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纽约市最著名的三明治失去吸引力?

Is NYC's most iconic sandwich-dying?
纽约市最著名的三明治失去吸引力?

The deli, they say, is dying. They’re not talking about the corner markets or bodegas that appear on nearly every New York block. They’re talking about the true New York City delicatessen: the brick and mortar expression of the American immigrant experience, the very culinary soul of the city. And unfortunately, where there used to be thousands, only a few remain.

纽约市几乎每个街区都有菜市场或者小酒庄,但是这里的熟食店(deli)正在不断地消亡。这是一种纯正的纽约熟食店,是饱含美国移民文化精髓的现实存在,是根植于这个城市的美食文化。这样的店面数目曾经达到几千家,而现在所剩寥寥无几。

More than 100 years ago, in the second half of the 19th Century, New York’s tenements were swelling with new arrivals from Europe. Many thousands of these immigrants were Jewish, escaping persecution in Eastern Europe and Russia, and most settled in New York’s chaotic Lower East Side. They carried with them their religious beliefs and culinary culture – and often very little else.

100多年前,在十九世纪下半叶,成千上万的欧洲移民涌入了纽约市,他们其中很多是犹太人,为逃避政治迫害从东欧和俄罗斯来到了这里,在喧闹的纽约下东区安了家。除了宗教信仰和饮食文化,这些犹太人当时可谓一无所有。
 

凯兹熟食店(Katz’)的熏牛肉,纽约。

Their food was the food of the Eastern European peasantry – smoked sausages and cured meats, smoked cabbage and offal stews and dark bread, salted fish and boiled dumplings. Their dining habits were moulded through poverty, harsh winters and religious rules. Under kosher law, pork was forbidden, and dairy, fish and meat had to be strictly separated. When Jewish immigrants set up shop in New York, this separation was reflected in three types of businesses: dairies for the milk, appetizing stores for the fish and delicatessens for the meat.

熏香肠,腌牛肉,烟熏白菜和内脏炖菜,黑麦面包,咸鱼和水饺,这些东欧国家的乡村美味是犹太人的主要饮食。贫困的生活,严寒的气候和宗教禁忌造就了他们的饮食习惯。犹太教规定不许吃猪肉,此外鱼,奶制品和肉类不能同时吃。因此当犹太移民开始在纽约营生时,这样的规定体现在了三种完全区分开的店面:奶制品商店销售牛奶,小餐馆卖鱼,熟食店卖牛肉。

Soon, delis were a hit and there was one on every corner of the Lower East Side. But since World War II ended, the neighbourhood became crime-riddled, later turned into a hotbed of intensive gentrification and finally settled as the hip warren of trendy eateries it is today, all the while shedding small local business like the deli. Now in the old neighbourhood, only one old-school deli is left: Katz's Delicatessen on the corner of Houston and Ludlow.

熟食店在当地迅速受到了欢迎,在纽约下东区基本每个街角都有一家。然而在二战结束后,这片地区罪案频发,之后城市改造和乡绅化在这里开始,而现如今这里已经演变成了潮人们外出就餐的地方。小规模的熟食店铺在这个历史演变过程中被不断淘汰,如今只剩一家百年老店—凯兹熟食店,位于休斯顿街和路得楼街道(Ludlow)交叉口。

Having survived rent hikes and employing shrewd business tactics, the 128-year old deli is perennially packed; Katz’s sells more than 10,000 pounds of pastrami a week, and more than 12,000 hot dogs. Their signature sandwich – thick hand-cut slices of pastrami served on rye bread with mustard – is justifiably world famous.

这家拥有128年历史的老店几经租金上涨仍然生意兴隆,通过灵活的商业手段,每日吸引无数食客从世界各地来此朝拜。凯兹熟食店每周要售卖10,000磅熏牛肉,和超过12,000个热狗。他们的招牌三明治—面包片配厚切熏牛肉佐以芥末酱—味道的确名不虚传。

Today this final holdout of the old ways is in the hands of Jake Dell, a 28-year-old self-described “Prince of Pastrami” and third-generation deli man, who took over from his uncle and parents three years ago. With his family, Dell has watched other delicatessens in the neighbourhood shutter, falling victim to the same three issues that have doomed most delis the world over.

杰克.戴尔(Jake Dell)是这座百年老店的继承人。自称“熏牛肉王子”的戴尔今年28岁,三年前从叔叔和父母手中接管了店铺,是熟食店的第三代传人。戴尔家亲眼目睹了其它熟食店铺在这个街区的逐渐衰落的过程,他们认为有三点原因影响世界所有熟食店的发展。

The first is economic – running a deli is laughably expensive. For the most part, delis depend on one ingredient, beef – corned or pastrami’d, put in a hot dog or, in the case of tongue, pickled. When the price of beef goes up, other restaurants can change around their menus, push salads or appetizers, but no one is going to line up around the block at a deli for a cup of chicken soup or a plate of latkes.

第一点是经济原因,非常有趣的是经营熟食店成本非常高昂。无论是咸牛肉还是熏牛肉,配热狗或者根据口味佐以酸甜菜,熟食店主要依靠牛肉作为原材料。因此当牛肉价格上涨的时候,很多其他店铺或许可以改变他们的菜单,主推沙拉或者开胃小菜,但是没有人会愿意在熟食店门口排大队就为了一碗鸡汤或一碟土豆饼。

The second reason so many delis close is cultural. The deli is a mirror of the American Jewish immigrant experience, and that experience has changed.

很多熟食店关门的第二个原因是文化层面的。熟食店是美国犹太移民文化的写照,而这种文化正在发生变化。

“You’re not going to be cutting meat for the rest of your life. I’m telling you my son, you’re going to go be a doctor, you’re going to be a lawyer,” said Dell, imitating a Jewish grandfather. “Maybe it’s not the first generation, maybe it’s not the second, but after a while, you start to see delis disappear because there’s no one left to take over.”

“你不能一辈子总在这里切牛肉,我的孩子,你要成为一个医生,一个律师,”戴尔模仿一位犹太祖父说道,“也许不是在第一辈人的时候,或许也不是在第二代人,但是一段时间之后,你就会慢慢看到熟食店在消失,因为已经没有接班人了。”

The third reason is changing trends. Today’s dining landscape is health-conscious and vegetable-forward. Delis serve fatty meat and lots of it. Vegetable options at a traditional deli are mostly limited to fried potatoes and pickles, and purists wouldn’t have it any other way.

第三个原因是饮食习惯的变化。如今的餐桌风格整体趋向于更多食用蔬菜和健康理念主导。而熟食店出售很多肥腻的牛肉。在传统的熟食店里蔬菜的选择往往局限于煎炸土豆和腌黄瓜,清教徒除此之外拒绝接受其他选择。

According to David Sax who wrote Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen, 1930s New York was home to three or four thousand delis. Today, there are less than two dozen.

根据大卫·萨克斯(David Sax)所著的《拯救熟食店:寻找完美的熏牛肉,脆皮黑麦面包和犹太熟食店文化精髓》中称在1930年代,纽约曾有3-4千家犹太熟食店,而今只剩不到24家。

With that in mind, Dell’s responsibility to Katz’s is weighty and two-fold: preserve the deli tradition in the face of a changing world, and heed the writing on the wall. In other words, innovate or die.

分析了以上原因之后,戴尔经营好凯兹熟食店责任重大,他肩负两个任务:在变化万千的环境下保持熟食店的传统,同时不断关注发展前景。或者换句话说,创新,要么等死。

In a way, Dell is the perfect man for the job. He is steeped in the old ways, but also a young, modern entrepreneur. Where his parents got their business experience behind the meat counter, Dell went to New York University’s Stern School of Business and got his MBA.

从某种程度上说,戴尔是经营店铺的最佳人选。他即了解传统,同时也是一位年轻现代的企业家。他的父母或许是从熟食店获取商业经验,而戴尔则在纽约大学斯特恩商学院(Stern School of Business)获得了MBA的学位。

Alongside expanding the restaurant’s popular catering service, revamping its website and modernizing its shipping, for the first time in Katz’s history, Dell is breaking ground on a new location, a takeout-only restaurant in downtown Brooklyn.

戴尔扩大了经营范围,改造了网站,提升了外送服务,并且在凯兹熟食店的历史上,首次在一个新的地点,市中心布鲁克林地区开了一家外卖店面。

However, Dell is the first to admit that a successful Katz’s delicatessen alone will not save the deli in New York City. For that, the deli has to come into the 21st Century and meet the needs of a new modern clientele. It needs people like Noah Bernamoff and his wife, Rae.

尽管如此,戴尔也承认,只是成功经营凯兹熟食店对于拯救整体熟食店的衰落是远远不够的。熟食店需要与时俱进,拓展新客源。诺厄·博纳莫夫(Noah Bernamof)和他的妻子瑞(Rae)或许可以帮得上忙。

The Bernamoffs – and their partner Max Levine – opened the Mile End Deli six years ago. Instead of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, they put it in the hipster enclave of Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. “Our goal was to create a deli that reflected our current values,” Bernamoff said, “not necessarily the values of our parents.”

博纳莫夫夫妇和他们的合伙人马克思·乐凡(Max Levine )在六年前开了一家名叫“终点”(Mile End)的熟食店。这家店位于布鲁克林时尚的伯恩兰姆丘(Boerum Hill)地区,而不是在曼哈顿的下东区。“我们希望打造出一家能够反应我们现在价值观的熟食店,”博纳莫夫说,“这不一定非的得要和父母的价值观相同。”

They started by looking back to the deli’s 19th Century beginnings. The archetypal American deli – with cafeteria lighting and old men angrily returning soup – is an invention of the 1950s. The deli that interested Bernamoff was the deli of the first few generations of immigrants that arrived here, bringing the focus back on the product. His pastrami is dry cured, not wet brined – and is steamed and cut thick and by hand, not portioned and boiled – like many other places. The result is a thick slice of boldly beefy, well-spiced and almost botanical pastrami that crumbles in your mouth but holds up when piled high on rye.

他们审视了熟食店在19世纪的起源,发现那种陈旧的美式咖啡厅光线,老年人愤怒的退回汤菜的情境实际上是50年代的演绎的结果。而博纳莫夫追求的是当最早的移民抵达纽约那时的感觉,更加关注食物本身。因此他们出售的熏牛肉口感略干,而不是泡在盐水里的,是蒸过的,手工厚切片,而不是像其他老式店铺那样定量的煮出来的。这里的三明治有可观的牛肉,多汁入味,肉瘦有嚼劲,入口即化口感绝妙。

“All these steps are traditional and in line with extra-traditional deli,” he explained. “What I often say, is it goes back beyond the deli we now consider to be old school deli.”

“所有这些步骤都很传统,而且符合强调传统的熟食店风格,”他解释道。“我经常说,这样的做法其实已经超越了我们所认为的旧学院派的熟食店。”

While the product may be “old school” through and through, Bernamoff is fully aware of the new generation of younger, plugged-in, food-obsessed consumers. He carefully sources all of his products, using all-natural Black Angus beef without antibiotics or hormones. Mile End is bright and airy with reggae coming through the speakers, and the menu has a few modern crowd pleasers like a warm vegetable salad with yogurt and mint, and Montreal-inspired smoked meat poutine.

尽管食物是彻头彻尾的传统食物,博纳莫夫对于新一代的更加年轻的,热衷于上网浏览,爱好美食的消费者们的习惯有着深刻的了解。他对食材来源严格把关,使用全天然无添加的黑安格斯牛肉(Black Angus)。“终点”熟食店店面装饰明亮,扬声器里放的是雷鬼音乐,菜单上还提供现代大众喜闻乐见的蔬菜沙拉佐以酸奶和薄荷酱,和蒙特利尔肉汁乳酪薯条。

If the Bernamoffs are looking back, then Will Horowitz is looking way, way back. While Bernamoff harkens back to the original American delis, Horowitz is interested in the age-old techniques from Eastern Europe that underpinned them. Horowitz, who – with his sister Julie – opened Harry & Ida’s in 2015 in the East Village, is delicatessen’s mad scientist. In its small kitchen and cellar, there are ribs in the smoker, venison dry-aging in a closet, rows of pickling barrels, trays of salted fish, jars of tiny oysters in oil and an aquarium of eels.

如果说博纳莫夫是从传统中汲取灵感,取材最原始的美国熟食店经验,那么威尔·霍罗威茨(Will Horowitz)则看到了更久远的过去,他对于在东欧时代流传下来的历史悠久的技法更加感兴趣。霍罗威茨和他的姐姐朱莉(Julie)在2015年于曼哈顿东村(East Village)开了一家哈利和伊达(Harry & Ida)熟食店,可谓是熟食店里的疯狂科学家。在狭小的厨房和地下室里,烟熏气里放着牛肋排,橱柜里是干式熟成的鹿肉,一排排腌菜桶,一盘盘的咸鱼,一罐罐油浸小牡蛎,和鳗鱼水箱。

“If you look at the past 80 years, we have this tradition, but what about the last 150 years or 200 years?” he said. “What is traditional pastrami? The original pastrami in Southern Romania or Hungary was probably more cured and smoked goose breast than it was beef.”

“如果你回看过去80年,当时我们已经有了这样的传统,那么150年或者200年前呢?”他说。“什么才是传统的熏肉?在罗马尼亚南部或者匈牙利的最原始的熏肉或许是腌制的鹅胸肉,而不是牛肉呢。”

Horowitz may depend on ancient techniques but what he makes is boldly, radically modern. Pastrami at Harry & Ida’s isn’t served on rye bread but on a sandwich roll. The aromatic, old-world tang of the sandwich comes instead from caraway seeds and rye berries in an accompanying buttermilk slaw. The mustard – A. Bauer's Mustard – is as traditional as it gets, but they take it on a trip through Spain, hitting it with preserved Meyer lemon and brined white anchovies.

霍罗威茨的制作方法或许很传统,但是他在哈利和伊达熟食店所出售的是完全现代感的三明治,这里的熏牛肉三明治不是使用黑麦面包,而是三明治卷。三明治夹杂着来自传统味道,有着的香芹籽和黑麦浆果的芳香,再配以酸奶沙拉。芥末就是传统的鲍尔牌芥末酱,但是与美亚柠檬和盐浸小银鱼的组合形成了来自西班牙的味道。

The pastrami itself is cut the thickest of all, and spends more time in the smoker than most, a nod to Horowitz’s love of Texas barbeque. Finally, the sandwich is finished with a handful of fresh dill, an old-country ingredient but a flourish he picked up from South East Asia.

哈利和伊达熟食店里的熏牛肉是所有店里切的最厚的,由于霍罗威茨对于德克萨斯烧烤的热爱,这里的熏牛肉也是烟熏效果最好的。三明治上桌前还会撒上一把新鲜的莳萝,一种从东南亚国家采摘的古老食材。

The sandwich is wholly new, but in its way is absolutely true to the soul of delicatessen: a reflection of the Jewish immigrant experience. Now in the fourth or fifth generation, that experience is sophisticated, global, aware of the past and alive with possibilities.

三明治是全新的,但是在方方面面忠实于熟食店的精髓,是一种对于犹太文化的反思。这样的文化传统如今已到了第四代,第五代人的手中,这种文化愈加深刻复杂,带有全球性,根植于传统,但焕发着新的生机。
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