一把250美元的雞蛋勺和一場(chǎng)21世紀(jì)美食文化大戰(zhàn)

In the great food culture wars of the 21st century, the egg-spoon skirmishes may one day be remembered as pivotal.

在21世紀(jì)的美食文化戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中，雞蛋勺之戰(zhàn)有朝一日或許會(huì)被作為一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)。

Recent conflicts over this long-handled cooking tool have fostered a new social-media meme, a fresh front in the #MeToo movement and a handcrafted version that costs $250, not to mention new volleys lobbed by Alice Waters and Anthony Bourdain.

近來(lái)，有關(guān)這個(gè)長(zhǎng)柄烹飪工具的爭(zhēng)端催生了一個(gè)社交媒體新米姆、一道#MeToo(我也是)運(yùn)動(dòng)新戰(zhàn)線，以及一個(gè)售價(jià)250美元的手工制作版本，更別說(shuō)還有愛麗絲·沃特斯(Alice Waters)和安瑟尼·波登(Anthony Bourdain)之間的又一場(chǎng)對(duì)罵。

But every war is steeped in history. The first egg-spoon dust-up occurred in 2009, after Waters, the spiritual mother of all that is organic and sustainable, cooked Lesley Stahl an egg in an iron spoon she held over a fire in her Berkeley, California, kitchen for a segment of “60 Minutes.”

但每場(chǎng)戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)都有歷史淵源。第一次雞蛋勺紛爭(zhēng)在2009年掀起，當(dāng)時(shí)，世間一切有機(jī)和可持續(xù)之物的精神之母沃特斯，在她的加州伯克利廚房中，將一把鐵勺放在火上，為萊斯利·斯塔爾(Lesley Stahl)做了個(gè)雞蛋，那是《60分鐘》(60 Minutes)節(jié)目的一部分。

Waters had acquired the spoon after she saw one in William Rubel’s book “The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking: One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace or Campfire,” and asked the San Francisco master blacksmith Angelo Garro to make her one.

沃特斯的勺子，是在看了威廉·魯貝爾(William Rubel)那本《火的魔法——壁爐烹飪：適合壁爐及篝火烹飪的100道菜譜》(The Magic of Fire: Hearth Cooking: One Hundred Recipes for the Fireplace or Campfire)后買的，她還請(qǐng)舊金山名鐵匠安杰洛·加羅(Angelo Garro)為自己打造了一個(gè)。

“I liked that feeling of watching it and holding it,” Waters said in a recent interview. “It’s not like cooking it in a pan. You just feel like you’re really in charge of it. It’s so elemental. It’s really primitive, in a way.”

“我喜歡那種看著、拿著它的感覺，”沃特斯在最近的一個(gè)采訪中說(shuō)。“這不像用平底鍋。你會(huì)感覺你是真的在掌控。感覺很自然。真的很原始，可以說(shuō)。”

Her appearance with the spoon set off some viewers, notably Bourdain, who was then into the fifth season of his culinary travel show “No Reservations.”

她和勺子的亮相引來(lái)了一些觀眾，尤其是波登，當(dāng)時(shí)他的烹飪節(jié)目“沒有預(yù)定”(No Reservations)已經(jīng)進(jìn)行到了第五季。

“She’s Pol Pot in a muumuu,” he was reported to have said at a New York food festival shortly afterward. “I saw her on ’60 Minutes.’ She used six cords of wood to cook one egg for Lesley Stahl.”

“她是穿著穆穆袍的波爾布特(Pol Pot)，”有報(bào)道稱他不久之后在紐約美食節(jié)上說(shuō)道。“我看她上了《60分鐘》。她用了六截木柴給萊斯利·斯塔爾做了一個(gè)雞蛋。”

The lines were drawn. On one side were those who viewed cooking an egg over a fire as the embodiment of food elitism and all that is annoying about the Slow Food movement. Only people who are very rich or very poor have fireplaces in their kitchens, critics said. Where is a working parent supposed to find the time?

界線已經(jīng)劃清。界線的一邊認(rèn)為，在一團(tuán)火上烹制一個(gè)雞蛋，是飲食精英主義的表現(xiàn)，還有慢食運(yùn)動(dòng)(Slow Food)那煩人的一切。批評(píng)者表示，只有非常富?；蚍浅Ｘ毟F的人，廚房里才會(huì)有壁爐。工薪父母哪里找得到這樣的時(shí)間?

In the opposing camp were people happy to discover a slow, delicious way to make those farm eggs that they had worked so hard to find. Even if the egg spoon was merely aspirational, it set the bar for a simpler way of cooking and eating — one in which a fire-roasted egg slipped onto levain toast seemed the antidote to an unthinking, tech-dominated culture fueled by unhealthy, overly processed food.

而對(duì)面的陣營(yíng)里的人卻樂(lè)于發(fā)現(xiàn)一種緩慢而美味的制作方式，來(lái)烹制自己辛辛苦苦找到的柴雞蛋。即使雞蛋勺只是個(gè)精神鼓勵(lì)，但它也為一種更為簡(jiǎn)單的烹飪和飲食方式設(shè)定了標(biāo)準(zhǔn)——一只火烤的雞蛋夾進(jìn)一片天然酵種面包，仿佛就為過(guò)度加工的不健康食物導(dǎo)致的沒有思想、技術(shù)主導(dǎo)的文化找到了解藥。

The egg spoon became a mark of insider status and a tool of seduction. Food writers like Daniel Duane, whom Waters hired for the Chez Panisse Foundation, fell prey.

雞蛋勺成為了圈內(nèi)人身份的標(biāo)志，以及用來(lái)吸引人的工具。一些美食作家，比如沃特斯為帕尼斯基金會(huì)(Chez Panisse)請(qǐng)來(lái)的丹尼爾·杜安(Daniel Duane)，就上鉤了。

“Waters looked playfully into my eyes and said: ‘I’m going to have to make you the Egg,'” he wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 2012. “'It’ll take a few minutes. Is that OK? I have to build a fire.'”

“沃特斯逗趣地看著我說(shuō)：‘我必須要給你做個(gè)雞蛋，’”他在2012年的紐約時(shí)報(bào)雜志上寫道。“‘得花上幾分鐘，可以嗎?我得生個(gè)火。’”

The egg spoon slowly moved into the mainstream, with loving tributes in magazines like Cooking Light. Last year, the design website Remodelista proclaimed it “legendary.”

有了《烹飪之光》(Cooking Light)這些雜志發(fā)表的頌歌，雞蛋勺慢慢成為了主流。去年，設(shè)計(jì)網(wǎng)站Remodelista用“傳奇”來(lái)形容它。

Then, in January, Tamar Adler, a food writer and Chez Panisse alumna, noted her egg-spoon predilection in “The Grub Street Diet,” a column in New York magazine in which notable people keep a diary of a week’s worth of eating.

然后，在一月份，在帕尼斯待過(guò)的美食作家塔瑪爾·阿德勒(Tamar Adler)在紐約雜志專欄“格拉勃街食譜”(The Grub Street Diet)中提及了她對(duì)雞蛋勺的偏愛，許多名人都會(huì)在這個(gè)專欄記錄一周的飲食。

After drinking her daily “Mason jar half-full of black tea and half-full of organic lactose-free whole milk and maple syrup,” Adler cooked an egg in a spoon over coals.

喝下當(dāng)天的“用梅森罐裝的一半紅茶加一半有機(jī)無(wú)乳糖全脂牛奶和楓糖漿”后，阿德勒會(huì)在炭火上用一個(gè)勺子烤雞蛋。

Even she knew it had baggage. “Though I cringe to admit it,” she wrote, “I not only own, but love, a hand-forged egg spoon.”

連她都知道這東西是有過(guò)去的。“盡管我羞于承認(rèn)，”她寫道，“我不僅有，而且還熱愛一把手打雞蛋勺。”

The smoldering war was reignited. Over drinks and on social media, mocking ensued. The hand-forged egg spoon was recast as the new silver spoon.

戰(zhàn)火硝煙再起。在酒桌上，在社交媒體中，人們紛紛出言嘲笑。手打雞蛋勺被再造為新版銀湯匙。

But social context is everything. This is the post-Harvey Weinstein era, when gender imbalance, assault and harassment in professional kitchens have been laid bare. The egg spoon has caught a ride on a new wave of kitchen feminism. Egg-spoon haters now find themselves under attack.

但社會(huì)背景決定一切。這是后韋恩斯坦時(shí)代，職業(yè)廚房中的性別不平等、性侵、性騷擾正被暴露無(wú)遺。雞蛋勺搭上了廚房女權(quán)主義新浪潮的順風(fēng)車。雞蛋勺仇恨者發(fā)現(xiàn)，自己現(xiàn)在成了被攻擊的一方。

Kat Kinsman of the website Extra Crispy devoted a column to what she saw as sexism in the egg-spoon attacks. If Francis Mallmann, the subject of an Esquire profile titled “Is Francis Mallmann the Most Interesting Chef in the World?,” had cooked an egg with a spoon instead of roasting a lamb on a wooden cross, he’d be a hero, she wrote. (Waters, incidentally, has given Mallmann one of her beloved egg spoons.)

Extra Crispy網(wǎng)站的卡特·金斯曼(Kat Kinsman)在一篇專欄文章中專門討論了她所謂“蛋勺攻擊”中的性別歧視。她寫道，如果弗朗西斯·馬爾曼(Francis Mallmann)用勺子烤了個(gè)雞蛋，而不是在木頭十字架上烤了只小羊，那么他會(huì)成為一個(gè)英雄(順便說(shuō)一句，沃特斯把她心愛的一個(gè)蛋勺送給了馬爾曼)?！禘squire》雜志曾刊登過(guò)馬爾曼的特寫文章《弗朗西斯·馬爾曼是世界上最有趣的廚師嗎?》。

And now, the latest salvo: In Slow Food’s version of an in-your-face move, Waters’ daughter, Fanny Singer, has introduced an egg spoon for sale through her website Permanent Collection.

現(xiàn)在的最新事件是：沃特斯的女兒范妮·辛格(Fanny Singer)開始在自己的網(wǎng)站Permanent Collection上銷售蛋勺，這是慢食運(yùn)動(dòng)的公然挑釁。

The 16-inch iron spoon is hand-forged to Waters specifications by Shawn Lovell, whom Singer described in an email as “an incredible female blacksmith in Alameda, Calif.”

這款16英寸長(zhǎng)的鐵勺是由肖恩·洛弗爾(Shawn Lovell)按照沃特斯的規(guī)格親手打造的。辛格在接受郵件采訪時(shí)表示，洛弗爾是“加州阿拉梅達(dá)一位不可思議的女鐵匠”。

The spoon costs $250. Five percent of each sale will go to the Edible Schoolyard Project, which began after Waters made gardening and cooking in schools her life’s work.

這款勺子售價(jià)250美元。每一筆交易的5%都將用于“可食校園項(xiàng)目”(Edible Schoolyard Projec)，該項(xiàng)目是在沃特斯將園藝和校內(nèi)烹飪作為畢生事業(yè)后開始的。

Waters has never marketed frying pans or signed her name to stoves. But this time the stakes were high enough, Singer said: “This is attitudinal and atmospheric.”

沃特斯從沒推銷過(guò)煎鍋，也從未把自己的名字簽在爐灶上。但這一次的賭注足夠高，辛格說(shuō)：“這關(guān)乎態(tài)度和氛圍。”

For her part, Waters is as much a supportive parent as she is the figurehead of the spoon wing of the #MeToo movement. “It is hilarious,” she said, “but in another way, I want young boys to hold that spoon, too. I want them to feel the sense of the fire and the closeness to the simplicity of it. It helps you become sensitive. We are hoping men become sensitive and we find each other in that place.”

沃特斯既是一個(gè)支持孩子的家長(zhǎng)，也是#MeToo運(yùn)動(dòng)蛋勺派的靈魂人物。“這太搞笑了，”她說(shuō)，“但從另一方面講，我想讓年輕男孩們也拿起那個(gè)勺子。我想讓他們知道火的感覺，它的親密感和質(zhì)樸。它能幫你變得敏感細(xì)膩。我們希望男人能夠更加敏感細(xì)膩，讓我們可以感受彼此。”

And what of Bourdain, the original egg-spoon skeptic? He concedes that there is a bit of sexism baked into the egg-spoon wars, but for him, the issue isn’t gender equity. It’s stupidity.

那個(gè)最初的蛋勺懷疑者布爾丹呢?他承認(rèn)蛋勺之爭(zhēng)中存在一點(diǎn)性別歧視，但對(duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)，問(wèn)題并不是性別平等。而是愚蠢。

“I am quite sure male chefs have committed far, far worse crimes in the cause of pretentious and pomposity,” he said. “There is plenty of silliness out there to make fun of on both sides.”

“我敢肯定，男廚師們做過(guò)更自命不凡、裝腔作勢(shì)的事，”他說(shuō)，“雙方都做過(guò)很多值得嘲笑的蠢事。”