在羅馬雲淡風輕地學做意大利料理
For me, visiting Italy is a bittersweet experience. The sweetness comes from knowing that virtually everything I taste — from the morning’s first expertly pulled espresso to the sip of limoncello in the trattoria at evening’s end — will be intensely memorable. The bitterness comes later, usually when the plane has left Leonardo da Vinci airport and I’m confronting the minor insult of the in-flight meal, and the tiny tragedy of my first sip of reheated filter coffee. By then it’s already too late: Once again, I’ve left Rome behind, and the sprezzatura has started to drain from my day.
在我而言，遊覽意大利是種苦樂參半的體驗。樂，是因爲我知道，幾乎所有我品嚐到的美味，從清晨第一杯嫺熟萃取的意大利濃縮咖啡，到晚間意大利餐廳裏的檸檬酒，都會讓我極度難忘。苦，則伴隨其後，通常是在我乘坐的航班離開列奧納多達文西機場(Leonardo da Vinci airport)，面對着飛機餐帶給我的小小屈辱，還有第一口經過重新加熱的過濾咖啡帶給我的小小悲愴時。事至如此，已然晚矣：又一次地，羅馬在我身後漸漸遠去，所有的雲淡風輕開始自我的日子中剝離。
It’s a maddening hallmark of the culture. Italians, who are extraordinarily good at elevating simple tastes and textures into the realm of the extraordinary, will also go to great efforts to make the whole process look effortless. Five hundred years ago, the humanist author Baldassare Castiglione labeled such studied nonchalance “sprezzatura,” from the verb meaning “to undervalue.” “We may call that art true art,” he wrote in “The Book of the Courtier,” “which does not seem to be art.” For a gracious nobleman in Renaissance Urbino, that meant being able to finish dancing the most elaborate saltarello with a double hop and a self-deprecatory shrug.
這是一種令人癡狂的文化印記。意大利人極爲擅長將簡單的品味與質地提升到超凡脫俗的境界，他們也會付出巨大的努力，讓這一整個過程看上去彷彿毫不費力。五百年前，人文主義作家巴爾達薩雷·卡斯蒂廖內(Baldassare Castiglione)根據意指“低估”的動詞，爲這種刻意爲之的若無其事，創造了一個名詞“雲淡風輕”(sprezzatura)。“我們可以稱這種藝術爲真正的藝術，”他在《廷臣論》(The Book of the Courtier)中寫道，“這種看不出是藝術的藝術。”對於文藝復興時期烏爾比諾(Urbino)的一名優雅貴族而言，這意味着能夠在跳完最爲精妙的薩爾塔雷洛舞(saltarello)時，用一個雙躍和一個謙虛的聳肩作爲收尾。
In Rome, I am fooled by sprezzatura all the time, especially when it comes to food. When I tried my first rectangle of pizza bianca, salted flatbread slathered with olive oil, at a bakery in Campo de’ Fiori, it seemed like the most uncomplicated of snacks; in reality, it keeps its characteristic texture, crispy outside and chewy inside, for only a few minutes after being pulled from an overachieving industrial oven.
在羅馬，我一直在被這種雲淡風輕騙到，特別是跟吃的有關的時候。我在鮮花廣場(Campo de’ Fiori)內的一間麪包店裏，嘗試了我的第一塊方形白披薩——在一塊鹹麪餅上只抹了橄欖油而已，這貌似是最不用心的一種小吃了；但實際上，從不同凡響的工業用爐中取出後的短短數分鐘裏，它保持着自己獨特的口感，外層酥脆，內有嚼勁。
The first time I wandered into the gelateria around the corner from the Trevi Fountain, the flavors on offer seemed pretty basic — no cookie dough or cherries jubilee in sight — until I learned that the owners of San Crispino made their limone with handpicked lemons from the Amalfi Coast, and the basil gelato with leaves left to ferment for six months.
在我第一次逛到特萊維噴泉(Trevi Fountain)附近的冰淇淋店時，店裏提供的似乎都是些最基礎的口味——觸目所及既沒有曲奇餅乾口味也沒有櫻桃盛宴口味——直到我得知，這間San Crispino的老闆是用精心挑選的阿瑪菲海岸(Amalfi Coast)產檸檬製作檸檬醬，用發酵過六個月的羅勒葉製作羅勒冰淇淋的。
At the Sant’Eustachio caffè, near the Pantheon, every espresso is topped with an improbably thick layer of chestnut-hued foam; a plastic flap alongside the nozzles on the machine prevents customers from glimpsing how much sugar the baristas add to the crema (a case of sprezzatura turned into proprietary secret). In Italy, you should never underestimate the amount of finesse brought to bear on the most elemental of pleasures.
在萬神殿(Pantheon)附近的Sant’Eustachio咖啡店，每杯濃縮咖啡頂部都浮着一層厚到不可思議的栗色泡沫；咖啡機上的噴嘴一側有個塑料蓋，不讓顧客看到咖啡師往油脂里加了多少糖（這就是一種變成了獨門祕方的雲淡風輕）。在意大利，永遠不要低估人們在最基本的樂趣中所投入的用心程度。
On this trip, I decided not to leave Rome without trying to pick up a few bravura techniques of my own. Learning to cook a few Italian staples there would be the surest way to develop my own sense of sprezzatura. So this summer, I rented an apartment with a basic but functional kitchen in the Trastevere neighborhood, close to some of Rome’s best markets. Surely I would be able to master a contorno — a seasonal vegetable side dish — and a couple of Roman pasta staples. I vowed to start with the simplest of all: cacio e pepe, a dish said to attain perfection through the use of only three ingredients: pasta, cheese and pepper.
在這一次的旅行中，我決定，沒有學會幾樣漂亮招數的話，就不離開羅馬。學做幾道意大利主食，想必會是培養我自己“雲淡風輕”感的最可靠途經。於是在這個夏天，我在特拉斯提弗列(Trastevere)一帶，靠近幾間羅馬最棒的集市的地方，租了一間公寓，裏面有間佈置簡單但功能齊全的廚房。我肯定能夠掌握一道時蔬配菜(contorno)和幾種羅馬式意麪的做法。我決定先從最簡單的一種學起：黑胡椒起司意大利麪(cacio e pepe)，這道料理據說只需運用三種材料，意麪、起司和胡椒，便可完美呈獻。
Knowing where to start, though, is harder than it looks, especially with cacio e pepe, a dish whose trendiness has recently led to a proliferation of recipes. Last year, President Obama was served a plate, along with a glass of 2006 Brunello, at a private dinner party at Villa Taverna, the American ambassador’s residence in Rome.
不過，搞懂從哪裏開始入手，可要比看上去難多了，尤其是黑胡椒起司意大利麪，它的盛行近來催生出了一些不同版本的做法。去年，美國駐羅馬大使的宅邸Villa Taverna，就在一次家宴上，爲奧巴馬總統呈上了一盤黑胡椒起司意大利麪，還有一杯2006年的布魯奈諾紅葡萄酒(Brunello)。
When an earthquake hit the Emilia-Romagna region three years ago, the three-star Michelin chef Massimo Bottura raised money for the region by offering a risotto of cacio e pepe that used wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano broken by the quake at his Modena restaurant, Osteria Francescana. Gwyneth Paltrow and Mario Batali have published cacio e pepe recipes that call for Parmesan (and in Mario Batali’s case, butter).
三年前，一場地震侵襲了艾米利亞羅馬涅區(Emilia-Romagna)，米其林三星廚師馬西莫·博圖拉(Massimo Bottura)用地震中被壓碎的帕馬森雷加諾圓形乾酪(Parmigiano-Reggiano)做成了一道黑胡椒起司意大利飯，在自己位於摩德納(Modena)的餐廳Osteria Francescana裏供應，通過這種方式爲該區籌集資金。格溫妮絲·帕特洛(Gwyneth Paltrow)和馬里奧·巴塔利(Mario Batali)曾經公佈了幾種需要用到帕馬森奶酪（馬里奧·巴塔利用的是黃油）的黑胡椒起司意大利麪菜譜。
For true Roman cooks, this is an abomination: While there is room for debate about the pasta to be used, there can be none about the cheese. The cacio — an old dialect term for cheese — in question can only be salty, fatty pecorino Romano. A brine-washed ewe’s cheese aged for a minimum of eight months, it is also considered one of the oldest Italian cheeses: Pliny the Elder described its production in the Roman countryside two millenniums ago.
在真正的羅馬廚師看來，這種事很讓人不爽：對於使用哪種意大利麪，一直存在着不同的意見，但涉及奶酪時卻非如此。這裏所說的cacio——奶酪在一種古老方言中的叫法——只能是鹹味的高脂羊奶幹乳酪。這是一種用鹽水浸泡的母羊奶酪，經過至少八個月的陳化，也被認爲是歷史最爲悠久的意式奶酪之一：老普林尼(Pliny the Elder)在兩千年前，就描述過羅馬鄉下是如何生產這種奶酪的。
At Felice a Testaccio, a trattoria that has been open in Testaccio, a working-class neighborhood on the east bank of the Tiber River, since 1936, the bowl of unmixed cacio e pepe that is brought to the table at first looks as appetizing as an autopsy pan heaped with viscera.
臺伯河東岸上的工薪階層聚集地——泰斯塔西奧(Testaccio)區內，有一間自1936年便營業至今的意式飲食店Felice a Testaccio，在這裏，剛上桌時的黑胡椒起司意大利麪不會直接拌好，看上去就像一盤擺滿各式內臟的解剖盤一樣令人“開胃”。
Fat, slimy noodles of tonnarelli — a fresh, egg-based pasta that in Rome is acceptable as a deluxe alternative to spaghetti — are puddled with the soapy-looking water the pasta has cooked in. It is only the flick of the waiter’s wrist that makes them into something appetizing. With a spoon and a fork, he lifts the noodles from the bowl, at the same time giving them an energetic clockwise half turn. Every motion coats the pasta with the mound of finely grated pecorino, flaked with coarsely ground black pepper, that is hidden in the bottom of the bowl. The result is the cremina, a sauce whose unctuousness results not from butter or cream, but from the combination of the fat from the pecorino, the starch from the pasta and the residual heat of the cooking water. (This is also the way to make a real Roman Alfredo sauce, which consists of butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and fettuccine, but not a drop of cream.) It’s a privileged display of sprezzatura at work.
圓滾滾、粘糊糊的意式粗麪(tonnarelli)——這種新鮮的加蛋意麪在羅馬可被當作是意式細面(spaghetti)的豪華版——被和用來煮熟意麪的滑膩湯汁拌在一起。只有侍者抖動的手腕，才能讓它們變成一道美味的佳餚。只見他用一把勺子和一把叉子，將麪條從碗中挑起，同時沿着順時針方向畫出一個充滿活力的半圓。經過精細研磨的羊奶乾酪被切成薄片，撒上粗磨的黑胡椒粉，藏在碗底，此時則隨着侍者的每一個動作，厚厚地裹在意麪的外表。最後得到的便是奶油醬(cremina)，這種醬料的油膩感並非來自黃油或奶油，而是羊奶乾酪中的脂肪、意麪中的澱粉以及麪湯餘熱的共同結果。（這也是真正的羅馬白醬(Roman Alfredo)的製作方法，原料有黃油、帕馬森雷加諾乾酪和意式寬面，但是一滴奶油也沒有。）這是一種只有在工作中才能展現出來的雲淡風輕。
“This is the secret, how to do the perfect cacio e pepe,” said my lunch companion Laura Perez, as she watched the mixing process. (“I have the most photographed hands in Rome,” quipped the waiter when I asked if I could video him at work.) Born in the suburbs of Rome, Laura is a talented home chef who appeared on “La Prova del Cuoco,” a popular cooking show on the Rai television network. She told me that her grandmother, who was from the Lazio region outside Rome, was her first teacher.
“這就是其中的祕訣，做出完美的黑胡椒起司意大利麪的方法，”與我共進午餐的勞拉·佩雷斯(Laura Perez)看着這道攪拌過程說。（“我有一雙全羅馬上鏡次數最多的手，”侍者在被我問及能否讓我錄製下他製作過程中的畫面時，如此調侃道。）生在羅馬郊區的勞拉，是位才華橫溢的家庭廚師，上過意大利廣播電視公司（RAI）的一檔人氣烹飪電視節目《廚師的挑戰》(La Prova del Cuoco)。她告訴我說，她那來自羅馬以外的拉齊奧區(Lazio)的祖母，是她的第一位老師。
“She was perfect, my grandmother,” Laura said. “From her, I learned to do everything all’occhio, by eye, just by watching what she did.”
“她完美無缺，我的祖母，”勞拉說，“從她那裏，我學會了一切全憑目測，就是看她怎麼做的。”
To make cacio e pepe for two, Laura starts by bringing a pot filled two-thirds full with water to boil, adding sale grosso — enough kosher salt to fill the hollow in the palm of her cupped right hand — just when the first bubbles appear. (“Otherwise it becomes too salty.”) When you add the spaghetti or tonnarelli, she says, “test it as you cook, so it’s al dente; in Rome we don’t like pasta mushy.”
爲了做出兩人份的黑胡椒起司意大利麪，勞拉先在一隻鍋里加入三分之二的清水，放在火上煮，在第一堆水泡出現時加入粗鹽(sale grosso)——足夠她用右手滿滿地抓上一把的粗鹽。（“不然會變得太鹹。”）當你把意式細面或意式粗麪下入鍋裏時，她會說：“做的過程中要嘗一嘗，這樣才能讓面保持嚼勁；在羅馬，我們不喜歡軟趴趴的麪條。”
Using a slotted spoon, rather than a colander, she scoops the pasta on top of the pecorino and pepper mix. The cooking water comes last. “Usually it’s two spoons for a plate. Not three, because it becomes a soup — it’s not good.” For Laura, the combination of simple, high-quality ingredients makes this a classic Roman dish.
她用漏勺，而不是漏鍋，將意麪舀到拌好的羊乳乾酪與胡椒上面。最後再淋上面湯。“通常一盤只要淋上兩勺。不能是三勺，那樣就變成一道湯品了——這樣不好。”在勞拉看來，將這些簡單但高品質的原料組合起來，便成就了一道經典的羅馬料理。
“Cacio e pepe is not the kind of pasta you can eat every day. Too many calories. Even when you are young, you have it maybe once a month.”
“黑胡椒起司意大利麪不是那種你可以天天吃的意麪。它的卡路里太高了。就算是年輕人，大概也就一個月才吃上一次。”
When I tested her recipe in the kitchen of my apartment, I got her point: After a few bites, my stomach revolted against the prospect of another caloric hit. It didn’t help that my first attempt came out a clumpy mess, an issue I resolved in later versions by stirring in extra virgin olive oil with the cheese and pepper. I’m already learning a key paradox: When it comes to cooking like a Roman, there may be no absolute truth, but there are well-defined limits.
當我在自己的公寓廚房裏試做她的食譜時，才理解了她的意思：剛吃了幾口，我的腸胃就開始抗拒下一口的卡路里饗宴。再加上我的第一份“作品”完全坨得一塌糊塗，後來再做時，我在奶酪和胡椒裏拌入了一些特級初榨橄欖油，用這個辦法解決了這個問題。我已經學到了一條重要的悖論：在像個羅馬人一樣烹飪時，或許沒有絕對的真理，但確實有明確的限制。
My next instructor, so to speak, was Katie Parla, a popular food blogger and fellow contributor to The New York Times who moved to Rome from New Jersey 12 years ago. “In Italy,” Katie said as she navigated the stalls of an indoor food market near the Vatican, “there is no recipe, but there is, you know what I mean? And everybody will fight to the death to prove their recipe is the best recipe — even though their knowledge is usually based on rumor.”
第二位稱得上我的指導老師的人，是凱蒂·帕拉(Katie Parla)，一名很紅的美食博客作者，也是《紐約時報》的撰稿人，在12年前從美國新澤西搬去了羅馬。“在意大利，”凱蒂在梵蒂岡附近一間室內菜市場的攤位間穿行時說，“沒有食譜，但又有食譜，你明白我的意思嗎？所有人都會拼死證明自己的食譜纔是最棒的——即便他們的認知通常都建立在謠言的基礎上。”
Katie had offered to help me assemble the ingredients for an amatriciana sauce. A staple on Roman menus, it is most often eaten with the long, hollow noodles called bucatini (the word means “pierced”) whose unruliness on the fork means the tomato-based sauce cries out for a napkin to be tucked into the collar. I met Katie in the Prati neighborhood, outside the Mercato Trionfale, one of the indoor markets that have almost completely replaced Rome’s well-loved sidewalk markets.
凱蒂曾經主動提出，願意幫我準備好阿馬特里西醬(amatriciana sauce)的所有材料。這是羅馬式菜單上的一道主食，常與一種叫作“bucatini”（“穿透”之意）的細條空心粉一起食用，這種空心粉完全無法用叉子駕馭，導致這些番茄醬極需你在領口間塞上一塊餐巾。我是在普拉蒂附近的Mercato Trionfale外面認識凱蒂的，這種室內集市幾乎完全取代了羅馬備受百姓喜愛的路邊集市。
“Campo de’ Fiori is one of the only outdoor markets left,” she told me, “but it’s also the saddest, because there are very few produce stalls, just a lot of bottles of limoncello and olive oil baking in the sun.”
“鮮花廣場是僅存的戶外集市的其中一間，”她說，“但它也是最悲哀的那間，因爲裏面總共沒有多少蔬果攤，只有很多瓶裝的檸檬酒(limoncello)和橄欖油曝曬在陽光下。”
The 200 vendors at Trionfale, she pointed out, are offered subsidized rent and have been given access to fresh running water. (Some of new indoor markets, like the airy complex in the Testaccio district, offer sit-down cafes and lunch stands, and have become destinations for visiting foodies.)
她指出，特里安法勒(Trionfale)的200家攤販均可享受租金補貼，還獲准使用新鮮的自來水。（有些新建的室內集市，例如泰斯塔西奧區那間通風良好的綜合集市，提供可以小坐的咖啡館和午餐攤，已經成了享用美食的目的地所在。）
Efficiently steering her way through the older women who make up the bulk of the morning shoppers, Katie stopped at a stall where plastic crates were piled high with eggplant, cucumber, cantaloupe and zucchini. The white-gloved vendor handed her a paper bag full of fat, ripe cherry tomatoes, still on the vine.
迅速地穿過年紀較大的婦女們（她們是清早的顧客主力），凱蒂在一個攤位前停下腳步，那裏的塑料箱裏堆滿了茄子、黃瓜、甜瓜和南瓜。戴着白手套的攤販遞給她一隻紙袋，裏面裝滿了肥碩飽滿的聖女果，一顆顆的還掛在藤上。
“I love that smell,” she said, plunging her nose in the bag. “Summertime.” Tomatoes, it turns out, are one of the only things that Romans agree goes into an amatriciana sauce, though even their inclusion is disputed by culinary authorities.
“我喜歡這種氣味，”她說着，把鼻子探到了袋子裏。“夏日的感覺。”西紅柿，似乎是羅馬人在製作阿馬特里西醬時願意加入的少數幾樣東西之一，儘管美食權威們對此卻頗有爭議。
“Amatriciana,” Katie said, “is a cured pork and tomato-based sauce that includes pecorino and sometimes onion and sometimes garlic and sometimes chile peppers and sometimes black pepper.” Its origins are traditionally traced to Amatrice, a sleepy provincial town in the Sabine Hills northeast of Rome. Food scholars believe the earliest versions predated the 18th-century popularization of tomatoes in Italy. A tomato-free “white amatriciana,” known as gricia, can still be found on Roman menus; its key ingredients, grated pecorino and guanciale (pork jowl that has been cured, though not smoked) also go into the traditional sauce.
“阿馬特里西醬，”凱蒂說，“是一種以醃豬肉和番茄爲基本原料做成的醬料，裏面會加入羊乳乾酪，還有洋蔥，或者大蒜，或者辣椒，或者黑胡椒。”這道醬料的起源一般會追溯到阿馬特里切(Amatrice)，位於羅馬東北部薩賓山(Sabine Hills)中的一座寧靜小鎮。食品領域的研究者認爲，它最早的版本要早於18世紀纔在意大利普及的番茄。不加番茄的“阿馬特里西白醬”，被喚作格里西醬(gricia)，在如今的羅馬人菜單上仍能找到；其主要原料，磨碎的乾酪和風乾豬臉肉(guanciale)（經過醃製但無煙薰的豬臉肉），在早年的醬料中也有使用。
After a vendor gave us two tiny red pepperoncini — similar to dried Thai bird’s-eye peppers — without charge, we left the market and walked two blocks to La Tradizione, a delicatessen that proved to be an Aladdin’s cave of Italian cheeses and cured meat.
一名攤販遞給我們兩隻小小的紅色希臘金椒(pepperoncini)——跟風乾後的泰國鳥眼椒(Thai bird’s-eye pepper)很像——而且沒要我們的錢，隨後我們便離開集市，走過兩個街區前往La Tradizione，一間堪稱意大利奶酪與臘肉寶庫的熟食店。
A counterman in a white smock wrapped up a half-pound of guanciale, enough for three people, and selected a piece of pecorino from beneath a huge glass bell that can be lowered to keep some of the shop’s 400 kinds of cheese fresh. I was surprised when Katie handed me a package not of bucatini, but of a variety of dried pasta shaped like a truncated cylinder.
一名身穿白色工作服的店員，包了半磅風乾豬臉肉——足夠三人食用——然後從一隻用來爲店內奶酪（總共有400個品種）保鮮的大玻璃罩下挑了一塊羊乳乾酪。我很意外凱蒂遞給我的袋子裏，裝的竟然不是細條通心粉(bucatini)，而是一種經過乾燥的意麪，形狀就像被截成一段一段的空心圓柱。
“It’s a bit controversial,” she admitted. “A very classic amatriciana would be rich and heavy, and made with bucatini. I prefer making mine a little lighter, and using these mezze maniche.” Key to her amatriciana, she said, is combining fresh tomatoes with passata, the uncooked tomato sauce, strained to remove seeds, available in grocery stores. Wishing me buona fortuna, she promised to email me a recipe, and headed off for the day’s appointments.
“這是有點不太尋常，”她承認道，“非常經典的阿馬特里西醬，口感油膩又厚重，而且是和細條通心粉一起吃的。我自己做時，更喜歡讓它的口感清淡一點點，然後配搭這些袖筒面(mezze maniche)。”她說，她所做的阿馬特里西醬，祕訣在於在新鮮的番茄中摻入意式番茄醬(passata)，這是一種生番茄醬，經過過濾去除了番茄籽兒，可在食品雜貨店裏買到。爲我獻上深切祝福後，她答應我，會用電子郵件發送一份食譜給我，然後便見她那天約好的人去了。
Before attempting my own amatriciana, I decide to sample the versions served at two of Rome’s best trattorias. At Flavio al Velavevodetto, in Testaccio, the sauce is rich and salty-sweet, but the chef, Flavio De Maio (who trained for seven years in the kitchen of Felice a Testaccio), opts to use rigatoni, which, when cooked in the Roman style, verges on the crunchy side of al dente.
在動手試做我自己的阿馬特里西醬之前，我決定先到羅馬最好的兩間飲食店裏弄點他們做的作爲樣品。在泰斯塔西奧的Flavio al Velavevodetto裏，這道醬料的口感油膩，鹹中帶甜，不過店內大廚弗拉維奧·德馬約(Flavio De Maio)（他曾在泰斯塔西奧的Felice餐廳的廚房中受訓了七年）選用的則是肋狀通心粉(rigatoni)，用羅馬人的方法煮熟後，嚼勁中更帶着一種酥脆感。
I decided that the classic bucatini all’amatriciana served at Da Cesare al Casaletto, a trattoria on the lower floor of a residential building on the Janiculum Hill, would be the one I tried to emulate. Slurping up the wriggly bucatini, after all, is part of the dish’s sloppy charm. (Full disclosure: The owner of Da Cesare, Leonardo Vignoli, noticed my note-taking and came to my table to offer me a glass of Cirsium, by the Lazio-based vintner Damiano Ciolli, and the combination of the swirling tannins of the lightly oaked red and the sauce’s inherent saltiness elevated the experience to another plane.)
我最後確定，位於賈尼科洛山(Janiculum Hill)一座住宅樓低層中的飲食店Da Cesare al Casaletto所供應的那種經典口味的阿馬特里西醬細條通心粉，就是我想要模仿的口味。畢竟，吞吸着彎彎曲曲的細條通心粉，也是這道料理粗放魅力的一部分。（大爆料：Da Cesare的老闆萊昂納多·維諾里(Leonardo Vignoli)留意到我在記筆記後，走到我的餐桌前，爲我上了一杯拉齊奧(Lazio)產區的葡萄酒商Damiano Ciolli釀造的Cirsium，酒紅色液體內的單寧令人眩暈，再加上醬料自身特有的鹹味，將整個口感提升到了一個新的層次。）
The next day, though, my own attempt at amatriciana, based on the directions that Katie had emailed me, resulted in an inedible mess of intolerable saltiness. I realized that following a recipe isn’t enough: I needed to work side by side with a genuine Roman cook.
不過我在第二天，按照凱蒂發給我的做法試做出的阿馬特里西醬，卻鹹得不得了，根本沒法吃。我意識到，單純地遵從食譜並不夠：我需要和一位真正的羅馬廚師聯手合作。
I decided to call a group called Home Food, which offers cooking lessons and home-cooked meals to visitors. Founded by a sociology professor from the University of Bologna in 2004, the nonprofit group now organizes visits with 400 home cooks, known as Le Cesarine (or “Little Caesars”), whose goal is to keep traditional home-cooking techniques alive in an age of microwaves and takeout.
我決定致電給一個名叫家常料理(Home Food)的團體，他們會爲遊客提供烹飪課程和家常口味的菜餚。這間非營利組織由博洛尼亞大學(University of Bologna)的一位社會學教授創建於2004年，目前在一間名爲Le Cesarine（意爲“小凱撒”）的餐廳裏，組織着400名家庭廚師的交流活動，他們的目標是要在這個受微波爐和外賣支配的時代，保持住傳統家庭料理技藝的生命力。
Flavia Pantaleo, the cesarina who welcomed me into her apartment east of Villa Borghese, showed me why my attempt at an amatriciana tasted like a mouthful of water from the Dead Sea. Because pecorino and cured pork are already salty enough, she said, it’s important to undersalt the water you cook the pasta in. (Flavia prefers to use dried pasta made by Libera Terra, a supermarket brand produced in regions that have been freed of Mafia influence; for her amatriciana, she surprised me by opting for pancetta, from the pig’s belly, rather than traditional guanciale from the jowl.)
他們的家庭廚師弗蕾維亞·潘塔萊奧(Flavia Pantaleo)，在她位於鮑格才別墅(Villa Borghese)東邊的公寓裏接待了我，讓我明白了我做的阿馬特里西醬爲何嘗起來就像死海的海水一樣鹹。她說，因爲羊乳乾酪和臘肉本身都已經含有足夠的鹽分，因此在煮意麪的水裏少放鹽就很重要。（弗蕾維亞喜歡用Libera Terra製作的幹意麪，這是幾個擺脫了黑手黨控制的地區內崛起的一個超市品牌；在她的阿馬特里西醬配方中，很是讓我意外地選用了用豬腩肉製成的意式培根(pancetta)，而非傳統的風乾豬臉肉。）
After uncorking a bottle of Frascati, that crisp, young white wine of ancient pedigree that so perfectly accompanies the Roman summer, Flavia sets me to work on my last challenge: making stuffed, deep-fried zucchini flowers. As I cut a ball of mozzarella into rectangles, she explained that her mother, though baptized as a Catholic during the Fascist era, grew up in a Jewish household and taught her daughter some of the staples of Rome’s Jewish community, the oldest in continued existence in Europe. Fiori di zucca ripieni is one of the most spectacular: the male flowers of the squash plant, whose involutions call to mind the membranous ears of a bat, are stuffed with anchovies and cheese, then dipped in batter and deep fried. Served in pairs, wrapped in cones of wax paper, they remain the summer appetizer of choice in Rome’s Jewish ghetto.
我們開了一瓶弗拉斯卡蒂(Frascati)，這款口感清爽鮮嫩，繼承了古老血統的白葡萄酒，與羅馬的夏日契合得渾然天成；然後，弗蕾維亞讓我進行了最後一項挑戰：製作填有餡料的油炸南瓜花。在我把一塊球狀的馬蘇裏拉奶酪切成小方塊時，她向我解釋道，她的母親雖然在法西斯統治時期受洗成了一名天主教徒，卻是在猶太家庭中長大，並且教了她幾道主食，全部出自羅馬的猶太人聚集地——這裏也是歐洲延續時間最久的猶太人聚集地。油炸釀南瓜花(Fiori di Zucca ripieni)便是其中一個最奇葩的一道：在南瓜植株上的雄花（枯萎後會教人想起蝙蝠的兜風耳）內填上鳳尾魚和奶酪，然後裹在麪糊裏下鍋徹底炸透。成品會成對地包在蠟紙筒裏上桌，迄今依然是羅馬猶太區在不二選的夏季開胃菜。
Naturally, controversy attends the correct way of making them. Katie Parla prefers stuffing them with well-rinsed salted anchovies; Flavia thinks that anchovies packed in oil make for a less salty dish. Some cooks opt for ricotta, but Flavia prefers the texture of melted mozzarella; she recommends fior di latte over bufala. (Everybody agrees that removing the pistils, which are bitter, before cooking is essential.)
當然，在製作這道美食的正確方法上，也出現了不同的聲音。凱蒂·帕拉喜歡在這些南瓜花裏填入醃製後經過徹底水洗的鳳尾魚；弗蕾維亞則認爲，裹上一層油的鳳尾魚做出的成品會沒有那麼鹹。有些廚師會選用意式乳清乾酪(ricotta)，弗蕾維亞則喜歡馬蘇裏拉奶酪融化後的質地；比起軟乳酪(bufala)，她更推薦莫薩里拉乾酪(fior di latte)。（所有人都同意，在製作前除去花裏苦味較重的雌蕊，是道必不可少的手續。）
As I watched Flavia at work, I saw she did it all all’occhio, by eye, adding a spoonful here, a pinch there, never using exact measures. After combining flour, salt and white wine (“You can put in beer, too,” she says, “because it’s bubbly. If you have some leftover prosecco, that’s even better”), she left the batter to settle for a few minutes while filling a deep pan with peanut oil. As it heated on the stove, she threw in a few grains of salt, which, she told me, will keep the flowers from spitting as they fry in the hot oil.
在我看着弗蕾維亞操作時，我發現，她在整個過程中靠的都是目測，這裏加一勺，那裏捏一撮，從頭到尾都沒有用過任何精確的測量工具。將麪粉、鹽和白葡萄酒在一起和好後（“你也可以用啤酒，”她說，“因爲它的泡沫很豐富。如果你有一些吃剩下的葡萄，那就更好了。”），她將這些麪糊放置了幾分鐘，讓它自己沉澱一下，在此期間往一隻炸鍋裏倒了很多花生油。油鍋上爐子加熱時，她撒了少許鹽進去，據她說，這能讓南瓜花在下鍋油炸時不會散開。
As we sat at the dining room table, I marveled as I bit into the orange and green flowers, each one batter-bound and enfolding a nugget of anchovy and molten mozzarella, and sighed as I spooned up the last of the perfectly salted amatriciana sauce.
在餐桌前落座後，我咬了一口這些橘色與綠色相間的南瓜花，爲其口感驚歎不已：每隻南瓜花的外面都裹着麪糊，裏面則包着一塊鳳尾魚肉混合融化後的馬蘇裏拉奶酪；然後在舀起最後一勺鹹度拿捏得十分完美的阿馬特里西醬時，嘆了一口氣。
“Bonissimo, eh?” said Flavia, with quiet satisfaction.
“棒極了，是不？”弗蕾維亞問道，帶着一種教人難以察覺的滿足感。
Indeed. That evening, I witnessed the essence of finesse: Flavia elevated simple dishes into something remarkable, without recourse to measuring cups or cookbooks. In so doing, she’d given me a living demonstration of Castiglione’s true art, “that art which does not seem to be art,” one best learned through practice and imitation, rather than bookish study.
的確如此。那天晚上，我見識到了高超手腕的精髓所在：弗蕾維亞在沒有任何量杯或食譜幫助的情況下，將幾道簡單的料理，提升到了一種非比尋常的高度。由此，她生動地向我展現了卡斯蒂廖內(Castiglione)所說的真正藝術，“看不出是藝術的藝術”，只有通過實踐和效仿才能最好地學到其中的精神，而不是靠書呆子式的研究。
And this, I realize, is the most important lesson of all: To cook as they do in Rome — a place where they know the best recipe is no recipe at all — the only secret ingredient you really need is a pinch of your own sprezzatura.
而這，我意識到，就是最最重要的一課：要想學到羅馬這個人人都知道最好的食譜就是完全沒有食譜的地方的烹飪技巧，唯一需要的祕密材料，就是你自己的一份雲淡風輕。
