英文什锦菜 ： I Lost My Appetite Because of Covid

 I Lost My Appetite Because of Covid. This Sichuan Flavor Brought It Back.

 

By Tejal Rao

Jan. 20, 2021

新冠毁食欲         麻辣来雄起

-----新冠败胃奈之何？  唯有川味！

【美】德金·饶 （译音）           摘译自《纽约时报》

When I got sick and lost my sense of smell — a common neurological symptom of Covid-19 — the foods I loved became muddled and ugly. My brain was incapable of interpreting the delicious information floating around me, unable to detect, let alone identify, any of the aromas I took in through my nose. Without smells to guide me, my sense of taste faded and food flattened out, going gray and muted, dull and lifeless. Cheese became rubber and paste. Popcorn turned into thorny foam. The bland squish of a roast-chicken breast made me recoil. My appetite dwindled, until I was brought back to the pure pleasures of eating by a classic Sichuan flavor: mala.

罹患新冠后，典型神经系统症状使我丧失了嗅觉——爱吃的东西吃起来变了样，不堪入口。我的大脑已经无法解读周围弥漫的美味信息，闻不到，更别说识别出扑鼻而来的任何一种香味。气味一失，味觉则弱，美食成了果腹之物，全无色香味形  可言。奶酪入口像橡胶加浆糊。爆米花吃起来像粗糙的发泡泡沫。烤鸡胸肉嚼起来如同嚼蜡，令我反胃。眼看胃口日减，一款经典川味却让我重新享受到用餐的乐趣-------这就是麻辣。

The word translates to numbing (ma) and spicy (la), and it’s a result of a partnership between Sichuan peppercorns and chiles. “Flavorwise, it’s so intriguing,” said Jing Gao, who was born in Chengdu and now owns the Chinese food company Fly by Jing, which specializes in Sichuan ingredients like chile crisp and dried peppers. Mala is just one of many flavors in Sichuan cuisine, but it’s immensely popular, in part because it’s unlike any other. “That’s because there’s a texture to the flavor,” she said.

 

 

 

 

麻辣即麻木（麻）加辛辣（辣），系川椒和干辣椒相结合的产物。高金（译音）告诉我：“麻辣风味着实妙不可言”，高生于成都，是“金飞”中餐食材公司的老板，主营干辣椒和花椒等川菜食材。麻辣仅是川菜诸多味道中的一种，却大行其道，部分原因是其味道独一无二。高告诉我：“这是因为麻辣有质感。”

You experience that texture as a buzzing current through your mouth and lips，, thanks to a molecule called hydroxy-alpha sanshool found in Sichuan peppercorns。 The pepper has plenty of flavor, too. The writer Fuchsia Dunlop compares peppercorn plants to vines grown to make wine grapes — capable of producing fruit that’s deeply expressive of its terroir. 

花椒含一种物质，称为山椒素，因而麻辣会带来一种口唇嗤嗤过电的质感，辣椒吃起来也是劲道十足。作家扶霞·邓洛普将结花椒的灌木比作结酿酒葡萄的蔓藤——其果实都是生长环境的真实写照。

Mala has become so popular that it has been commercialized and exported to huge success — not just through mala hot-pot restaurants, which continue to open all over China and beyond, but in packaged mala-flavored snacks like potato chips, nuts, soup packets and jerky. “You can mala anything,” said Jason Wang, turning the flavor into a verb. Wang’s chain of New York restaurants, Xi’an Famous Foods, specializes in the foods of Xi’an, but in a new cookbook named after his restaurants, he includes a mala beef dish finished with a slip of chile oil.

If Wang is right, and you can mala anything, his simple recipe is a gift, and a way to keep my appetite up while I’m still recovering — however long that might take.

如今麻辣大行其道，麻辣火锅店不断在中国遍地开花，且飘洋过海，加上麻辣薯片，麻辣坚果，麻辣汤包，乃至麻辣肉干这类袋装麻辣小吃的加持，麻辣已经在商业化和向外拓展方面获得巨大成功。杰森·王把“麻辣”当动词用，说：“无所不能麻辣”。王在纽约经营一家连锁餐馆，称为“西安名吃”，主打西安菜，王最近推出一部以自己餐馆命名的菜谱，其中竟包括了一款泼红油的麻辣牛肉。

照王的说法，则无不可麻辣，王的烹调方法简单却乃天赐我也，新冠康复期再长，麻辣都能随时让我胃口常开。