在生鮮美食節(jié)上領(lǐng)略原始風(fēng)味

在生鮮美食節(jié)上領(lǐng)略原始風(fēng)味

HARDEEVILLE, S.C. — “I am sitting in the most amazing puddle of mire,” Matt Jennings, the chef at Farmstead in Providence, R.I., announced into the dark from his perch atop a 12-foot-high hunting blind.

南卡羅來納州哈迪維爾——“我坐在最驚艷的爛泥坑里，”羅德島州普羅維登斯農(nóng)莊餐廳(Farmstead)的主廚馬特·詹寧斯(Matt Jennings)對著夜空說。此時，他正待在一個12英尺(約合3.7米)高的狩獵隱蔽所上面。

He had already been frog-marched deep into the forest by a local guide at dawn, ripped open his hand sliding down a ladder and hauled his large frame up another ladder and into a rain-filled swivel chair.

破曉時分，他已在一名當(dāng)?shù)叵驅(qū)У膸ьI(lǐng)下頂著濃霧走進(jìn)了叢林深處。沿著梯子往下滑的時候，他割破了一只手。最后，他拖著自己龐大的身軀爬上另一架梯子，坐到一把被雨水浸濕了的轉(zhuǎn)椅上。

But it wasn’t his damp jeans, bleeding finger or lack of sleep that were bothering him. It was that, with one shotgun shell and no hunting experience, he was poised to bring down a deer or wild pig that his guide said would surely cross through this particular stand of trees, where the forest floor is thick with acorns.

讓他心煩的，不是潮濕的牛仔褲、流血的手指或睡眠不足，而是沒有打獵經(jīng)驗的他如何用一顆獵槍子彈放倒一頭鹿或一頭野豬。他的向?qū)дf，這兩種動物肯定會穿過這排大樹，因為林子的地上滿是橡果。

Mr. Jennings, along with 20 other chefs from around the world, was in this neck of the woods in October because of Cook It Raw, a prestigious and peculiar annual culinary gathering that has become one of the most coveted invitations in food.

今年10月，詹寧斯和來自世界各地的其他20名廚師因為每年一度的生鮮烹制(Cook It Raw)活動聚集在這一帶。這個鼎鼎有名的特殊烹飪集會已成為餐飲業(yè)最令人垂涎的活動之一。

The night before, he had butchered a freshly shot alligator with a Bowie knife by the headlights of a pickup truck, sawing off the arms while Jeremy Charles, a chef from Newfoundland, cut out the tongue. For dinner, he had deftly trimmed and then grilled a deer’s heart, lovingly cutting it into thin, tender slices.

前一天夜里，他就著皮卡的前燈，用博伊刀宰殺了一頭剛剛擊中的短吻鱷，鋸下了它的腳。來自紐芬蘭的廚師杰里米·查爾斯(Jeremy Charles)則切下了它的舌頭。準(zhǔn)備晚餐時，他輕車熟路地處理并烤熟了一顆鹿心，然后又細(xì)心地把它切成鮮嫩的薄片。

But he was having doubts. “If a beautiful, innocent deer wanders in front of me, am I really going to blow its brains out?” he said.

可是，他還是心存疑慮。“如果有一頭漂亮又無辜的鹿在我面前游蕩，我真的要打得它腦袋開花嗎?”他問道。

In the end, Mr. Jennings never saw his prey. But this is precisely the kind of question that is supposed to arise during Cook It Raw, held in a different (and usually remote) location every year since 2009.

到最后，詹寧斯根本沒看到獵物。這也正是生鮮烹制活動期間會出現(xiàn)的那種問題。從2009年開始，活動每年都會在不同(而且通常都很偏遠(yuǎn))的地方舉行。

Cook It Raw has nothing to do with raw food. Its guiding idea is to strip cooking to its raw elements: foraging, hunting, fishing, farming and low-tech skills like butchery and cooking over fire. A taste of the wild — hunting deer, gathering mushrooms, pulling wasabi from creek beds — is part of each carefully orchestrated and extensively documented program. (The first gathering, in Denmark, included 11 chefs and about 20 journalists.)

生鮮烹制活動和生食無關(guān)。它的指導(dǎo)思想是，讓烹飪回歸原始的方式：采集、打獵、捕魚、耕種，以及屠宰和火上烹煮這種低技術(shù)含量的技巧。每次活動都經(jīng)過精心策劃并留下大量的紀(jì)錄材料，其中均包含體驗野外生活的部分，比如獵鹿、采蘑菇、從河床上拔山葵。(第一次活動在丹麥舉行，有11位大廚和大約20名記者參加。)

Also, the chefs themselves are stripped raw: airlifted out of their restaurant kitchens and planted far away from their families and customers, their sous-chefs and sous-vide machines, for a week.

而且，廚師自己也身無旁物：他們乘坐飛機(jī)離開所在餐廳的廚房，被送到遠(yuǎn)離家人、顧客、助手和各種烹調(diào)機(jī)器的地方，在那里待一星期。

European luminaries like Pascal Barbot, Albert Adrià and Massimo Bottura have camped out with New World comers like David Chang, Sean Brock and Alex Atala. Acclaimed chefs from Asia like André Chiang and Yoshihiro Narisawa have yawned at predawn wake-up calls alongside Scandinavian influencers like Magnus Nilsson and René Redzepi.

歐洲大陸的大師級人物帕斯卡爾·巴爾博(Pascal Barbot)、阿爾韋特·阿德里亞(Albert Adrià)和馬西莫·博圖拉(Massimo Bottura)，與來自新大陸的張錫鎬(David Chang)、肖恩·布羅克(Sean Brock)和亞歷克斯·阿塔拉(Alex Atala)等人一起露宿;亞洲名廚江振誠(André Chiang)和成澤由浩(Yoshihiro Narisawa)，也與來自斯堪的納維亞的芒努斯·尼爾松(Magnus Nilsson)和勒內(nèi)·雷哲皮(René Redzepi)等人聽到黎明前的起床鈴聲后一齊呵欠連連。

“I just wanted to suck the marrow out of the experience,” said Mr. Jennings, who was at Cook It Raw for the first time and more than slightly cowed by all the world-famous chefs. “But I made a strict rule for myself on the plane: you do not talk to Albert Adrià unless he talks to you first.”

“我很想從這次經(jīng)歷中吸取精髓，”詹寧斯說。第一次參加生鮮烹制活動的他完全被那些世界名廚嚇住了。“但是，我在飛機(jī)上給自己定了一條嚴(yán)格的規(guī)矩：不要和阿爾韋特·阿德里亞搭話，除非他主動找我。”

The chosen ones are considered kitchen innovators whose work displays a respect for agricultural tradition and a command of culinary technology. (And they are almost invariably men; the first woman included was Ana Ros, a Slovenian chef who attended the 2012 event in Suwalki in north Poland; this year, the British-American chef April Bloomfield made the cut, as well as Connie DeSousa of Calgary’s meat-focused restaurant Charcut Roast House.)

被選中的幸運(yùn)兒被認(rèn)為是廚房里的發(fā)明家，在工作中顯示出了對農(nóng)業(yè)傳統(tǒng)的尊重及對烹飪技術(shù)的精通。(而且，他們幾乎都是男廚師。該活動的首個女性參與者是來自斯洛維尼亞的大廚安娜·羅斯[Ana Ros]。她參加了2012年在波蘭北部的蘇瓦烏基舉辦的活動。今年，活躍在英美兩國的大廚阿普麗爾·布盧姆菲爾德[April Bloomfield]，以及卡爾加里以肉類菜品為主的熟食燒烤屋[Charcut Roast House]的主廚康妮·德蘇薩[Connie DeSousa]也入圍了。)

In the same way an overnight hike at summer camp gives children a safe but exhilarating taste of the wild, Cook It Raw is an artificial, educational and highly enjoyable field trip into food.

就像夏令營里的通宵徒步會讓孩子們安全卻興奮地體驗野外環(huán)境一樣，生鮮烹制活動也是一次以美食為主題的野外旅行，經(jīng)人為安排、具有教育意義，并會帶來非常愉悅的享受。

It began in Copenhagen, an offshoot of the acclaimed restaurant Noma and the work of its chef, Mr. Redzepi, the face of the so-called New Nordic cooking style: hyperlocal and seasonal ingredients (of course), with added layers of agricultural tradition, naturalistic presentation and high-minded culinary innovation.

活動發(fā)源于著名的Noma餐廳在哥本哈根的分店，以及餐廳的主廚雷哲皮。他是所謂的“新北歐烹飪風(fēng)格”的代表人物，特點是：采用超級具有本地特色的原料和當(dāng)季的食材(那是自然)，再加上農(nóng)業(yè)傳統(tǒng)、寫實主義的呈現(xiàn)，以及高端的烹飪創(chuàng)新的層層內(nèi)涵。

“It’s important to keep pushing yourself, to learn and stretch as a cook,” said Ms. Bloomfield, who has just opened Tosca Cafe, a restaurant in San Francisco, adding to the four kitchens she runs in New York. She is known for unfussy food, simply but expertly prepared.

布龍菲爾德說，“作為一名廚師，要不斷地強(qiáng)迫自己學(xué)習(xí)和拓展，這很重要。”她名下的托斯卡餐廳(Tosca Café)剛剛在舊金山開張，同時還在紐約經(jīng)營著四家飯館。她去繁就簡的菜品聞名遐邇，烹飪過程簡單卻不失專業(yè)。

But for the chefs’ dinner here, she composed a plate of seared rib-eye steaks of local beef, aged for 40 days and grilled over pecan wood; on top, roasted Tokyo turnips and a salad of raw turnips, grated turnips and turnip leaves, dressed with a sesame-miso-sorghum vinaigrette with fresh fennel seeds and pollen; and a shower of wood sorrel and peanut leaves. Oh, and there was a salty-sweet smoked-oyster ice cream on top. “I did it for the sheer joy of making myself uncomfortable,” she said. “You don’t get to do that in your own kitchen very often.”

不過，在為這些主廚烹飪晚餐時，她做了一盤烤肋眼牛排，把準(zhǔn)備了40天的本地牛肉在山核桃木上烤制;配菜是烤日本小蘿卜和一份由生蘿卜、蘿卜絲和蘿卜葉做成的沙拉，澆上芝麻味增高粱油醋汁，以及新鮮的茴香粒和花粉;最后再撒上酢漿草和花生葉。噢，最上面還有甜咸口味的煙熏牡蠣冰激凌。她說，“我這么做完全是為了讓我自己打破常規(guī)，這能給我?guī)砑兇獾目鞓?。在自家餐廳的廚房里，你可不會有機(jī)會經(jīng)常這么做。”

This year’s gathering was based in Charleston, and the area of study was the Lowcountry, the coastal marshes and fertile barrier islands that stretch from North Carolina down to Georgia.

今年聚會的大本營在查爾斯頓，學(xué)習(xí)的地點則是低地地區(qū)，也就是從北卡羅來納州綿延到佐治亞州的海邊濕地和肥沃的堰洲島。

At Turnbridge, a former rice plantation here, the channels that once irrigated many acres of plants hold shrimp, blue crabs and alligators; its old-growth trees are home to bald eagles, flocks of doves and sometimes pink flamingoes. The estate also holds 20 acres of Carolina Gold rice, a rich and fluffy strain that died out in the 1920s but has been revived here by multiple twists of fate (and the persistence of Dr. Richard and Patricia Schulze, who bought the land in the 1970s).

特恩布里奇曾經(jīng)是水稻種植區(qū)，一度灌溉大片莊稼的水溝里養(yǎng)了蝦、藍(lán)蟹和鱷魚;這里的老樹是白頭鷹和鴿群的家，有時也有火烈鳥來棲息。這些地方還有 20英畝的卡羅萊納金色水稻，一個口感豐富而松軟的品種，上世紀(jì)20年代曾經(jīng)消失，但是在一番曲折的經(jīng)歷之后在這里重現(xiàn)于世(也是因為理查德 (Richard) 博士和帕特麗夏·舒爾茨(Patricia Schulze)博士的堅持，他們上世紀(jì)70年代購買了這片土地。)

Its red-gold stalks waved around the chef Dan Barber’s ears as Glenn Roberts, the owner of Anson Mills and the South’s premier expert on grains, taught the group the multistep process of harvesting rice, from cutting all the way through threshing, pounding and polishing.

赤金色的稻桿在主廚丹的耳朵旁搖曳，安森磨坊(Anson Mills)的所有者、南卡羅來納州著名的谷物專家格萊恩·羅伯茨(Glenn Roberts)向這群人講授了收水稻的多個步驟的程序，從收割到脫粒、搗米和拋光。

“You become very connected to the ingredient when you’re literally standing in it,” said Mr. Barber, who is deep into a study of heirloom and hybrid grains at his famous, idyllic farm-restaurant just north of New York City, Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

巴伯說，當(dāng)你站在它們中間的時候，你就好像和這些食材產(chǎn)生了關(guān)聯(lián)。巴伯正在深入地研究古老谷物和雜交谷物，他那如詩如畫的農(nóng)莊餐館、著名的谷倉藍(lán)山餐廳(Blue Hill at Stone Barns)就在紐約市的北面。

Mr. Jennings, by contrast, is the little-known chef at a small restaurant in a small city. Providence diners like their food recognizable and hearty, and he cooks accordingly: bowls of mussels, boards of local cheese and the charcuterie he makes by hand, and an exceptional grilled cheese sandwich with strawberry jam. He is thickly tattooed with the names of pig parts, and doesn’t look like a member of any elite group. But his efforts to support New England farms and fisheries, and to organize a Northern Alliance of chefs in Canada and New England to celebrate mussels, maple syrup, potatoes and other cold-weather staples, won him admission to the magic circle of Cook It Raw chefs.

相比之下，詹寧斯是個小城市里一個小餐館的不知名的廚師。那里的食客們喜歡他們食物一目了然，實實在在，而這正是他的食物的特點：一碗碗的河蚌，當(dāng)?shù)氐哪汤液退H手做的熟肉，以及非同尋常的烤奶酪三明治配草莓醬。他身上有許多紋身，都是豬身上部位的名字，看起來一點也不像精英。但是他支持新英格蘭的農(nóng)場和漁業(yè)，組織了一個由加拿大和新英格蘭主廚組成的北部聯(lián)盟，目的是推廣河蚌、楓樹糖漿、土豆和其他冷天氣的主食，這為他贏得了進(jìn)入生鮮烹制這個神奇圈子的入場券。

While there, he said a week later, there were only a few moments when he went cold with fear.

一個星期之后他說，在那兒的時候，有幾個時刻，他緊張得身體發(fā)僵。

“At one point Albert Adrià was working on my right, Ben Shewry was to my left, and Dan Barber and April Bloomfield were behind me,” he said. “I thought, ‘O.K., I’m just going to go throw up, and then I’ll be fine.’ ”

“有一次，阿爾韋特·阿德里亞在我右邊制作食物，本·舒利(Ben Shewry)在我左邊，丹·巴伯和阿普麗爾·布龍菲爾德站在我后面，”他說。“我當(dāng)時想，‘好吧，我要吐了，然后就會沒事了。’”