好英语网美食名字的争执：西西里岛的油炸饭团
Danilo Festa felt moved when, last August, while participating in a sit-in protest against Italy’s anti-migrant policies and to welcome asylum seekers in eastern Sicily, he saw many of his fellow citizens show up to the docks of Catania’s port with arancini, a local fried rice ball made with savoury fillings like green peas and meat.
去年8月，菲斯塔（Danilo Festa）在西西里岛东部参加了一场抗议意大利反移民政策的静坐活动，同时对寻求庇护的难民表示欢迎。看到许多同胞拿着阿兰奇尼（arancini）聚集在卡塔尼亚（Catania）的港口，他十分感动。阿兰奇尼是当地的一种美食，将绿豌豆和肉类等咸口的馅料裹在米团中，再用油炸制而成。
“A group of artists had suggested arancini as symbol of the protests,” Festa recalled. “It was a happy moment that broke the tense political climate.”
菲斯塔回忆道：“当时艺术家们建议把阿兰奇尼作为抗议的象征，那一刻是舒缓了紧张的政治气氛的快乐时刻。”
The peaceful gathering was a public show of solidarity for the more than 100 migrants rescued at sea aboard the Diciotti vessel on 15 August 2018, who were denied landing for 10 days after Italy's interior minister, Matteo Salvini, claimed it was other EU states’ responsibility to take them in.
这场展现团结精神的和平集会发生在2018年8月15日。10天前迪西奥蒂（Diciotti）号救援了100名移民，而意大利内政部长萨尔维尼（Matteo Salvini）表示，应由其他欧盟国家接纳这些人，拒绝移民登陆意大利。
Following that decision, some activists decided to greet the migrants with this popular Sicilian snack.
这之后，很多政治活动家，决定用西西里美食来迎接移民。
“Arancino is the kind of local food you offer hungry guests,” Festa said. “Considering it also evolved into its current form under the many different … civilisations that conquered Sicily throughout the centuries, it’s also a symbol of unity between the two sides of the sea.”
菲斯塔说：“当地人为饥肠辘辘的客人提供阿兰奇尼这种食物。几个世纪以来，不同的文明都曾征服过西西里岛，这种食物也几经改良。因此可以说，它也是地中海两岸团结的象征。”
Praised for its unique texture – crunchy on the outside and soft and savoury on the inside – and its message of solidarity, this iconic Sicilian dish has been a surprising source of conflict within the island.
阿兰奇尼是西西里岛的标志性美食，它口感独特，外酥里软，同时寓意团结，因此备受赞誉。出人意料的是，这款美食竟是岛民内部争执的根源。
One of the biggest reasons behind the fame of this street food – normally served at bars or sidewalk food stalls, simply wrapped in a napkin to take away – is the huge gender dilemma it’s been posing on Sicilians for decades. While those living on the eastern side of the island use the masculine name of arancino (arancini when plural), residents of the western side advocate for the feminine form, arancina (arancine when plural), when referring to the fried delicacy. It’s been such a triggering discussion that even Italian VIPs like fashion designer Chiara Ferragni couldn’t avoid being scolded for preferring one gender over the other.
阿兰奇尼在酒吧和街边都有卖，用餐巾纸一包就能带走，这种街头小吃能出名，原因是几十年来，它的名子始终给西西里岛的人们带来困拢。西西里岛东部的人，一般认为这个单词是阳性的，把这道油炸美食称为阿兰奇诺（arancino），复数形式为阿兰奇尼（arancini）；西西里岛西部的居民则采用阴性的名词尾缀，也就是阿兰奇娜（arancina），复数形式为阿兰奇内（arancine）。这件事引起了激烈的争执。甚至连意大利的重要人物，时装设计师法拉格尼（Chiara Ferragni）也曾因偏爱使用一种名词尾缀而受到指责。
“The fight is a transliteration of the competition between Sicily’s two major cities, Catania and Palermo, that chose this culinary debate as the battlefield for their cultural hegemony over the island,” said Sicilian cuisine expert Gaetano Basile.
西西里岛烹饪专家巴西尔（Gaetano Basile）说：“这场争论，是西西里两大城市，卡塔尼亚（Catania）和巴勒莫（Palermo）之间的竞争。这两个城市选择以美食名字的争论，作为争夺岛上文化霸权的战场。”
According to Basile, the fried shell, golden and round, makes it look like a sour orange – a citrus imported by the Arabs between the 9th and 11th Centuries – which in the Sicilian dialect takes the name of arànciu (as masculine nouns typically end in ‘u’ in the Sicilian dialect), hence the name arancinu (small, sour orange). The name was later ‘Italianised’ to ‘arancino’ after Italy conquered Sicily.
巴西尔说，饭团的外表在油炸之后呈现金黄色，圆滚滚的外形就像一个酸橙（arancinu，一种柑橘，由阿拉伯人在9世纪和11世纪间进口到西西里）。这种小吃在西西里方言里的名字是arànciu，意思就是小的酸橙（方言里的阳性名词通常以u结尾）。后来，意大利人征服了西西里岛，这种小吃的名字也被意大利语化为阿兰奇诺（arancino）。
“But then, in 1486, Portuguese merchants arrived to the port of Palermo bringing sweet oranges, called laranja,” Basile explained. “Because they wanted the arancinu to remind of the nicer flavour of this new kind of orange, citizens of Palermo and the surrounding areas changed the name from arancinu to the feminine arancina. That linguistic change, however, never occurred on the eastern side of the island.”
巴西尔解释道：“1486年，葡萄牙商人抵达巴勒莫港，他们带来了甜橙（laranja），（通常a结尾的名词为阴性）因此西西里岛西部的巴勒莫和周边地区的人就把‘酸橙’的阳性改掉了。然而，西西里岛的东部并没有出现这一语言变化。”
From that moment, the two coasts started developing two similar, but essentially different, types of arancini. “The ones in Palermo kept the original round shape and preserved their Arab roots by adding saffron to the rice; those in Catania evolved into a cone to represent Mount Etna, the volcano rising above the eastern coast,” Basile said.
自此，东西海岸的油炸饭团就开始出现分化了，它们看似相同，但本质上有了区别。巴西尔说：“西边巴勒莫的阿兰奇娜形似圆球，在饭中加入了藏红花，保留了阿拉伯风情；东边卡塔尼亚的阿兰奇诺，这种美味演变成了圆锥形状，代表了东边的埃特纳火山（Mount Etna）。”
Spanish rulers introduced tomatoes to Sicily in the 15th Century, but according to Basile, it wasn’t until the mid-19th Century that both sides of the island started adding passata (tomato puree) to the original recipe that came to life under the Arab domination in the Middle Ages. This brought the two coasts’ versions closer together. And when Italy became a nation-state incorporating the Mediterranean island in 1861, the arancino and the arancina officially became a single, representative example of Southern Italian cuisine while maintaining its gender difference in spoken language, Basile explained.
大家知道，15世纪时，西班牙统治者将西红柿带到了西西里岛。据巴西尔说，一直到19世纪中叶，东西两岸的人们才开始在食物中添加番茄酱。而原先的食谱诞生自中世纪阿拉伯统治时期。这样一来，两岸的油炸饭团又有了相似之处。1861年，西西里这一地中海岛屿并入意大利，意大利成为独立民族国家。这时，阿兰奇诺/阿兰奇娜才成为一道标志性的意大利南部菜肴。而且还保留了东西海岸语言中的词性差异。
This didn’t seem to bother anyone at the time. However, with the birth of social media and Italy’s increasing concerns over gender theory and linguistic clarity and the differences between masculine and feminine, as reported by Italian magazine Internazionale, this became “the mother of all Sicilian fights,” as Festa puts it. The divide became so critical that it even required an intervention by Accademia della Crusca, Italy’s highest institution for the regulation of language.
在当时，没有人觉得有问题。然而，正如意大利杂志《国际米兰》（Internazionale）所报道的那样，随着社交媒体的诞生，加之意大利人高度关注名词词性学说和语言条理，更加在意名词的阴阳性。这就成为了“西西里岛纷争的源头”。这种语言分歧愈演愈烈，最后甚至需要意大利最高语言监管机构“秕糠学会”（Accademia della Crusca）的介入。
In January 2016, the academy published a special report on the arancino-vs-arancina debate, opting for a politically correct resolution. It claimed that both versions are correct, but that the feminine version is slightly more correct because fruits are generally feminine nouns in the Italian language.
2016年1月，秕糠学会发表了一篇特殊报告，来讨论到底是阿兰奇诺，还是阿兰奇娜，而他们的说法不失为一个正确的解决方案。报告中说，两种形式都是正确的。但是，意大利语中的水果多为阴性名词，所以用阿兰奇娜会更加正确一点。
Stefania Iannizzotto, the linguistic consultant responsible for researching and publishing the piece, said the institute has received, and keeps receiving, many letters and emails to settle the arancino-arancina debate. “As the only Sicilian working there, I was assigned to take care of the issue, even though I was scared I wouldn’t be neutral enough. It was a tough responsibility,” she explained.
伊安尼佐托（Stefania Iannizzotto）是负责研究和出版这篇报告的语言顾问，她说，直到现在秕糠学会还会收到许多信件和电子邮件，希望能够解决油炸饭团的阴阳词性之争。她解释道：“作为唯一在秕糠学会工作的西西里人。我被派去解决这一争执。我诚惶诚恐生怕自己立场不客观，也深感责任重大。”
Iannizzotto comes from the Ragusa area, the only south-eastern stronghold that uses the feminine noun, so taking a side could’ve meant being mocked or berated by her family members or her friends in Catania, where she moved to after high school.
伊安尼佐托来自拉古萨（Ragusa）地区，位于西西里岛的东南部，是这片区域里唯一用阴性名词命名油炸饭团的地方。高中毕业后，她搬到了东边的卡塔尼亚。因此，从阴阳名词中确定一个，无论站在哪一边都意味着要么被家人斥责；要么被卡塔尼亚的朋友嘲笑。
“It started as an inside joke, but social networks turned it into a war. This gender fight will never end,” Iannizzotto said exhaustedly.
她疲惫地说道：“开始只是一个岛内的玩笑，没想到经过社交网络发酵，演化成了一场论战。阴阳词性这样的争论永远不会结束。”
The Accademia della Crusca’s intervention, however, didn’t settle the argument. Instead, it just intensified it. “The publication received a lot of media attention. Every time I would read my interviews published on Facebook, I would always find some hateful comments against me for trying to settle the dispute,” Iannizzotto said.
秕糠学院的介入并没能解决问题，甚至激化了双方的矛盾。伊安尼佐托说：“报告一发表，便受到了媒体的关注。每每在脸书上看到自己的访谈，总会发现一些讨厌的评论，说我不该试图解决纠纷。”
Last May, the linguist was invited to speak at the Catania Street Food Fest, where among cooking classes and free appetizers, she believed her linguistic workshop on the arancino-arancina issue would be the most boring part of the event. “It was raining that day and I didn’t expect much attendance; instead, dozens of participants showed up, making me realise the seriousness of people’s interest in learning the use of the correct terms,” she said.
去年5月，伊安尼佐托应邀在卡塔尼亚食品节（Catania Street Food Fest）上发表演说。在众多烹饪课和免费的小吃中，她觉得自己这个油炸饭团阴阳词性问题的研讨会，一定是最无聊的一个环节了。她说：“那天正好下雨，我想不会有太多人来，没想到竟来了数十人，这让我意识到人们学习正确的词汇表达，是多么认真。”
The current uproar has also affected Sicilian businesses serving the dish to locals and tourists alike. In Catania’s historical city centre, customers inside Savia order ‘arancina’ at the counter. The unusual gender use here in ‘arancino land’ is not a mistake by naive outsiders but rather the affirmation of confident locals. The famous cafeteria, established in 1897, started making arancine in the 1970s. According to Claudio Lombardo, fourth-generation owner, his grandfather followed Palermo’s idea that the arancina imitates the shape of sweet oranges, and hence must be identified with the female gender.
如今的争议，也影响了西西里岛的餐饮行业。在卡塔尼亚历史悠久的市中心，有一家叫萨维亚（Savia）的餐厅，人们在点餐时常说要一个“阿兰奇娜”。然而这里更常用“阿兰奇诺”这一阳性名词，犯这种错误的人，并不是不了解情况的游客，而是认同和肯定这种说法的当地居民。萨维亚餐厅成立于1897年，上世纪70年代起就开始供应这种油炸饭团了。隆巴多（Claudio Lombardo）是这家餐厅的第四任老板，他的祖父和巴勒莫的观点一致，认为阿兰奇娜状似甜橙，因此必须以阴性名词称之。
“As far as I know, we’re the only place in Catania calling them arancine. No-one ever paid attention to it, as we would never correct our customers when ordering an arancina with an ‘o’,” Lombardo said. “Then people on social media started writing blog posts about it... and that’s when the problems began.”
隆巴多说：“据我所知，在卡塔尼亚，只有我们餐厅会用阴性名词来叫它。之前并没人放大这个事情，所以人们用‘阿兰奇诺’点餐的时候，我们也不会刻意去纠正。后来有人在社交媒体上宣传这件事情……随之问题就来了。”
Lombardo recounted how he started receiving insults, curse words and even boycott and death threats when some too-vocal residents learned about the shop’s ‘inappropriate’ language choice via Facebook.
隆巴多回忆道，当地居民在脸书上了解到店里“不恰当”的叫法后，他开始受到各种辱骂和诅咒，甚至抵制和死亡威胁。
“So to avoid a war, in summer 2017, we decided to change the official name tags used in our store to ‘arancinu’ [the original Sicilian term] and save jobs by not closing down our century-old business,” he said. However, Lombardo explained that he will never change his mind about arancine’s real gender, which are “female, without any doubt, like all the beautiful things”.
隆巴多说：“2017年的夏天，为了避免这些纷争，我们改掉了菜单。用原来西西里语里的名字‘阿兰奇努’来标注这道菜。这样才保住了我们的百年老店，很多员工也能继续在这里工作。”虽然改了菜单，但在他心理，油炸饭团还是应该用“和所有美好事物一样”的阴性名词。
There have also been other attempts to bring a sense of peace. Gender neutral terms, including arancin* and arancin@, which avoid the use of any masculine or feminine forms, promote inclusiveness, acceptance and even sexual open-mindedness in this mostly conservative region, and have helped tackle the no-longer playful fight.
为平息这场纷争，人们做了许多努力。引入了性别中立的叫法，如阿兰奇*（arancin*）或阿兰奇@（arancin@）等。来掩盖名词的阴阳性，这也增进了文化的包容性和接纳度，扩大了阴阳词性的接受度，有助于平息这场认真的论战。
Andrea Graziano, founder of Fud Bottega Sicula, a restaurant spreading Sicilian nouvelle cuisine culture, proposed a one-time truce in his restaurants in Palermo and Catania last December: an ‘arancinie’ main course with two arancine and two arancini on the same plate, made into their corresponding shapes. “I don’t care about the debate and never took it seriously, but I wanted to propose my provocative resolution to finally have a laugh about this ridiculous fight, for once,” Graziano said.
格拉齐亚诺（Andrea Graziano）是一家餐厅品牌的创始人，致力于传播西西里新式烹饪文化。去年12月，他在自己的巴勒莫和卡塔尼亚的餐厅中采取了折中的做法，如果客人点了油炸饭团这道菜，会有两个圆圆的阿兰奇娜和两个圆锥状的阿兰奇诺。他说：“我不很在乎这场纷争，也没认真看待过。但我希望，这么一个折中的尝试能够结束这场荒谬的纷争。哪怕是只有一次。”
As the gender fight behind Sicily’s most beloved snack seems to only bother local customers, Lombardo’s thought is to focus on his tourist clientele, who are solely interested in enjoying the food experience rather than bothering with the correct linguistic term.
西西里人喜爱的小吃名子阴阳词性之争，最受困扰的是本地人。隆巴多的做法，更多能改变的是外来游客，因为游客关注的是美食体验，而不是纠结哪种叫法是正统的。
“As long as the arancinu is good, don’t get distracted by useless talks and just enjoy the taste,” he suggested.
隆巴多说：“只要油炸饭团味道好，就不要去为这些无用的议论分心，享受当下的美食就好了。”
And debate or not, one thing is certain: this snack will continue to carry a warm, welcoming message for locals and visitors alike.
不论争论与否，这道小吃能给当地人以温暖，给游客以热情友好，这一点是肯定的。