The Best Asian Fusion Food in South America

⊙ By Susie Blair翻译：小狐

The Best Asian Fusion Food in South America

⊙ By Susie Blair翻译：小狐

就地取材，因地制宜，灵活应变，这是美食烹饪的第一原则。到了遥远的南美洲后，聪明的亚洲人正是凭借这一原则，经过多年的钻研，打造出在当地独树一帜的亚洲混搭美食，连南美人也赞不绝口。一起去看看到底是什么好吃的吧。

Host: Have you heard of something called Nikkei? And what about Chifa? If you’re thinking those are Asian dishes, you’d be right, kind of. They actually come from South America, but the food has a serious Asian2)twist.

The city is Lima, the capital of Peru, where Asian fusion is3)thriving. The main reason for the birth of this cuisine is immigration, after a revolution in Peru in the 1800s. But nowadays the Asian population lives mainly in Chinatown.

Steve Dolinsky (Food Writer): Chifa is Chinese, and the Chinese make up about two to three percent of Peru’s population, just under a million people. It’s this fascinating style of cuisine I had never seen before. I didn’t know it existed in Peru. A lot of it4)stems from Chinese immigration here after independence in Peru. Kind of late 1850s, 1860s, Chinese came here to work the plantations, sugar plantations, build railroads,5)tap6)rubber trees, and they stayed, and they sort of created their own cuisine, based on what was available here locally. Great example of a Chifa dish is a dish called Arroz Chaufa, and that’s just7)fried rice, but instead of seeing it with, like,8)bell peppers or pineapple or something you’d see in America,9)broccoli, here they have it10)topped with big giant11)corn kernels in it—you know, there’s hundreds of different varieties of corn in Peru—so you’d see these big giant corn kernels12)embedded throughout the fried rice. Or the fried chicken we’d see like in a sweet and13)sour chicken, here is topped with marakuya, which is passion fruit sauce, so very different14)mashup for the Chinese Peruvian.

Host: What about Nikkei cuisine, which is based in Japanese food? Would you findNikkei and Chifa in the same restaurant, or in different places ?

Steve: Typically restaurants are going to be either Chifa or Nikkei, and the Nikkei, from the Japanese, they’re even smaller—about one and a half percent of the population in Peru. Immigrants really started coming in late 1890s, and the Japanese would end up just staying here, marrying Peruvians. And one of the most fascinating mashups I’ve seen is a place here called Maido. It just got ranked 7th best restaurant in Latin America. Mitsuharu Tsumura, his father is from Osaka, his mother is Peruvian, and he’s got this really high-end approach to Nikkei cuisine. I mean the Japanese have influenced, you know, the way they cut fish, the way they serve fish here. I mean, the seafood is so15)plentiful here in the Pacific. And you see a lot of Japanese restaurants here, and the Sushi service is amazing. At his restaurant, Maido, he’ll have grilled16)pigeon on top of some rice.

The Japanese and Peruvian mashup, it’s not only fascinating, but it’s awfully17)delicious. I mean, it was really just born by necessity. The Japanese chefs would come here, they could not find a lot of the ingredients,18)sashimi, peppers or19)edamame, the things that they would see back home. They take these local20)indigenous ingredients and give them a little bit of an Asian21)spin, and it’s just… I’ve never seen anything like it before.

If you’re thinking those are Asian dishes, you’d be right, kind of.Kind of late 1850s, 1860s, Chinese came here to work the plantations, sugar plantations, build railroads, tap rubber trees, and they stayed, and they sort of created their own cuisine, based on what was available here locally.

词组kind of在英语中很常见，是一个表示程度的修饰性词组，表明它修饰的事物大致上具有某种特征，可解释为“有点，有几分；相当；在一定程度上”，具体含义视上下文而定；在结构上，它可以修饰名词、形容词，或句子；在口语中，也经常作插入语用，表示一种含糊的语气。在上面的第一个句子中，它修饰的是整个主句you’d be right，意为“差不多”；在第二个句子中，它修饰的是时间名词，意为“大约”。例如：

● It kind of gives us an idea of what type of person he is. （这大概让我们知道他到底是什么样的人。）

● I’m kind of hungry.（我有点饿了。）

1) fusion ['fjuːʒ(ə)n] n. 混合，结合

2) twist [twɪst] n. 变化

3) thrive [θraɪv] v. 旺盛，兴旺

4) stem [stem] v. 源自，起源于

5) tap [tæp] v. 在……开一个口以导出液体

6) rubber ['rʌbə(r)] n. 橡胶

7) fried rice 炒饭

8) bell pepper 甜椒

9) broccoli ['brɒkəlɪ] n. 西兰花，花茎甘蓝

10) top [tɒp] v. 加在……之上

11) corn kernels 玉米粒

12) embed [em'bed] v. 嵌入

13) sour ['saʊə(r)] adj. 酸的

14) mashup [mæʃ'ʌp] n. 混搭

15) plentiful ['plentɪfʊl] adj. 丰富的，充裕的

16) pigeon ['pɪdʒ(ə)n] n. 鸽子

17) delicious [dɪ'lɪʃəs] adj. 美味的

18) sashimi [sɑː'ʃiːmɪ] n. 刺身，生鱼片

19) edamame [edə'mɑːmeɪ] n. 日本青豆

20) indigenous [ɪn'dɪdʒɪnəs] adj. 本土的

21) spin [spɪn] n. 倾向性，趋向性

主持人：你是否听说过Nikkei？Chifa呢？如果你觉得这些都是亚洲菜吧，那你就对了，或者说差不多是对的。它们实际上来自南美洲，不过带有浓厚的亚洲风味。

在秘鲁的首都利马，亚洲混搭美食可谓欣欣向荣。这种美食风味产生的主要原因是移民在十九世纪秘鲁爆发革命后开始大量涌入。不过如今，亚裔人口主要生活在唐人街。

史蒂夫·多林斯基（美食专栏作者）：Chifa这个词源自中文，中国人占秘鲁人口的2%-3%，差不多有一百万人口。这种奇妙的风味是我以前从未见过的，我都不知道在秘鲁还有这样的美食，其中很多源自秘鲁独立后到来的中国移民。大约在十九世纪五六十年代末期，中国人来到此地从事种植业，种植甘蔗，修建铁路，割橡胶，后来他们留了下来，就地取材，创造出他们自己的烹饪风格。其中一个很好的Chifa菜例子就是这种被称为“Arroz Chaufa”的菜式——其实就是炒饭，然而与你在美国见到的炒饭不同，它里面加入的不是甜椒、菠萝，或者西兰花之类的食材；在这里，他们往炒饭里加了许多巨大的玉米粒——你知道，在秘鲁有几百种不同种类的玉米——所以你会看到炒饭里都是这些超大的玉米粒。或者说炸鸡这道菜吧，我们平时看到的都是酸甜鸡块，这里的人则在上面浇了百香果酱（marakuya）。华裔秘鲁人创造出非常不同的搭配方式。

主持人：那么Nikkei菜式呢？是源自于日本菜吧？你能在同一家餐厅吃到Nikkei和Chifa吗，还是要去不同的餐厅？

史蒂夫：一般说来，那些餐厅要么是Chifa菜，要么是Nikkei菜。Nikkei菜源自日本移民，其人口更少——大约占秘鲁人口的1.5%左右。这些日本移民实际上是从十九世纪九十年代末开始来到秘鲁的，他们留了下来，与秘鲁人通婚，在这里我所见过最诱人的混搭融合菜式是在Maido餐厅。这家餐厅刚刚在拉丁美洲最佳餐厅排行榜上取得了第七位的佳绩。津村光晴的父亲来自大阪，母亲则是秘鲁人，他在打造Nikkei菜式时采用了相当“高大上”的手法。我的意思是，日本人已经影响了当地人切鱼的方式，以及当地烹煮鱼的方式。我是说，在太平洋沿岸这里，海鲜实在是太丰富了，而你可以看到这里有许许多多的日本餐厅，他们做的寿司简直是太棒了。而在Maido餐厅里，津村光晴还会在一些米饭上面铺上烤鸽子肉呢。

日本菜和秘鲁菜的融合，不只是诱人，简直是好吃得不得了。我是说，他们其实是迫不得已。日本大厨们来到这里后找不到很多日本食材，像他们在家乡常见的刺身、胡椒，或青豆等，于是他们采用了本地土生土长的原材料，再加上一丝亚洲风味，那味道简直是……我以前从未见过像这样的美食。