干旱改变加州的厨房与餐桌
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Andrea Nguyen, who writes cookbooks for a living, knows that making pho in a pressure cooker is not the solution to California’s drought. Still, developing a reasonable version of the Vietnamese noodle soup that can be made in less than an hour, with half the water, matters to her these days.
加利福尼亚，圣塔克鲁兹——安德莉亚·阮(Andrea Nguyen)以撰写食谱为生，她知道，在加州干旱期间，用高压锅煮炖越南粉不是什么好选择。不过，一碗半是汤水的美味越南汤面也可以在不到一个小时就做好，这段时间她经常做。
“We’re all trying to do what we can,” she said. “It’s all about consciousness.”
“我们都在努力，”她说，“这和观念有关。”
Across California, home cooks and restaurant chefs are adjusting to a new reality in kitchens where water once flowed freely over sinks full of vegetables, and no one thought twice about firing up a big pot of water for pasta.
在加州，家庭厨师和餐馆大厨开始适应新的事实，他们不再开大水龙头冲洗蔬菜，煮一大锅水做意大利面之前也会三思而行。
The state is in the fourth year of a severe drought, but the reality of living with less water began hitting hard in the spring. For the first time, state officials ordered residents of every city and town to conserve water or face consequences.
加利福尼亚州进入严重干旱已经是第四个年头，但今年春天，节约生活用水这件事变得认真起来。加州官员第一次要求每个城镇的居民节约用水，否则就得面临严重后果。
Some residents had already taken the punishment into their own hands with drought shaming, using social media to call out people with well-watered lawns or other outward signs of excessive water consumption.
有些居民已经开始自作主张地惩罚、羞辱那些在干旱中不节约用水的人，他们用社交媒体曝光那些过分灌溉草坪的人，以及其他明显浪费水资源的行为。
A culinary equivalent has yet to pop up, probably because running a kitchen is not as water-intensive as maintaining a yard or using the bathroom, where a bucket to collect water as the shower heats up has become an accepted part of home décor.
目前还没有和烹饪相关的曝光，或许是因为烹饪时用水不像维护庭院或者洗浴时那样，需要那么多的精打细算——现在用大桶接淋浴时排放的凉水，已经成了许多家庭必做的事情。
Yet the drought’s impact is being keenly felt in culinary matters, from how Californians cook and clean, to how they shop and even what foods they can find at the market.
然而，在加利福尼亚，从厨子到清洁人员，餐饮界还是深刻地感觉到了干旱对烹饪的影响，从购物方式到市场上能买到的食物都发生了变化。
“There is no such thing as putting your vegetables in a colander and letting the water drain through it anymore,” said Margo True, the food editor at Sunset magazine and the former executive editor of Saveur.
“再也不能把蔬菜放在滤锅上用自来水冲洗干净了，”《落日》(Sunset)杂志的食品编辑与《Saveur》杂志的前执行主编玛尔戈·特鲁(Margo True)说。
She and other cooks report that people are steaming more than boiling, and cooking with fewer pots and pans, a practice that she says fits nicely with the current popularity of entire meals that can be prepared on a sheet pan. “It’s marginal,” she said, “but it makes people feel better.”
她和其他几位厨师说，人们现在更多用蒸东西取代煮东西，用更少的厨具烹制食品，她说，这符合目前流行的整体餐趋势，这样的一餐可以用一个大烤盘就做好。“这很俭省，”她说，“但是能让人感觉良好。”
Food producers have been forced to change, too. Cheese makers who rely on milk from animals used to eating lush grass have had to contend with radically different flavors in the milk. Hodo Soy Beanery, in Oakland, had to find a way to streamline its process for making tofu, a food that takes lots of water to wash and chill.
食品生产商也被迫做出改变。奶酪生产商需要依赖动物产奶，它们原本有丰盛的饲料进食，现在奶的口味有了极大的变化，生产商们也只得去适应。奥克兰的霍多大豆小吃店(Hodo Soy Beanery)得想办法改变生产豆腐的方式，因为豆腐需要很多水来清洗和冷却。
In fields everywhere, the drought (along with a particularly mild winter and unusually cold spring) has changed the quantity, quality, predictability and price of the state’s best produce.
在各个方面，干旱（外加较为温暖的冬天和极为寒冷的春天）改变了许多加州名产的产量、质量、预期生产情况和价格。
The cherry crop was small, and gone in a flash. Strawberries and basil showed up at the market earlier than anyone can seem to recall. The first peaches — whose prices rose 11 percent last week, according to a United States Department of Agriculture market report — arrived two weeks early.
樱桃的收成非常少，很快就下市了。草莓和罗勒的上市期比任何人记忆中都早。最早的一批桃子也提早上市了两星期，根据美国农业部的市场报告，上周它的价格上升了11%。
Cooks are bracing for more shortages. About 30 percent less rice will be planted this year, the California Rice Commission reports. Farmers, who in June were handed sharp new limits on water use, have to decide which crops they aren’t going to grow.
厨师们还得面对更多短缺状况。根据加利福尼亚稻米协会报道，今年该州稻米将减产30%。6月，农民的用水受到进一步的新限制，他们得决定停止种植哪些庄稼。
Shoppers in other states are starting to feel the effects. Philadelphia Cousins, Julia Child’s niece, can’t seem to find a California avocado in Colorado, where she lives.
其他州的商家也开始感受到干旱带来的影响。茱莉亚·柴尔德(Julia Child)的甥女菲拉德尔菲亚·卡辛斯(Philadelphia Cousins)现居科罗拉多，她发现自己买不到加州产的牛油果了。
“I think in coming months we’ll start seeing a shortage of a lot more than avocados,” said Ms. Cousins, who works closely with her aunt’s culinary foundation. “It really breaks my heart witnessing this, having grown up in California, which, in my childhood, was lush and fruitful.”
“我觉得在未来几个月里，我们还会面临更多短缺，不只是牛油果，”卡辛斯女士说，她和阿姨密切合作，经营烹饪基金会。“这种情况真让我心碎，我从小在加利福尼亚长大，那里曾是那样肥沃多产。”
There is an upside: Some produce has become heartbreakingly delicious.
不过也有好的一面：有些东西变得极度美味。
“I have definitely noticed some really exceptional ingredients this year,” said Suzanne Goin, who runs four restaurants in the Los Angeles area, including A.O.C. and Lucques. “The fruit is smaller and there is less of it, but it’s super-tasty and more intense. Of course, it’s also more expensive.”
“今年我开始留意到某些非常特别的食材，”苏珊娜·戈因(Suzanne Goin)说，她在洛杉矶拥有四家餐厅，包括A.O.C与Lucques。“果实变小了，产量也小了，但它们的滋味却变得极为浓郁美妙。当然，价钱也更贵了。”
Less irrigation means the cells aren’t as full of water, which leads to smaller, intensely flavored fruit. That is something fans of Early Girl dry-farmed tomatoes already know. The method, pioneered before the drought became so severe, relies on cutting off irrigation once a plant is established, leaving it to rely on whatever water it can find.
较少的灌溉令果实的细胞较为缺水，因此果实会变得个头较小，味道更浓。喜欢“早到女孩”(Early Girl)用干农法耕种的西红柿的人们早就知道这一点。这种方法在干旱变得如此严重之前就已经产生，它降低作物惯常的灌溉量，让它依靠自己能获取的水存活。
Chefs have changed protocols both in their professional and personal kitchens. “I boiled some beets last night at home, and I poured the water onto my tree,” Ms. Goin said.
在餐馆和自家厨房，大厨们都改变了操作规程。“昨天晚上我在家煮了一些甜菜，然后用这些水浇树，”戈因说。
At restaurants, cooks defrost food in the walk-in refrigerator instead of in several changes of water. Ice is dumped on plants at the end of the shift rather than melted with hot water. Dishwashers are scraping plates instead of spraying them, and packing dishes more tightly into machines.
在餐厅，厨师们把食物放进冷藏间解冻，不再使用数次换水的办法。最后剩下的冰块被堆放在植物下面，不再放进热水中溶解。洗碗工改为用力擦拭盘子，不再往上面洒水，并且在把碟子放进洗碗机时堆得更紧密。
John Cox, a chef at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, became an instant folk hero among chefs on the hunt for water-saving techniques in April, when word spread that he had rigged up an air compressor to blow the food off plates before putting them in the dishwasher. He estimated that he has saved about a thousand gallons a day with the practice.
大瑟尔的波斯特农庄酒店的大厨约翰·考克斯在四月发现了一种省水新技术，他拼装出一台空气压缩机，把盘中的剩余食品在放入洗碗机之前吹下去，消息传开后，他顿时成了厨师们心目中的英雄。他估计，自己的做法每天可以节省一千加仑的水。
For diners, the most noticeable difference comes when they sit at a table. New state rules forbid waiters to serve water without asking first. After an initial hello, a waiter at Octavia, in San Francisco, the newest restaurant from the chef Melissa Perello, announced that “due to the shortage, we offer water only upon request.” If she hadn’t, the restaurant could have been fined $500.
对于用餐者们来说，最明显的不同发生在他们刚刚坐到桌边的时候。新的州法规禁止侍者不经询问就给客人上水。旧金山的奥克塔维亚是大厨梅丽莎·佩莱罗(Melissa Perello)最新开的餐厅，在这里，一位侍者走上来，先问了好，接着说，“由于缺水，我们只在客人要求时才提供饮用水。”如果她不这样说，餐厅可能会被罚款500美元。
In the kitchen, signs remind employees to make sure the faucets are off, and Ms. Perello said price increases and the shorter, earlier seasons have forced her to be more creative.
厨房里有标志提醒雇员关紧水龙头，佩莱罗说，水价上升、供应短缺、农产品提早上市，这一切都迫使她发挥更多创意。
Drought-stressed produce cooks differently, said Joyce Goldstein, a Bay Area chef, restaurant consultant and food writer who has cooked with California produce for decades. “It goes dead ripe really fast,” she said. It is softer and tends to lose its texture when cooked too long, a point she made in a recent column on canning she wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle.
乔伊斯·戈德斯坦(Joyce Goldstein)是湾区的大厨，也是餐厅顾问和美食作家，几十年来一直用加州农产品烹饪，她说，干旱之下出产的作物要用不同的方式烹饪。“它们很快就会煮得烂熟，”她说。食材变得更柔软，如果烹饪时间过长，就会损失质感，最近她在为《旧金山纪事报》(The San Francisco Chronicle)撰写的关于罐装保存食品的专栏里提到这一点。
Early peaches were so soft that she didn’t cook them at all when she canned some. Instead, she just poured hot brine flavored with ginger, clove and cinnamon over the peaches.
早熟的桃子太软，所以没法烹饪，只得用罐装保存。做法是将热的浓盐水用姜、丁香和肉桂调味，浸泡桃子。
“You really have to be vigilant these days and pay attention to what you have in front of you,” she said.
“这些日子里真的要当心，要格外注意食材，”她说。
The smaller fruit that results from less irrigation can be a challenge for farmers. David Masumoto, whose family produces a boutique crop of organic stone fruit on 80 acres south of Fresno, had a difficult time selling their petite Gold Dust peaches, which they intentionally grew using as little water as possible.
较少的灌溉会令果实较小，这对农民来说是种挑战。大卫·松本(David Masumoto)一家在弗雷斯诺有一处店铺，批发经营占地80英亩的果园中出产的果实，这些日子以来，他们有意用尽可能少的水来灌溉，因此要出售较小的“金粉”桃子就变得有些困难。
Consumers too often view the drought as something abstract, said Nikiko Masumoto, his daughter. “Here we were trying to do something good by conserving water and still farming with the intention of producing something with exceptional flavor, and no one was buying them,” she said.
消费者通常觉得干旱是很抽象的，松本的女儿 Nikiko Masumot说，“我们试着在节约水资源的同时仍然种出美味的水果，结果没有人买。”
She was so frustrated, she started a social media campaign using the hashtag #SmallFruitRevolution to change the minds of shoppers who equate size with quality.
她感到非常难过，于是发起了一场社交媒体宣传活动，使用“#SmallFruitRevolution”（小水果革命）标签，试图改变消费者把水果的个头同质量等同起来的观念。
A new mind-set is creeping into cafeterias at several large technology firms in California. Maisie Ganzler, a vice president at Bon Appétit Management Company, which runs more than 650 cafes for art museums, universities and corporations like Google and Plantronics, said its clients are starting to embrace water conservation as part of a larger movement to reduce food waste.
新观念也来到加利福尼亚一些大型技术公司的自助食堂。好胃口管理公司(Bon Appétit Management Company)经营着650多家美术馆、大学与公司的食堂，谷歌和缤特力(Plantronics)都是它的客户，公司总裁梅奇·甘兹勒(Maisie Ganzler)说，客户开始接受节水观念，把它视为减少食物浪费的一部分。
The company is exploring hydroponic gardens run on solar power, and recently created posters for some clients’ cafeterias that compare the amount of water it takes to grow various fruits and vegetables. It is cooking with imperfect vegetables that farmers might otherwise plow under. One client has stopped serving beef on Fridays, a nod to the large amounts of water used to raise grain-fed cattle.
公司在研究依靠太阳能的溶液培养花园，最近还为若干公司的食堂制作了海报，比较不同水果和蔬菜生长所需要的水量。公司用并不完美，不需农民深耕的蔬菜烹饪。一家公司停止在周五供应牛排，因为谷物喂饲的牛成长需要消耗大量水资源。
“Controlling your food is a way of feeling powerful in a world we often feel powerless in,” Ms. Ganzler said. “And everyone feels pretty powerless about what’s happening with the drought.”
“在这个世界上，我们经常会有无力感，控制自己的食物会让你感觉有了一些掌控能力，”甘泽拉说。“在干旱到来之际，所有人都有深深的无力感。”
Not every cook in California believes that radical change in the kitchen is going to help. People want to believe they are doing the right thing, but the impact is a drop in the bucket, said Nicolette Hahn Niman, an environmental lawyer and author whose husband, Bill Niman, pioneered the modern American grass-fed beef industry.
并非所有的加州厨师都相信厨房内的改变会对事态有所帮助。人们愿意相信自己在做正确的事，但效果很可能只是杯水车薪。环保律师与作家尼柯莱特·哈恩·尼曼(Nicolette Hahn Niman)说，她的丈夫比尔·尼曼(Bill Niman)是现代美国草饲牛工业的先驱之一。
Still, she too feels better by conserving. This year she is not planting anything new, just watering her perennials, like kales and her giant cape gooseberry bush.
不过，节约资源仍然会让她感觉好一点。今年，她不再种植新的作物，只是继续灌溉原本种的多年生作物，比如羽衣甘蓝和庞大的灯笼果灌木。
Cooks who garden debate whether growing one’s own food is a good way to ease the pressure on the water supply that feeds the state’s $46.4 billion agricultural industry, or whether a garden is too expensive and wasteful.
拥有花园的大厨们开始讨论，自行种植食材是不是减轻农业用水压力的好办法（加利福尼亚州拥有价值464亿美元的农业），拥有花园是否过于昂贵和浪费。
Marcy Smothers, a Sonoma County food personality who hosts the radio show “At the Table With Wolf and Smothers,” had for years celebrated Mother’s Day with a trek to the Kendall-Jackson estate winery to buy 10 new heirloom tomato plants at an annual sale. This year, she abandoned her home tomato patch.
索诺马食品界人士玛西·斯莫泽斯(Marcy Smothers)拥有一档广播节目“与伍尔夫和斯莫泽斯共餐”，多年来，她每年都长途跋涉，到肯德尔-杰克逊(Kendall-Jackson)庄园酿酒厂的年度销售会上购买10棵最新的该庄园特色家传西红柿植株，以此庆祝母亲节。今年她放弃了在家里种西红柿。
Ms. Smothers nourishes her flower pots with the water she uses to boil artichokes. And she has gone back to using a pasta-cooking method popularized by the author Harold McGee that starts with cold water (about half the amount traditionally used) and requires a lot of stirring.
现在，斯莫泽斯用煮开朝鲜蓟的水来浇花。她还开始使用哈罗德·麦克吉(Harold McGee)最早使用的冷水烹饪意大利面方法，这需要做很多搅拌，但比传统做法节省一半的水。
“I’m Italian, so I eat pasta a couple of times a week,” she said. “We all do what we can do.”
“我是意大利人，每周要吃两三次意大利面，”她说。“我们都在尽量做我们能做的。”
Ms. Nguyen, the Vietnamese cook working on a drought-friendly pho, feels the same way. Traditionally, meat and bones are blanched for the soup, then that water is discarded. More fresh water is used for a three-hour simmer.
越南厨师阮女士也在为干旱时期调整越南粉的做法，她也有同感。传统上，汤里的肉和骨头应该煮到发白，然后把汤扔掉。炖汤需要三小时，要用掉很多水。
To compensate for the intensity of pressure cooking and the truncated cooking time, she has tinkered with the amounts of star anise, ginger, cinnamon and salt, and has added a bit of apple, using fish sauce for fortification after the pho is cooked.
为了补偿蒸食和缩短烹饪时间所损失的鲜味，她放入了大量八角、姜、肉桂和盐，还放了一点苹果，在越南粉做好后使用鱼酱做最后调味。
The broth is still rich and perfumed, but not quite the same as pho that has simmered gently for hours. The recipe will be featured in Ms. Nguyen’s fifth book, to be published in early 2017.
做出的汤仍然仍然浓郁芬芳，但和文火煮炖几小时的越南粉不太一样了。这个食谱会收进阮女士的第五本食谱书中，该书于2017年初出版。
“I think it captures the notion of what pho means to people, but it has this extra twist,” she said. “You can feel like maybe eating a bowl of pho is contributing to the greater good.”
“我觉得它把握住了越南粉的精髓，但有了很大转变，”她说。“你可能会觉得这碗越南粉对世界更有益处。”
Recipe: Pressure Cooker Beef Pho
菜谱：高压锅蒸越南牛肉粉
