後撒切爾時代: 冰激凌是夫人發明的?
Very little connected to Margaret Thatcher's legacy comes without an argument.
撒切爾夫人過世，對於她給英國人民留下的寶貴遺產總是爭議很大。The claim by the bishop of London in his funeral address that the former scientist was "part of the team that invented Mr Whippy ice-cream" is no exception.
而倫敦主教在其葬禮悼詞中關於撒切爾夫人是“發明甜筒冰淇淋的團隊成員”的說法，也毫不例外引起了爭議。撒切爾夫人在從政前從事科學研究的工作。The New Scientist reported in July 1983, as Thatcher was elected a fellow of the Royal Society body of scientists, that she had worked "developing emulsifiers for ice-creams for Joe Lyons from 1949-51".
《新科學家》雜誌於1983年7月報道稱，撒切爾夫人當選爲英國皇家學會的成員，而且她曾“於1949年至1951年前，爲喬利昂工作開發冰激凌中的乳化劑”。
The Washington Post, in the wake of her death last week, claimed she "helped invent ice-cream as we know it", adding that her efforts as part of the Lyons team to create a cheap, airy ice-cream were "one aspect of Margaret Thatcher's legacy we can all feel unequivocally good about".
在上週撒切爾夫人離世後，《華盛頓郵報》聲稱她“幫助發明我們知道的冰淇淋”，補充說到她爲了里昂團隊製作便宜輕便的冰淇淋所做出的努力，是“我們確切知道的瑪格麗特-撒切爾遺產的一部分”。It is, though, as the New Yorker has it, a "frozen-dessert origin myth".
不過《紐約客》稱這個關於“冰凍甜點的起源”的說法完全是虛構的。Mr-Whippy-style soft-serve ice-cream originated in the US about a decade before Thatcher worked at J Lyons, it reports. When soft-serve arrived in the UK, J Lyons was indeed at the forefront – but it had teamed up with the US ice-cream behemoth Mister Softee and operated franchises under that name.
根據《紐約客》的報道，早在撒切爾夫人投身喬利昂團隊的10年前，Mr Whippy 式軟冰淇淋就已經在美國誕生了，不過而喬利昂確實將軟冰淇淋引入英國——該團隊與美國冰淇淋巨頭Mister Softee 合作，並獲得其特許經營權。Thatcher was a food research scientist at J Lyons but, as a Royal Society article noted in May 2011, the details of her work there are sketchy. She reportedly worked on the quality of cake and pie fillings as well as ice-cream, and researched saponification (soap-making).
皇家學會於2011年5月發佈文章指出，撒切爾夫人是喬利昂的食品研究科學家，但文中對她的工作的描寫卻非常粗淺。據稱，她主要從事於改進蛋糕質量、餅餡和冰淇淋，以及皂化反應(制皁)的工作。The article reports: "An oft-told anecdote in British left circles associates Thatcher with the invention of soft ice-cream, which added air, lowered quality and raised profits. Lyons certainly worked on this new product, but there is no firm evidence that Thatcher directly assisted in its invention."
那篇文章稱：“英國左翼勢力將撒切爾夫人與軟冰淇淋發明聯繫在一起。軟冰淇淋中添加了空氣、降低了品質而且提升了利潤。里昂確實從事於這個項目的工作，但是沒有確鑿證據表明撒切爾夫人直接參與了發明。”
