安瑟尼·波登：講出真相的反叛美食家

Anthony Bourdain entered the literary stage with an inside tip, delivered in the gruff whisper of a racetrack tout: Don’t order fish on Mondays.

安瑟尼·波登(Anthony Bourdain)的文字生涯始于一則內(nèi)幕消息，他用透露小道消息的低沉語(yǔ)調(diào)惡狠狠地說(shuō)：周一不要點(diǎn)魚(yú)。

It was the part that everybody remembered from his first published work, a long essay about the unglamorous and sometimes unsavory work of cooks and dishwashers that ran in The New Yorker in 1999 and that made it almost impossible for waiters to sell seafood between Sunday and Tuesday for at least a decade.

所有人都記住了他發(fā)表的第一篇文章中的這句話。那是1999年的一篇《紐約客》長(zhǎng)文，介紹的是廚師和洗碗工的那些不怎么光彩的、有時(shí)難以下咽的工作。那篇文章導(dǎo)致在至少十年的時(shí)間里，讓餐館服務(wù)生幾乎不可能在周日和周二之間賣出海鮮。

And the advice gave Mr. Bourdain, a journeyman cook and chef nobody had heard of, a new career. Before he was found dead on Friday, in what the authorities were treating as a suicide, he was the witty, connected guide who, in memoirs, cookbooks and television shows, would tell you things that others wouldn’t.

這條建議讓波登——一個(gè)談不上才華橫溢的熟練廚子，一個(gè)沒(méi)人聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)的大廚——開(kāi)啟了一個(gè)全新的事業(yè)。周五，他被人發(fā)現(xiàn)死于酒店房間里——當(dāng)局目前將案件定性為自殺。在此之前，他是一個(gè)風(fēng)趣、交際廣泛的導(dǎo)游。他通過(guò)回憶錄、烹飪書和電視節(jié)目告訴你一些其他人不會(huì)說(shuō)的東西。

In the glossy, cheerful, relentlessly promotional realms of food and travel writing, that left him a fair number of truths he could claim as his own, and he took full advantage of the situation.

在光鮮、歡快、宣傳意味十足的美食和旅行寫作領(lǐng)域，這讓他掌握了大量可以說(shuō)屬于他自己的真相。他充分利用了這一點(diǎn)。

A close reader of Orwell, he modeled that first essay and the book that grew out of it, “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” on Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London.” While other restaurant writers had helped build the cult of the creative, artistic chef, Mr. Bourdain made folk heroes out of the dishwasher and the line cook — a job description previously known only to restaurant employees. He described their lives and their day-to-day work in concrete, indelible detail.

他深入地研究過(guò)奧威爾的作品，并仿照奧威爾的《巴黎倫敦落魄記》(Down and Out in Paris and London)寫出了自己的第一篇文章，以及由此文發(fā)展而成的書——《廚房機(jī)密檔案》(Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly)。別的美食作家在營(yíng)造對(duì)富有創(chuàng)意和藝術(shù)性的大廚的崇拜，波登卻讓洗碗工和幫廚成了平民英雄——在此之前，只有餐廳員工知道這些人的工作內(nèi)容。他通過(guò)具體的、令人難以忘懷的細(xì)節(jié)，描寫了他們的生活和日常工作。

When kitchens were being wrapped in a shimmering gauze of glamour, Mr. Bourdain got busy unwrapping them, revealing the injuries and addictions, low wages and high tempers that took a toll on workers.

當(dāng)廚房籠罩在耀眼的光環(huán)之中時(shí)，波登忙于撥開(kāi)這些光環(huán)，揭露嚴(yán)重?fù)p害餐廳員工的傷病和嗜癮、低薪和火爆脾氣。

Among other things, he was one of the first writers to tell the dining public that many high-profile New York restaurants would cease to function without the work and talents of Mexican employees. It was almost a casual aside, yet it suddenly opened new subjects to the purview of food writing: immigration policy, labor conditions, racism.

此外，他還最早告訴食客，如果沒(méi)有墨西哥員工的工作和才華，紐約很多知名餐廳都會(huì)停業(yè)。那幾乎是一句隨意的旁白，但突然為美食寫作領(lǐng)域開(kāi)啟了新的主題：移民政策、勞工狀況、種族主義。

He identified with the grunts, portraying himself as a slinger of cheap steaks and French fries. The grunts, in turn, identified with him, not because of his contributions as a chef — who can name an Anthony Bourdain dish? — but because he told the world what the work was really like. And once he left kitchens behind for a career in travel television, he didn’t lead his camera crews on a tour of the world’s most luxurious resorts. He went to Detroit and the Bronx, Libya and Beirut.

他同情那些做粗活的人，把自己描繪成一個(gè)嗜好廉價(jià)牛排和薯?xiàng)l的人。反過(guò)來(lái)，他們也理解他，這不是因?yàn)樗鳛橐幻髲N的貢獻(xiàn)——誰(shuí)能說(shuō)出一道安瑟尼·波登的菜?——而是因?yàn)樗蛉澜缯f(shuō)出了這份工作的真實(shí)面目。當(dāng)他離開(kāi)廚房，進(jìn)入旅游電視行業(yè)時(shí)，他沒(méi)有帶領(lǐng)攝制組探訪全球最豪華的度假勝地。他去的是底特律、紐約布朗克斯、利比亞和貝魯特。

“Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay,” he wrote in the opening sentence of that New Yorker piece, and it set the tone for all the work that followed.

“好的食物，好的飲食，都跟血和器官、殘忍和腐壞有關(guān)，”他在《紐約客》那篇文章的開(kāi)頭寫道。這為他以后的所有作品奠定了基調(diào)。

Mr. Bourdain was a blood-and-organs kind of guy, and he became identified with his unflinching, at times ostentatious, descriptions of life, death, sex and digestion. Footage of fly-speckled goats’ heads in open-air markets was to his travel shows what harbor sunsets were for other programs.

波登是那種關(guān)注血和器官的人，他以對(duì)生命、死亡、性和消化毫不收斂、時(shí)有浮夸的描寫聞名。他的旅行節(jié)目的典型鏡頭是露天市場(chǎng)上落滿蒼蠅的山羊頭，就像其他節(jié)目中的海灣日落。

Although he wasn’t immune to hyperbole, he had an old-school chain-smoking newspaper editor’s hatred of self-serving hypocrisy, particularly in other television hosts. He delighted in mocking celebrity chefs like Guy Fieri (whose Times Square restaurant he called “the Terrordome”) and Paula Deen (“the worst, most dangerous person to America”).

雖然他難免也會(huì)夸張，但他具有一個(gè)一根接一根抽煙的老派報(bào)紙編輯對(duì)自私偽善的憎恨，尤其是對(duì)其他電視主持人。他喜歡嘲笑名廚，比如蓋伊·菲耶里(Guy Fieri，他說(shuō)菲耶里在時(shí)報(bào)廣場(chǎng)的餐廳是“恐怖穹頂”)和葆拉·迪恩(Paula Deen，他說(shuō)她是“美國(guó)最壞、最危險(xiǎn)的人”)。

At times Mr. Bourdain’s capacity as truth-teller could bleed into other, less salutary roles: the attention-seeking bully, the purveyor of well-polished shtick, the lecture-circuit fixture who, on cue, would curse like a line cook who has just chopped off the tip of his finger.

有時(shí)，波登講真話的能力會(huì)滲透到他的其他那些不那么有益的角色中：喜歡被人關(guān)注的惡霸;精心打磨的滑稽風(fēng)格的提供者;巡回演講的常客，一逮到機(jī)會(huì)，他就會(huì)像剛切到指尖的幫廚一樣破口大罵。

“I do a lot of speaking engagements and sometimes I feel like I’m being paid to curse in front of people who haven’t heard it in a while,” he said in a 2008 interview.

“我做了很多演講，有時(shí)我覺(jué)得我就是靠著在觀眾面前罵臟話賺錢，那些觀眾已經(jīng)有一段時(shí)間沒(méi)聽(tīng)到臟話了，”他在2008年的一次采訪中說(shuō)。

In the past few months, as accusations of sexual harassment and predatory behavior have shaken the restaurant industry, Mr. Bourdain’s swaggering accounts of kitchen life have come in for re-evaluation. He certainly took pleasure in telling outsiders what it was like. Was there some pride in there, too, in belonging to a band of misfits and rule-breakers? Had he helped to popularize a workplace culture in which misogyny and abuse were overlooked, tolerated and sometimes even celebrated?

在過(guò)去的幾個(gè)月里，隨著對(duì)性騷擾和掠奪行為的指控動(dòng)搖餐飲業(yè)，波登對(duì)廚房生活的狷狂陳述也開(kāi)始被重新評(píng)價(jià)。他顯然以告訴外人廚房里的情況為樂(lè)。他是否以自己被歸為不合群、不守規(guī)矩的一類人為榮?他是否幫助推廣了一種職場(chǎng)文化，在這種文化中，對(duì)女性的歧視和虐待被忽視、容忍，有時(shí)甚至被贊美?

“To the extent which my work in ‘Kitchen Confidential’ celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse,” he wrote on Medium in December.

“我每天都帶著深深的悔恨思考，我在《廚房機(jī)密檔案》中寫的那些東西，多大程度上是在贊美或延續(xù)那種容許可怕行為的文化，”去年12月，他在Medium上寫道。

Having regularly heaped disgust and outrage on Harvey Weinstein (who was accused of rape by Asia Argento, Mr. Bourdain’s partner), he was also confronted with serious and deeply unsettling allegations about Mario Batali, a friend. “In these current circumstances, one must pick a side,” Mr. Bourdain wrote. “I stand unhesitatingly and unwaveringly with the women.”

他經(jīng)常對(duì)哈維·韋恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein，波登的伴侶艾莎·阿基多[Asia Argento]指控韋恩斯坦強(qiáng)奸了她)表示厭惡和憤怒，但他也面臨著對(duì)他的朋友馬里奧·巴塔利(Mario Batali)的非常令人不安的嚴(yán)重指控。“在目前的情況下，人們必須選擇立場(chǎng)，”波登寫道。“我毫不猶豫、毫不動(dòng)搖地站在這些女性這一邊。”

But if the feminist perspective was relatively new to his repertory, speaking out about sexual abuse was not. Long ago, in “Kitchen Confidential,” he had written about a union shop steward who had inserted his fingers into Mr. Bourdain’s rectum every day, in front of the other kitchen workers. Experiences like this may be common for male cooks, but they are not commonly discussed in public.

但是，如果說(shuō)女性主義觀點(diǎn)對(duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)是相對(duì)較新的固定話題，那么，公開(kāi)談?wù)撔郧址笇?duì)他來(lái)說(shuō)并不新鮮。他很久以前就在《廚房機(jī)密檔案》里提到，一個(gè)工會(huì)代表每天都當(dāng)著其他廚房工人的面把手指插進(jìn)波登的直腸。這樣的經(jīng)歷對(duì)男性廚師來(lái)說(shuō)可能很常見(jiàn)，但很少有人公開(kāi)討論。

Mr. Bourdain was too unsettled, his moral compass too twitchy, to have written an account of kitchen life that was purely celebratory or purely accusatory.

波登太不安了，他的道德羅盤太緊張了，以至于在講述廚房生活時(shí)，他不會(huì)進(jìn)行純粹的稱贊或指責(zé)。

“Life is complicated. It’s filled with nuance. It’s unsatisfying,” he once said. “If I believe in anything, it is doubt.”

“生活很復(fù)雜。充滿微妙的東西。讓人很不爽，”他曾經(jīng)表示。“你要是問(wèn)我信什么，我會(huì)說(shuō)，我只相信懷疑。”