外刊听读| 经济学人 老干妈风靡世界

World in a dish

食界

Some like it hot

有些人喜欢辣的

The rise of chilli crisp is a case study in how foods become fads

辣椒酥的兴起是食品如何成为时尚的一个案例研究

 

FOR SOME, cooking during lockdowns was a chance to try out the kind of time-consuming, intricate food preparation that the rush of ordinary life makes impossible. Endless loaves of sourdough were produced, along with bubbling kombucha. For others, it was an experience of drudgery. Making three meals a day, especially if your diners included small children, was tedium defined—an endless loop of eggs and beans and eggs and toast and beans and toast and eggs.

 

对一些人来说，在疫情封锁期间可以尝试制作耗时和复杂的食物，这在匆忙的日常生活不可能做到。在平时只有无穷无尽的发面面包和冒泡的红茶菌。对其他人来说，这是一场苦差事。一日三餐，尤其是当你的食客中有小孩时，饮食将变得单调乏味——陷入鸡蛋配豆子、鸡蛋配烤面包、豆子配烤面包和鸡蛋的无尽循环。

 

Enter condiments. They satisfied both tribes. For the enthusiasts, it was a chance to make the dips and drizzles usually provided by the local deli. For the weary, a jar of something spicy or sour was an easy way to enliven the umpteenth cheese toastie. Chilli crisp—a glowing red oil, heady with chilli and heavy with crisp fragments of garlic and shallots as well as fermented black beans and sesame— became the sauce of the moment. The place it has secured in many fridge doors since then hints at how foods become fashionable.

 

调味品满足了两种人。对于烹饪爱好者来说，这是一个制作通常由当地熟食店提供的蘸酱的机会。对于厌倦烹饪的人来说，一罐辛辣或酸的东西是为无数奶酪吐司注入活力的简单方法。辣椒酥——一种发光的红油，辣椒味浓郁，富含大蒜和脆葱片以及发酵的黑豆和芝麻——成为了当下流行的酱料。从那以后，它出现在许多冰箱门上，这暗示了食物是如何成为一种时尚。

 

People in China may have been bemused by the revelatory joy with which those in countries such as America seized on chilli crisp. They have been eating varieties of the stuff for centuries. Lao Gan Ma, made in the south-western province of Guizhou, is the most famous brand. Its founder, Tao Huabi, started selling noodles coated with the sauce in 1989, setting up a factory a few years later. Her face peers out sternly from every label on the 1.3m bottles the company says it now produces a day. (Heinz’s plant in the Netherlands makes about 10m bottles of ketchup a week.)

 

中国人可能对美国等国家的人喜欢辣椒酥这件事感到困惑。几个世纪以来，他们一直在吃各种各样的辣椒。产于西南省份贵州的老干妈是其中最著名的品牌。它的创始人陶华碧在1989年开始销售蘸有这种酱的面条，几年后建立了一家工厂。她那严肃的脸出现在每一瓶辣椒酥的标签上，老干妈声称每天可以130万瓶。(亨氏在荷兰的工厂每周生产大约1000万瓶番茄酱。)

 

It took a pandemic to bring the delicacy to the rest of the world’s attention. Chilli crisp had many of the necessary characteristics to be a hit. It is spicy, but not overly so. It is delicious slathered on noodles, as originally intended, but it can also be added to fried eggs and other dishes familiar to Americans. It satisfies humans’ love of crispy foods, rooted in an evolutionary preference since crunchiness is often an indicator of freshness.

 

疫情让这种美味引起了全世界的关注。辣椒酥具有许多成功的必要特征。它很辣，但不过分。它与面条搭配十分美味，就像一开始售卖老干妈的时候，但它也可以被添加到煎蛋和美国人熟悉的其他菜肴中。它满足了人类对松脆食物的热爱，这种热爱根植于进化的偏好，因为松脆通常是新鲜度的指标。

 

Usually tastemakers visit restaurants and interview chefs to immerse themselves in what people are cooking and eating, says Kevan Vetter of McCormick’s Flavour Forecast, which predicts and influences which tastes become popular. In lockdown that was no longer possible. Instead they had to watch what cooks, both home and professional, were making via social media. The answer, along with banana bread, was chilli crisp.

 

凯旺·维特说，通常，食品研发会去餐馆拜访大厨，让他们沉浸在人们烹饪和食用的食物中。味可美口味预测师的职责是预判并影响哪种口味会变得流行。已经不可能了。相反，他们不得不通过社交媒体观看家庭和专业厨师在做什么。答案和之前的香蕉面包一样，辣椒酥。

 

Today’s question is not whether people will keep eating it. The liberation of post-pandemic dining has not dulled the delight of the condiment. The East Asian population in America and Britain is growing. Many new brands have joined Lao Gan Ma. Like salsa, which once seemed exotic, chilli crisp is set to become a pantry staple.

 

今天的问题不是人们是否会继续吃它。疫情后餐饮的解放并没有减弱调味品的乐趣。美国和英国的东亚人口正在增长。很多新品牌都加入了老干妈。就像曾经看起来充满异国情调的辛香番茄酱一样，辣椒酥也将成为食品贮藏柜的常客。

 

The question is whether amateurs will keep making it. Nobody bothers making ketchup: as a condiment is assimilated, people develop a taste for the mass-produced version. And in the case of chilli crisp, Ms Tao might argue that the commercial option is as authentic as it gets.

 

问题是那些民间厨师是否会坚持制作新产品。没人会费心制作番茄酱:随着调味品被同化，人们喜欢那些批量生产的版本。在辣椒酥的例子中，陶女士可能会说商业化是最真实的发展路径。