一正确的方法——茄子、胡瓜和番茄都要切成小小的方块，分开烹饪。

“By going the longer road, she keeps the flavor and texture of all those vegetables robust and intense,” Ms. Powell said.

“她花费更多的工夫，以充分保留每样蔬菜的味道和口感，”鲍威尔说。

Naomi Duguid is a cook, writer and photographer who worked with Child on the cookbook “Baking With Julia” and other projects. She herself never cooks from recipes, she said (and as she spends much of the year in Southeast Asia, cooking from “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” would hardly be practical). But she thinks of Julia Child often: when she makes an omelet, when she needs to improvise and when things go terribly wrong.

内奥米·杜吉德(Naomi Duguid)是一名厨师、作家和摄影师，她和查尔德一起写作了《跟朱丽叶学烘烤》("Baking With Julia")等项目。她说自己从来不按照菜谱做菜（现在她一年大部分时候都是呆在东南亚，按照《掌握法式烹饪艺术》来做菜也不实际）。但是当她做煎蛋卷的时候，当她需要即兴发挥的时候，当她把菜做得一塌糊涂的时候，她都会想起朱丽叶。

And they do, in all kitchens: cakes get stuck, mayonnaises break, chickens catch fire. But Child was unflappable in the face of culinary disaster.

在厨房里总难免碰到这样的事：蛋糕粘到模子上了，蛋黄酱的油质层和水质层分离了，鸡肉烧着了。但是遇到这样的厨房灾难，查尔德总是很镇静。

“It was Julia’s basic course in good conduct: she stayed calm and learned to laugh about mistakes rather than getting angry or frustrated,” Ms. Duguid said. “She was the marvelous opposite of a control freak, and that translates for me every day in the kitchen.”

“保持良好的风度是朱丽叶的基础课程：她总是保持镇静，学会了对错误一笑了之，从不生气或者沮丧，”杜吉德说：“她是控制狂的对立面，在厨房的每一天她都向我证明了这一点。”

来源：好英语网