Many may remember the 1998 film?Mulan, the tale of a young Chinese girl who pretends to be a man to take her ailing father’s place in the army.
良多人还记得1998年上映的迪士尼动画片子《花木兰》。在这个故事中,一位中国少女扮作男人替换她年老体弱的父亲参军。
In a joint promotion for the original animated feature, McDonald’s released a condiment called SzeChuan sauce for a limited time.
在共同这部原版动画片的结合推行勾当中,麦当劳限时推出了一款名为“川酱”的调味酱。
Hong Kong-born Kevin Pang, who was raised in the United States, remembers it well from his teenage days.
喷鼻港诞生、美国长年夜的凯文·庞(音)对这款本身少年时期的调味酱记忆深入。
“It tasted very much like American Chinese food, it was too sweet. The texture was very gloopy, very sticky, and I think it was a little bit too out there for an American audience. If you eat chicken nuggets, you have barbecue sauce, you have hot mustard, but you don’t have this vaguely Asian style sauce. It was a novelty,” recalls Pang.
他回想说:“阿谁酱尝起来很是像美国的中餐,太甜了。出格粘稠。我以为它有些过于顺应美国人的口胃了。吃鸡块的时辰,会涂烧烤酱、芥末酱,但你不会涂抹这类亚洲气概的酱。这是一个新颖事物。”
Interest in the sauce soon dissipated and it was forgotten until 2017, when an episode of cartoon show?Rick and Morty?– which featured a mad scientist and his adventures with his grandson – mentioned the SzeChuan sauce.
人们很快对这款调味酱掉往了乐趣并将它遗忘。直到2017年,动画片《瑞克和莫蒂》的此中一集提到了这款川酱。这部动画片讲的是一名疯狂的科学家带着孙子探险的故事。
Fans of?Rick and Morty?began demanding the return of SzeChuan sauce, and a few months later, McDonald’s announced it would be revived – but for one day only – on October 7, 2017.
《瑞克和莫蒂》的粉丝们起头要求从头供给川酱。几个月后,麦当劳颁布发表将在2017年10月7日再次限时供给川酱——但仅此一天。
However, on the day, the fast-food chain was completely unprepared for the onslaught of people who turned up to get their hands on the sweet, Asian-style sauce.
但是,当这一天到来时,麦当劳对前来索要这款亚洲风味甜酱的人潮毫无筹办。
Each McDonald’s only had two dozen packs of the sauce to give away, and customers who had queued for hours were very angry, shouting: “We want sauce!” At one outlet in Newark, in the American state of New Jersey, the police had to be called in to calm things down.
每家麦当劳门店只筹办了20多包川酱,这让那些列队数小时的顾客很是生气。他们高喊:“我们要川酱!”美国新泽西州纽瓦克的一家门店不能不经由过程报警来停息局势。
Sachets of the sauce have appeared on eBay selling for up to $250 each.
这类小包装酱料在易趣网上的标价一度到达每包250美元(约合1720元人平易近币)。
However, the sauce created by McDonald’s lacks any authentic Sichuan flavor. Sadly for fans of the too-sweet McDonald’s sauce, there is no such thing as a generic “Sichuan sauce” in the Chinese province, says cook and food writer Fuchsia Dunlop.
但是,这款由麦当劳开辟的酱料底子不是正宗的四川风味。英国厨师兼美食作家邓扶霞说,在中国四川省底子没有通称“川酱”的工具,这对麦当劳这款甜酱的粉丝们来讲很是遗憾。
“A really good Sichuan meal is like a roller-coaster ride – you have spicy notes, sweet and sour notes, numbing and gentle flavors,” says the British cook who has been researching Chinese cuisine for 25 years. That’s a far cry from what McDonald’s was trying to emulate.
这位研究中国烹调长达25年的英国厨师说:“一顿隧道的川菜年夜餐就像是过山车——有辣,有酸甜,有麻,也有柔和的口感。”这与麦当劳试图仿照的工具年夜相径庭。
Sichuan cuisine is one of the eight great cuisines of China and is famous for its fiery dishes. But Dunlop says it’s a common misconception that the cuisine focuses only on heat.
川菜是中国八年夜菜系之一,以火辣著称。但邓扶霞说,以为川菜只专注于火辣是一种常见的曲解。
“There’s the stereotype that it is all just fiery and hot, and of course Sichuanese love using chillies and Sichuan pepper (hua jiao) – with its lip tingling sensation – but that’s just one part of the story. Sichuan is about complex multilayered flavors,”she says.
她说:“有人以为川菜只有火辣,这是一种呆板印象。固然,四川人喜好利用辣椒和花椒——让你的唇齿发麻——但这只是一个方面。川菜有复杂的、多条理的味道。”
“The really interesting thing about Sichuan cuisine is its diversity of flavors. When I was studying to be a chef there, we learned 23 complex flavors. It is like French classic sauces, but with different balances of sweet, sour, spicy and tingly,” she says.
她说:“川菜真正有趣的处所在于它有多种味道。我在那边进修厨艺的时辰,我们学到了23种复杂的味道。这就像法国的经典酱汁,只是甜、酸、辣、麻的比例各不不异。”
“Sichuan pepper is what makes Sichuan cuisine different from other spicy cuisines like Hunan, where they use a lot of chilli but don’t use [the numbing Sichuan pepper],” says Dunlop.
邓扶霞说:“花椒使川菜分歧于其他以辣为特点的处所菜。好比,湘菜也利用年夜量辣椒,但不利用让舌头发麻的花椒。”
While Sichuan is one of the most popular regional cuisines in China, it only really caught on in the West 20 years ago, says Dunlop. “From the 1990s Sichuan food took off – you had all these people from all over China going to live in America and England and they wanted to eat their favorite food, which was Sichuan food.”
她说,虽然川菜是中国最受接待的处所菜系之一,但直到20年前,川菜才真正起头在西方风行起来。“从上世纪90年月起,四川美食起头遭到接待——中国各地的人起头到美国和英国等地糊口,他们但愿吃到本身最喜好的食物,也就是四川美食。”
Currently Sichuan hotpot is a hugely popular dish in China and the West, but Dunlop says dishes such as mapo tofu, gong bao chicken, and hui guo rou (twice-cooked pork) are all famous and express the techniques and flavors of Sichuan cooking.
今朝,四川暖锅在中国和西方都年夜受接待,但邓扶霞说,像麻婆豆腐、宫保鸡丁和回锅肉如许的菜肴一样着名,而且揭示了川菜的烹调技能和味道。
In Hong Kong, a cultural and culinary crossroads of the East and West, chef Kenny Chan Kai-tak, 65, is keen on passing down how to cook Sichuan cuisine. The executive chef at Sichuan Lab in Wan Chai was born in Hong Kong to a family of chefs originally from Sichuan.
在喷鼻港这个工具方文化和饮食的交汇之地,65岁的厨师陈启德(音)热中于传承川菜的做法。
He finds the fiery cuisine more difficult to learn how to cook because of the various combinations of chillies that can be used to elicit layers of spice.
他发现,辣味菜肴的烹调更难进修,由于这些菜肴将各类辣椒进行分歧的组合以发生多条理的味道。
“Sichuan cuisine allows your taste buds and the tip of your tongue to feel a ‘dancing sensation’. But not all Sichuan food is spicy – it can have surprisingly different kinds of spice, some that are mild, some that are extra hot, and their aroma can change depending on if they are cooked with meat or seafood. A spice that seems to be light in taste can have a very long, but strong aftertaste that hits you hard,” Chan says.
陈启德说:“川菜让你的味蕾和舌尖发生‘舞蹈的感受’。但不是所有的川菜都是辛辣的——它的味道多得惊人,有些是微辣,有些是超等辣,其味道会按照你是做肉菜仍是海鲜而发生转变。有的调料看似口胃平淡,但强烈的余味会给你带往返味久长且庞大的冲击。”
"Only one-third of Sichuan cuisine has spiciness in it. The reason why Sichuan food has varying levels of spice is because the province’s food is a mix of culinary styles, as immigrants from neighboring provinces brought different eating habits and cultures,” Chan says.
他还说:“只有三分之一的川菜是辣的。川菜之所以有各类各样的味道,是由于周边省分的移平易近带来了分歧的饮食习惯和文化,是以它是分歧地域烹调气概的夹杂物。”