（书籍翻译）拜占庭的味道：传奇帝国的美食 （第十六部分）

作者生平：

          安德鲁·达尔比（Andrew Dalby）是一位古典学者、历史学家、语言学家和翻译家，以他关于食物史（尤其是希腊和罗马帝国）的书籍而闻名。 《Siren Feasts》 是安德鲁·达尔比的第一本美食书籍，获得了 Runciman（朗西曼）奖，他的第二本书《dangerous Tastes》在2001年获得了美食作家协会年度美食书籍。他还是《The Classical Cookbook》和《Empire of Pleasures》以及巴克斯和维纳斯的传记的作者。

《Tastes of Byzantium ：The Cuisine of a Legendary Empire》于 2003 年首次出版

ISBN: 978 1 84885 165 8

本书完整的 CIP 记录可从大英图书馆、美国国会图书馆获得

由 Thomson Press India Ltd 在印度印刷和装订 

Monasteries, monks and their food

修道院、修道士和他们的食物

 Throughout its long history Byzantium was a staunchly Christian Empire. The feasts and fasts of the Church were built into its calendar, and these fasts, in their full form, were frequent and austere. In explaining why shellfish were so much seen in the markets of Constantinople, the fifteenth-century traveller Pero Tafur correctly appealed to this religious calendar: 'In certain times of fasting during the year they do not merely confine themselves to fish, but to fish without blood, that is, shellfish' (Pero Tafur, Travels and Voyages). The author of the third Prodromic Poem, apparently of the twelfth century, speaks in the voice of a lowly monk and makes play with the fish and shellfish rules in satirizing the epicurean luxuries that abbots and bishops generously allowed themselves.

      On Wednesdays and Fridays they keep a strict fast: they don't even eat any fish on those days, my lord, but only a bit of bread, and lobsters and nice crabs and stewed crayfish, pan-fried prawns and a few greens and lentils with their oysters and mussels, and clams and razor-shells, your worship, along with the rest: nice broad beans, rice with honey, sprouted black-eyed peas, olives and caviar, and botargo in season to keep them from starvation, sweet little apples and dates, dried figs and green walnuts, and Chios raisins, and some lemon conserve. Of course, they complete their fast-day meal with sweet Ganitic wine, and Cretan, and Samian, to throw off the evil humours with a drink of sweet wine.

      Meanwhile they put before us well-soaked dry beans, and quench our thirst with cumin-water, obedient to the Rule and the precepts of the Fathers. What we eat is nothing but 'holy soup'; notice the clever name. The cooks take a two-handled cauldron, about four gallons, and fill it up with water, and light a good fire underneath, and toss in about twenty onions ... The chef gives it three splashes of oil and tosses in some twigs of savory for flavouring, and pours this soup over our pieces of bread, and gives it to us to eat, and it's called 'holy soup'.

          纵观其悠久的历史，拜占庭是一个坚定的基督教帝国。教会的节期和斋戒被列入到帝国日历中，这些斋戒以其完整的形式，繁琐而严肃。 在解释为什么在君士坦丁堡的市场上能看到如此多的贝类时，15 世纪的旅行家佩罗·塔弗尔正确地诉诸了这个宗教日历：“在一年中的某些禁食时间里，他们不仅将自己限制在捕鱼，而且在没有时间的情况下捕鱼。 血，即贝类”（Pero Tafur, Travels and Voyages）。 显然是 12 世纪的第三首前驱诗的作者用底层僧侣的声音说话，并利用鱼和贝类的规则来讽刺方丈和主教慷慨允许自己享受的享乐主义奢侈品。

          他们在周三和周五严格禁食：那些日子他们甚至不吃任何鱼，大人，只吃一点面包、龙虾、美味的螃蟹和炖小龙虾、煎虾和一些蔬菜和小扁豆和牡蛎、贻贝、蛤蜊，还有其他的：美味的蚕豆、蜂蜜米饭、发芽的黑眼豌豆、橄榄和鱼子酱，以及使它们免于饥饿的时令博塔尔戈，甜甜的小苹果和枣子，干无花果和绿核桃，还有希俄斯葡萄干，还有一些柠檬蜜饯。当然，他们会用甘蒂奇甜酒、克里特岛和萨米安的酒来作他们的快餐，用甜酒来摆脱邪恶的情绪。

          与此同时，他们将浸泡过的干豆放在我们面前，并用孜然水解渴，遵守规则和天父的戒律。 我们吃的不过是“圣汤”； 注意这是一个聪明的说法。 厨师们拿了一个两把的大锅，大约四加仑，装满水，在下面点上一把好火，然后加入大约二十个洋葱……厨师给它洒了三滴油，然后扔进一些调味料，把这汤倒在我们的面包片上，给我们吃，这就叫做“圣汤”。

The 'holy soup', as it would be called in English, might well be taken as a joke-name, since (even if it wasn't quite as thin as is described here) it was largely made of holes. Agiozoumin 'holy soup' is a joke name in Greek too, or so the Prodromic poet wants us to understand: in his third mention of the name he shortens it to the almost homonymous iozoumin 'poison soup'.

         “圣汤”，正如它在英语中所称的那样，很可能被视为一个笑话名称，因为（即使它不像这里描述的那么薄）它主要是由holes组成的。 Agiozoumin“圣汤”在希腊语中也是一个笑话名称，或者说 Prodromic 诗人希望我们理解：在他第三次提到这个名字时，他将其缩短为几乎同名的 iozoumin“毒汤”。

We already knew that bishops had their choice of rich food: we are assured of the fact when we read the reflections with which the earnest bishop of Alexandria, known to later history as St John the Almsgiver, tortured himself. 'How many would like to be filled with the outer leaves of the vegetables which are thrown away from my kitchen? How many would like to dip their bit of bread into the cooking liquor which my cooks throwaway? How many would like even to have a sniff at the wine which is poured out in my wine-cellar? And although we may think the apparently heartfelt complaints of the Prodromic poet slightly exaggerated, the average monk's diet was really exiguous. Not only were meat, fish and shellfish conspicuous by their rarity: the principal constituents of this diet were cereals and pulses and thin, meatless soups. This is clear from several different categories of sources, all the way from monastery documents and rules to saints' lives, memoirs and historical anecdotes. Just read the Life of St Sabas for a view of the charming asceticism that characterized some Byzantine monastery catering.

      It happened that this Jacob was put in charge of the refectory at the Great Lavra, and had to cook food for the hermits when they gathered there for a meeting. He boiled up a large quantity of dried peas. They served for one day, they served for the next, and after that he threw the remainder out of the back door into the ditch. Old Sabas saw this as he looked out of his own hermit tower, and he went down quietly and gathered up the peas, very carefully and cleanly, and dried them out again. In due course he invited Jacob, on his own, to share a meal with him. For the occasion Sabas boiled these same peas, cooking them and seasoning them with all his skill.

      'Forgive me, Brother. I'm afraid I have no skill at cooking,' he said to Jacob. 'You aren't enjoying your meal.'

      'On the contrary, Father,' said Jacob, 'it's very good. It's a long time since I enjoyed a meal so much.'

      'Believe me, Brother,' said Sabas, 'those are the very peas that you threw out of the kitchen into the ditch. One who cannot manage a jar of pulses, the food of his own people, without waste, will certainly not manage a synod. As the Apostle said, If a person cannot manage his own house, will he take good care o/the assemblies of God?' Jacob returned to his own cell, much enlightened.

          我们已经知道主教们可以选择丰富的食物：当我们读到亚历山大的热心主教（后来被称为施舍者圣约翰）自己的反思时，我们确信这一事实。“有多少人愿意用从我厨房扔掉的蔬菜的外叶来填饱肚子？有多少人愿意将他们的面包浸入我的厨师扔掉的烹饪液中？有多少人甚至想闻一闻倒在我酒窖里的酒？尽管我们可能会认为 Prodromic 诗人明显发自内心的抱怨有些夸张，但普通僧侣的饮食确实很少。肉类、鱼类和贝类不仅因其稀有而引人注目：这种饮食的主要成分是谷物和豆类以及稀薄的无肉汤。从寺院文件和规则到圣人的生活、回忆录和历史轶事，从几个不同类别的资料中可以清楚地看到这一点。只需阅读圣萨巴斯的生活，就可以了解一些拜占庭修道院餐饮的禁欲主义。

          碰巧这个雅各布负责大修道院的食堂，当他们聚集在那里开会时，他不得不为隐士做饭。他煮了一大堆干豌豆。隐士们吃了一天，然后他把剩下的从后门扔到沟里。萨巴斯从自己的隐士塔外望去，看到了这一幕，便悄悄下楼，把豌豆收拾起来，非常小心和干净，又晒干了。 在适当的时候，他邀请雅各布独自与他共进晚餐。 萨巴斯在这个场合煮了同样的豌豆，用他所有的技巧烹饪和调味。

          “原谅我，兄弟。 恐怕我不会做饭，”他对雅各布说。 “你不享受你的饭菜。”

          “恰恰相反，父亲，”雅各布说，“非常好。 很久没有这么享受一顿饭了。

          “相信我，兄弟，”萨巴斯说，“这些正是你从厨房里扔到沟里的豌豆。 一个人不能管理一罐豆，他自己的人民的食物，没有浪费，肯定不会管理一个会议。 正如使徒所说，如果一个人不能管理自己的房子，他会照顾好上帝的聚会吗？ 雅各布回到了自己的房间，大受启发。

This was no city monastery but an almost-hermit community in a desert region. The life chosen by true hermits, of which there were many, was if possible even more ascetic. Many were strict vegetarians, as this anecdote shows:

      Theophilus the archbishop summoned some Fathers to Alexandria on one occasion, to pray and to destroy the heathen temples there. As they were eating with him, they were brought some veal for food and they ate it without realizing what it was. The bishop, taking a piece of meat, offered it to the old man beside him, saying, 'Here is a nice piece of meat, abba, eat it.' But he replied, 'Till this moment, we believed we were eating vegetables. If it is meat, we do not eat it.' None of them would taste any more of the meat which was brought.

          这不是城市修道院，而是沙漠地区的一个几乎全是隐士的社区。由真正的隐士所选择的生活，其中有很多，如果可能的话，他们的修行甚至更加辛苦。许多人是严格的素食者，正如这则轶事所示：

          有一次，大主教西奥菲勒斯召集了一些神父到亚历山大港祈祷并摧毁了那里的异教神庙。 当他们和他一起吃饭时，他们拿来了一些小牛肉作为食物，吃了它却没有意识到它是什么。 主教拿起一块肉，递给身边的老人，说：“这是一块好肉，阿爸，吃吧。” 但他回答说，“直到这一刻，我们还以为我们在吃蔬菜。 如果是肉，我们就不吃。他们谁都不会再尝那带来的肉了。

Even ex-emperors, it would appear, were subject to the same disciplines. The emperor Romanus Lecapenus, on being deposed by his sons Stephan us and Constantine, was forced to take the tonsure and retire to a monastery. Shortly afterwards, exactly the same fate befell these sons: they themselves were exiled to the same monastery. They were greeted by their amused father, so the story went, and congratulated on the gourmet food they were soon to enjoy. ‘Here is boiled water for you, colder than Gothic snows; here are sweet broad beans, greens and fresh leeks. It is not luxury seafood that will make you ill, but our regime of frequent fasts!’ Can we believe this legend, repeated for us by a Western visitor? At any rate there is nothing unlikely in it. In the following century - in 1081 - the emperor Nicephorus Botaneiates was also forced to become a monk. It was afterwards said in the royal family that 'when asked by one of his fellow monks if he found the change easy to bear, he said, "I hate not eating meat. Nothing else troubles me very much”, (Anna Comnena, Alexiad 3.I.I). Once more, our fullest information about the monastery menu comes from the Prodromic Poems - and once more the contrast is drawn between the abbots' diet and that of the humble monks.

      They munch angler-fish, we have our Lent Soup. They drink their Chian till they can take no more, we have Varna wine cut with water. They have their sweet wine after their jugfuls, we have some nice water after our one-course meal. They have white bread, we have bran bread. They have a mousse after their sesame sweetmeat; we have wheat gruel with the wheat filtered out. They have second helpings of fritters with honey ... They have spoon sweets, we get castor oil seeds ... They have the bass and the shining grey mullet, we have the smoky-smelling Lent Soup. They have the bluefish, the catfish, the brill; we have another go at our What do you call it?

          看来，即使是前皇帝也受到同样的纪律约束。皇帝罗曼努斯·勒卡佩努斯（Romanus Lecapenus）在被他的儿子斯蒂芬·乌斯和君士坦丁废黜后，被迫剃光并退养到修道院。不久之后，完全相同的命运降临在这些儿子身上：他们自己也被流放到了同一个修道院。他们受到了父亲的欢迎，故事就这样开始了，并祝贺他们很快就可以享用美食了。“这是给你的开水，比哥特式的雪还冷；这里有甜蚕豆、青菜和新鲜韭菜。让你生病的不是豪华海鲜，而是我们经常禁食的制度！我们能相信这个西方游客为我们重复的传说吗？无论如何，其中没有什么不可能的。在接下来的一个世纪 - 1081 年 - Nicephorus Botaneiates 皇帝也被迫成为一名僧侣。后来在王室中说，“当他的一位僧侣问他是否觉得改变容易忍受时，他说，“我讨厌不吃肉。没有什么让我很困扰”，（安娜康奈娜，Alexiad 3.II)。 再者，我们关于修道院菜单的最完整信息来自 Prodromic Poems - 再次对比了方丈的饮食和卑微的僧侣的饮食。

          他们咀嚼琵琶鱼，我们有四旬斋汤。 他们喝他们的 Chian 直到他们不能再喝了，我们有用水勾兑瓦尔纳酒。他们用小壶喝甜酒，我们在一顿饭之后喝了一些好水。他们有白面包，我们有麸皮面包。他们在芝麻甜食之后有慕斯；我们有过滤掉小麦的小麦粥。他们有第二份蜂蜜炸团……他们有勺子糖果，我们有蓖麻油种子……他们有鲈鱼和闪亮的灰鲻鱼，我们有烟熏味的四旬斋汤。他们有蓝鱼、鲶鱼、鲶鱼；we have another go at our What do you call it? （说实话，这句不知道该怎么翻译才合适）

未完待续！