告別油膩 華裔大廚探索創意美式中餐

One was working as an accredited C.P.A. Another had just completed the requirements for a pre-med degree at the University of Chicago. Yet another, a junior employee at Morgan Stanley, walked down 75 flights in the World Trade Center’s South Tower and back into the family food business on Sept. 11, 2001.

一位是獲得資格認證的註冊會計師。另一位剛完成芝加哥大學(University of Chicago)醫學預科學位的要求。還有一位是摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)的初級職員——2001年9月11日那天，他在世貿中心(World Trade Center)南樓向下走了75段樓梯，回到自己的家族食品生意。

These New Yorkers — Thomas Chen, Jonathan Wu and Wilson Tang — are among a few dozen Chinese-Americans who have recently surfaced as influential chefs, determined to begin a new culinary conversation with the food of their ancestors. Independently, they arrived at the same goal: to invent a kind of Chinese-American food that is modern, creative and delicious instead of sweet, sticky and bland.

這三個紐約人分別是托馬斯·陳(Thomas Chen)、喬納森·吳(Jonathan Wu)和威爾遜·唐(Wilson Tang)，他們屬於最近冒出來的幾十位具有影響力的華裔美國大廚之列。他們下定決心與祖先的美食進行新的對話。他們各自獨立實現了相同的目標：創造一種現代、有創意、美味的美式中餐，而不是甜、黏、乏味的食物。

But they took similar routes to get there. Despite their advanced academic degrees, these chefs started over as culinary students — usually against their families’ wishes.

不過，他們所走過的路卻很相似。儘管他們都有很高的學位，但是這些大廚都重新開始學習烹飪——一般這都違背了家人的願望。

“No Chinese parent sends their child off to college hoping they’ll work in a kitchen,” said Mr. Chen, 31, whose parents owned a restaurant in Mount Vernon, N.Y., while he was growing up. “That’s what you go to college to escape from.”

“沒有哪個中國父母送孩子上大學是希望他們將來在廚房工作，”31歲的陳說。陳在紐約州芒特弗農市長大，他的父母在那裏擁有一家餐館。“上大學就是爲了避免去廚房工作。”

They worked their way up in high-end global kitchens like Noma, Guy Savoy, Eleven Madison Park and Jean-Georges. And then, having defied their parents, they defied their culinary training as well. They left the luxurious places where they had mastered foie gras and morels to open storefront restaurants where they can mess around with pork belly and pomelo, steamed eggs and sawtooth herb.

他們曾在全球高端餐館裏步步進階，比如諾馬(Noma)、蓋伊· 薩沃伊(Guy Savoy)、麥迪遜公園11號(Eleven Madison Park)和讓-喬治(Jean-Georges)等餐廳。之後，他們不僅違背父母的意願，也違背了自己接受的烹飪培訓。他們離開這些教會自己製作鵝肝醬和羊肚菌的奢華餐廳，開設店面餐廳，在這裏他們可以用五花肉和柚子、蒸水蛋和齒葉菜隨意烹飪。

In addition to exploring a vast pantry of new ingredients (osmanthus, pandan, celtuce and wood ginger), they are facing a daunting new arsenal of Chinese cooking techniques, entirely different from the skills they’ve been schooled in.

除了探索各種新食材（木犀屬植物、露兜科科植物、萵苣和木姜），他們還要面對令人望而生畏的各種中式新烹飪法，這些方法完全不同於他們學過的技巧。

“It’s not just recipes that are different,” Mr. Chen said. “It’s basics like how to hold a knife, how to trim an onion, how to boil vegetables.”

陳說：“不只是菜譜不同。很多基本的東西也都不同，比如怎麼拿刀，怎麼切洋蔥，怎麼煮蔬菜。”

The phenomenon is certainly not confined to New York City, although several of its exemplary restaurants are clustered in Lower Manhattan: Mr. Wu’s Fung Tu, Mr. Chen’s Tuome, and Yunnan BBQ from Doron Wong, 39, and Erika Chou, 31.

這種現象當然不僅出現在紐約市，但是幾個典範餐廳都聚集在下曼哈頓：吳的風土餐廳(Fung Tu)，陳的Tuome餐廳，39歲的多倫·王(Doron Wong)和31歲的埃麗卡·周(Erika Chou)開設的雲南燒烤店(Yunnan BBQ)。

It is also not new. Pioneers like Susanna Foo and Ming Tsai long ago opened ambitious, creative Chinese restaurants that paved the way. More recently Anita Lo, of Annisa in the West Village, has been the spirit guide for many young chefs; her stubborn conviction that Chinese food can flow seamlessly into Western fine dining smoothed the path for this next generation.

這也不是什麼新鮮事。蘇珊娜·胡(Susanna Foo)和蔡明（音譯）等先驅很久以前就開設了充滿雄心和創意的中餐廳，爲他們奠定了基礎。更近一些時候，西村Annisa餐廳的老闆安妮塔·盧(Anita Lo)是很多年輕大廚的精神導師。她堅信，中餐能夠完美地融入西方高級餐廳，這爲下一代大廚鋪平了道路。

They include Justin Yu and Karen Man at Oxheart in Houston, Shirley Chung at Twenty Eight in Irvine, Calif., Brandon Jew of the eagerly awaited Mister Jiu’s in San Francisco, and Sheridan Su of Fat Choy in Las Vegas. In New York, Mission Chinese Food and RedFarm both have a similar spirit and exciting food.

他們包括休斯敦Oxheart餐廳的賈斯廷·於(Justin Yu)和卡倫·萬(Karen Man)，加利福尼亞州歐文市Twenty Eight餐廳的雪莉·莊(Shirley Chung)，舊金山備受期待的Mister Jiu’s餐廳的布蘭登·仇(Brandon Jew)，以及拉斯維加斯Fat Choy餐廳的謝里登·蘇(Sheridan Su)。紐約的龍山小館(Mission Chinese Food)和RedFarm也擁有類似的精神和令人興奮的食物。

There is also a junior class of specialists, like Hannah and Marian Cheng of Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings in the East Village, where the dumplings are made from sustainable meat and served with farm-to-table vegetable sides from their Taiwanese mother’s recipes; the Boba Guys, who use organic milk and house-made syrup in their bubble tea; and Debbie Mullin of Wei Kitchen in Seattle, who makes small-batch shallot and chile oils.

還有一批初級專家，比如東村Mimi Cheng’s Dumplings餐廳的漢娜和瑪麗安·鄭(Hannah and Marian Cheng)，那裏的餃子是用可持續性的肉類做成的，從農場到餐桌的蔬菜配菜是按照她們臺灣媽媽的食譜做成的；Boba Guys餐廳用有機牛奶和自制糖漿製作珍珠奶茶；西雅圖Wei Kitchen餐廳的黛比·馬林(Debbie Mullin)製作小批量蔥椒油。

Mr. Su is a refugee from fine-dining kitchens on the Las Vegas Strip who started a solo career making bao in a corner of a strip-mall hair salon. His newest venture, Flock & Fowl, is devoted to the classic southern Chinese dish called Hainanese chicken rice, but with upgraded ingredients and innovations like congee topped with fried (free-range) chicken, a poached (organic) egg and (house-made) pickles.

蘇離開拉斯維加斯大道(Las Vegas Strip)的高級餐廳，在一個小型購物中心美髮店的一角做包子，獨自開啓自己的事業。他新開的Flock & Fowl餐廳專做中國南方的經典美食海南雞飯，不過他升級了原料，進行了一些創新，比如在粥的上面放炸雞（自由放養的雞）、（有機）荷包蛋和（自制）泡菜。

Most of these chefs have never been to China and have no Chinese culinary training, so they are learning as they go, synthesizing the values of the kitchens they know (organic, seasonal, soigné) with Chinese elements they do not. “No one would give me even the lowest kitchen job in Beijing,” said Cara Stadler, 28, who grew up in Massachusetts and moved to China with substantial experience in the kitchens of the chefs Guy Savoy and Gordon Ramsay. Instead, she started the city’s first underground supper club. “Going to the markets every day forced me to really learn about Chinese produce,” she said.

這些廚師大多從未去過中國，沒有接受過任何中式烹飪培訓，所以他們邊做邊學，把他們已知的廚房價值觀（有機，遵循季節，設計精美）與他們不知道的中國元素結合起來。28歲的卡拉·斯塔德勒(Cara Stadler)在馬薩諸塞州長大，在大廚蓋伊· 薩沃伊和戈登·拉姆賽(Gordon Ramsay)的廚房裏積累了豐富的經驗，之後她搬到中國。她說：“在北京，估計沒人會給我一份廚房裏的工作，哪怕是最低檔的工作。”不過，她開創了北京的第一家地下晚餐俱樂部。她說：“每天去菜市場迫使我真的瞭解了中國的農產品。”

Ms. Stadler is now the chef and owner of Tao Yuan in Brunswick, Me., where the shellfish are plentiful and exquisite. Next week, for the Lunar New Year, she will be making plump scallop won tons — and then drying the bivalves’ side muscles to simmer into a homemade XO sauce, a fiery, funky, hugely popular condiment from Hong Kong.

斯塔德勒現在是緬因州不倫瑞克桃園餐廳(Tao Yuan)的大廚兼老闆。那裏的貝類豐富而精緻。下週，爲了迎接春節，她將製作豐滿的扇貝餛飩，然後把這個雙殼類動物的肉放入自制的XO醬中慢燉。XO醬是香港的一種刺激、奇特、很受歡迎的調味品。

Chinese ingredients by themselves are a vast field of study — dried mushrooms, cured meats, salted fish and bean pastes are only the beginning. Most of these chefs grew up without them: Instead, they ate a combination of American snacks, global fast food and the kind of meals a Chinese mother living in Dayton, Ohio, or Avon, Conn., might produce on a Tuesday night in the 1980s: beef stir-fried with romaine lettuce (in the absence of gai lan or bok choy) or fried rice studded with pepperoni instead of sweet lap cheong.

中國食材本身就是一個龐大的研究領域——幹菇、醃肉、醃魚和豆瓣醬只是入門級食材。這些大廚大多在成長的過程中沒見過這些東西。他們吃的是美國小吃、全球快餐，以及住在俄亥俄州代頓市或康涅狄格州埃文市的中國媽媽在20世紀80年代週二晚上做的那種飯菜：生菜（因爲沒有芥蘭或白菜）炒牛肉或意大利辣香腸（而非甜臘腸）炒飯。

“Every Chinese family I knew had Dinty Moore beef stew in the pantry,” said Mr. Tang, 37, whose family owned real estate and Chinese bakeries in New York City, including the classic Nom Wah Tea Parlor, which he now runs. “You throw that in the wok with some soy sauce and chile bean paste, fresh rice from the rice cooker, it’s not bad.”

“我認識的每個中國家庭都做過丁蒂·摩爾(Dinty Moore)燉牛肉，”37歲的唐說。他的家人在紐約市擁有房地產和中式糕點房，包括經典的南華茶室(Nom Wah Tea Parlor)，這家店現在由他經營。“你把那些東西放入鍋裏，加入醬油、辣豆瓣醬以及用電飯鍋剛做好的米飯，吃起來也不錯。”

That kind of crude fusion doesn’t satisfy them anymore. From cookbooks and childhood memories, and through trial and error, they are feeling their way into one of the world’s most complex, ancient and demanding culinary Traditions. So they are making their own five-spice powder, hand-cutting noodles and home-brewing basics like pickled mustard greens, chile bean paste and fermented black beans.

不過，那種粗糙的大雜燴已無法滿足他們。他們從烹飪書、童年的記憶以及試驗和錯誤中摸索着進入世界上最爲複雜、古老和高要求的烹飪傳統。所以，他們自己做五香粉、刀削麪，以及醃芥菜、辣豆瓣醬和豆豉等基本配料。

And they are hoping to find “essentiality” — the important modern value idea of making fine, fresh ingredients taste like themselves.

他們希望找到“精髓”——那就是製作具有食材本身新鮮味道的精美食物，這是重要的現代廚房價值觀。

“Honestly, I thought that was a Japanese thing,” said Mr. Wu, of Fung Tu, who spent years working in the kitchen at Per Se. “I didn’t realize that Chinese food had that, only because I’d never had that kind of Chinese food.”

“坦白地說，我曾經以爲那是日本料理的理念，”風土餐廳的吳說。他在Per Se餐廳的廚房工作了很多年。“我之前之所以不知道中餐也有這種理念是因爲我從沒吃過那種中餐。”

Mr. Wong, the chef at Yunnan BBQ, who grew up near Boston and trained in Hong Kong, where his family emigrated from, said: “Most Americans, including me at some point, have just never had Chinese food. When I went there and saw things like cornmeal wrapped in a banana leaf, or wood-roasted chicken wings, I thought, ‘Am I really that ignorant about my own food?’”

雲南烤肉館的大廚多倫·王在波士頓附近長大，在香港接受過培訓。他家就是從香港移民到美國的。他說：“大部分美國人，包括曾經的我，從未吃過中餐。我到那裏看到燕麥香蕉卷或碳烤雞翅時心想：‘我對自己的食物瞭解這麼少?’”

The answer was probably yes. Chinese-American food — mostly Cantonese banquet dishes adjusted for long-outgrown American tastes — is so ingrained here that even Chinese-Americans have come to believe that it is closely related to “real” Chinese food, when in truth it is a very, very distant cousin.

答案很可能是，的確如此。美式中餐大多是經過改良的廣東宴會菜，以適應長期占主導地位的美國口味。它在美國根深蒂固，甚至連華裔美國人也開始以爲，這與“真正的”中餐密切相連，但實際上它只是中餐的遠房親戚。

But that is starting to change as different cuisines and cooks arrive here from China, as more Americans travel to China, and as haute cuisine there bounces back from a long dormancy. Traditional (and modern) Chinese restaurants are thriving as the growing middle class and the new availability of ingredients from around the world have generated new demand.

但是，隨着不同的菜系和廚師從中國來到美國，隨着更多的美國人到中國旅行，隨着中國高級菜餚在長期休眠之後重振旗鼓，這種情況開始發生變化。由於中產階級壯大，再加上美國開始供應世界各地的食材，促使顧客們產生了新要求，所以傳統（和現代的）中餐館開始興旺起來。

Kian Lam Kho, 62, a software engineer turned chef who grew up in Singapore and lives in Harlem, is one of the few people equally at home in the American and Chinese culinary worlds. He returns to Asia frequently, snapping up old and new Chinese-language culinary textbooks as they come back into print. (Restaurants, culinary schools and cookbooks have been common in China since the Song dynasty, about 1000 A.D.) He used these texts to research his magisterial new book, “Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees,” which details not only the recipes and regions but also the underlying concepts that have been the building blocks of Chinese cooking — and of much East Asian cooking — for thousands of years.

62歲的候建蘭（音譯）曾是軟件工程師，後來改做大廚。他在新加坡長大，現在住在哈萊姆區。他是少數幾位對美國菜和中餐同樣精通的專家之一。他經常回亞洲，搶購重新付印的繁體字和簡體字烹飪書籍（從公元1000年左右的宋代起，餐館、烹飪學校和食譜在中國變得常見起來）。他用這些資料來創作內容豐富的新書《鳳爪和翡翠樹》(Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees)，這本書不僅詳細介紹各種菜譜和誕生地，而且講解幾千年來中餐烹飪（以及很多東亞烹飪）基礎背後的概念。

He said the book was partly designed to teach English-speaking people of Chinese heritage like these chefs, who may have lost the language of China but not their loyalty to its food.

他說，這本書的一個目的是教導具有中國傳統的講英語的廚師（比如上述這些大廚），他們可能不會說中國話，但沒有失去對中餐的忠誠。

“Unless they understand the original dishes, what they cook will never have a real relationship with Chinese food,” he said. When they braise the classic red-cooked pork in the oven instead of in a wok, he said, or if they sear the meat first, the way they are taught in Western cooking schools, it changes the flavor, the mouthfeel and how everything works together.

“除非他們理解這些正宗菜餚，否則他們做出來的食物永遠與中餐沒有真正的關係，”他說。如果他們在烤箱而非鍋裏面做經典的紅燒肉，或者像在西餐學校裏學的那樣先煎肉，那麼就改變了這道菜的味道、口感，以及所有食材相互作用的方式。

Using clam chowder as a reference point, he said, “Anyone can take clams, potatoes, salt pork and milk, and make some kind of dish.” But if the pork fat is not rendered, if the potatoes are left whole, if the cooking is too fast, it will not be chowder.

他還以蛤肉雜燴濃湯爲例。他說，“誰都能用蛤蜊、土豆、醃豬肉和牛奶做出一道菜”，但是如果不把肥豬肉熬出油，如果土豆沒切成塊，如果煮的時間過短，那做出來的就不是蛤肉雜燴濃湯。

This new effort to synthesize Chinese and American cuisines takes more study and skill than squirting a few drizzles of soy and hoisin onto Western dishes like grilled steak or mashed potatoes. Those thoughtless mash-ups are why these Chinese-American chefs now shudder at the term “Asian fusion” and go to great lengths to define what they are doing differently. (They are definitely not tinkering with sushi or dabbling in pad Thai.)

要把中餐和美國菜結合起來，需要更多研究和技巧，不只是在烤牛排或土豆泥等西餐上滴幾滴醬油和海鮮醬。正是這種輕率的結合令這些華裔美國大廚現在很害怕“亞洲融合菜”這個說法，不遺餘力地想要重新定義他們所做的食物（他們肯定不會胡亂改動壽司和泰式炒河粉的做法）。

The term “Chinese-American food” has even worse connotations: heavy, sticky, deep-fried.

“美式中餐”這個概念的含義更糟糕：油膩、黏糊糊、油炸。

“We definitely need to figure out what to call it,” said Mr. Tang, who is a partner in Fung Tu.

“我們肯定需要想出怎麼稱呼它，”風土餐廳的合夥人唐說。

Modern American-Chinese? Chef-driven Chinese-American? “Elevated or upscale sounds too snooty, especially when we’re basically serving ribs and noodles and chicken wings,” he said.

現代美式中餐？以大廚爲主導的美式中餐？“高級或高檔聽起來太自大，尤其是考慮到我們基本上就是做排骨、麪條和雞翅，”唐說。

Another challenge, Mr. Tang said, is to decide whether the cooks supporting them in the kitchen should be graduates of restaurants like Hakkasan, who would have the Chinese skills, or like Gramercy Tavern, who have the fine-dining finesse.

唐說，另一個難題是要想好幫廚是必須在Hakkasan等餐廳幹過（這種廚師擁有中餐技巧）還是必須在Gramercy Tavern等餐廳幹過（這種廚師擁有製作精緻菜餚的技巧）。

“What we need is ABCs” — American-born Chinese — “who speak Chinese but also speak farm-to-table,” he said. “ And so far, there aren’t too many of us.”

“我們需要的是ABC（美國出生的華裔），他們會說中文，也談論從農場到餐桌，”他說，“到目前爲止，我們這樣的人不太多。”