龍蝦該不該這麼貴 Let them eat lobster it was never the food of kings

Today we regard the oyster and lobster as luxury foods, but it has not always been so. Oysters have been commercially farmed since the time of the Romans and have a remarkable talent: when collected, they close their watertight shells, trapping seawater inside. This useful skill doubtless evolved so they could survive being beached at low tide. But it meant that oysters could be shovelled into a barrel, carted to a city, and left under a bar — sometimes for weeks — while remaining alive and fresh.

今天，牡蠣和龍蝦被視爲奢侈的食物，但情況並非一直如此。從羅馬時代起，人們就一直對牡蠣進行商業化養殖。牡蠣有一種非凡的本領：當被採集的時候，它們會將自己的外殼閉合得滴水不漏，將海水封存在裏面。這種有用的技能無疑是爲了在退潮擱淺時存活下來而進化出來的。但這也意味着人們可以把牡蠣鏟進桶裏，用車運往城市並放在酒吧裏——有時一放就是幾星期——而牡蠣在此期間一直保持鮮活。

Lobsters, or similar forms of invertebrate, crustacean arthropod have been around longer than humans and it is quite possible that we have been eating them for a very long time. They are also unique among the food we eat today in that we often buy them alive and kill them ourselves. They are plentiful, at no particular risk of extinction, and utterly delicious, having sweeter and better-textured flesh than fish. They survive in a wide range of sea temperatures and are easiest caught by simple and sustainable methods.

龍蝦，或者類似的無脊椎甲殼類節肢動物，比人類的歷史更長，很可能我們食用它們的時間也很長。在今天的食物中，它們也比較獨特，因爲我們經常購買活的，並自行在吃的時候殺了它們。它們的數量很多，沒有滅絕的危險，而且十分美味，比魚肉更鮮甜口感更好。它們在溫度範圍很廣的海水中都能生存，使用簡單和可持續的方法就很容易捕撈。

Like oysters, the creatures’ ability to survive out of water meant they could be transported far inland and supply spankingly fresh protein long before refrigeration made it possible to distribute other forms of fresh fish. For this reason, lobster and oysters were often considered a food of the poor in industrialised cities. Nineteenth-century prison governors in some coastal states of the US were forbidden to feed their prisoners lobster more than a few times a week, as it was considered a “cruel and unusual” privation.

就像牡蠣一樣，這類生物在出水後存活的能力都很強，人們可以把它們運往遙遠的內陸。遠在製冷技術使得分銷其他種類的鮮魚變爲可能之前，它們就在爲人類提供極爲新鮮的蛋白質。因此，龍蝦和牡蠣過去常被視爲工業化城市中窮人的食物。在19世紀的美國，一些沿海州的監獄每週給囚犯提供龍蝦的次數是有上限的，因爲頓頓吃龍蝦被視爲一種“殘酷而不尋常的”煎熬。

At low tide you can still wander along the muddy banks of the Thames in London and see vast “middens” of discarded oyster shells. These mark the spot of bank-side pubs, where revellers would consume huge numbers of oysters and throw the shells into the river. As the deposits are still there after centuries we can assume London’s dock labourers were ordering oysters at a far greater rate than the wealthiest occupants of the City can afford to today.

在退潮的時候，你依然可以漫步倫敦泰晤士河泥濘的河岸，看到丟棄的牡蠣殼形成的巨大“貝丘”。它們與河岸酒吧的位置對應，泡這些酒吧的人會吃掉大量牡蠣，然後把牡蠣殼扔進河裏。在數個世紀後，這些沉積物依然在這些地方，我們可以設想，當年倫敦的碼頭工人食用牡蠣的數量遠遠超過當今倫敦金融城最富裕的居民所能負擔的程度。

As industrialised cities developed, what we would now call “supply chains” were created and preserved, packaged, tinned and eventually chilled products became the more convenient diet. Prestige restaurants, though, never fell out of love with food so fresh that it still moved, and developed dishes that remain in the canon today. It is hard to go wrong with lobster Newburg (egg-enriched cream and cognac), lobster a [grave accent]l’armoricaine (tomato, tarragon, shallots), or the king of the lobster dishes, first created by Auguste Escoffier in about 1880. [cut 1849] Lobster Thermidor is superbly rich and massively complicated. It is also delicious, combining a cream sauce enriched with eggs, sherry and mushrooms with a gratin topping.

隨着工業化城市的發展，人們創建了我們現在所稱的“供應鏈”，醃製、包裝、罐頭以及最後出現的冰鮮產品成爲了最方便的食品。不過，講究的餐廳從未放棄對還能動的極其新鮮的食物的喜愛，並且研製出了一些到今天還經久不衰的菜餚。到餐廳點龍蝦鈕堡（lobster Newburg，配料包括富含雞蛋的奶油和白蘭地）或者美國龍蝦（lobster a l’armoricaine，配料包括番茄、龍蒿和蔥）總是沒錯的，還有就是奧古斯特埃斯科菲耶(Auguste Escoffier)在1880年前後首創的金牌龍蝦菜：熱月龍蝦(Lobster Thermidor)風味濃郁，做法繁複。這道菜也十分美味，配料包括富含雞蛋的奶油醬、雪莉酒、蘑菇加上焗烤脆皮。

While some restaurants still feature oyster and lobster as premium dishes, it is not unusual to be offered oysters, fried or baked, as affordable starters — something never seen a few years ago. In the run up to Christmas, the discount supermarket chains Lidl and Iceland are offering frozen lobsters for under 5 (they make a great Thermidor).

儘管一些餐廳依然將牡蠣和龍蝦作爲高端菜餚提供，但將炸牡蠣或者烤牡蠣作爲價格較爲低廉的前菜供應的餐廳如今也不少——這種事在幾年前還聞所未聞。聖誕節即將來臨之際，英國的連鎖折扣超市Lidl和Iceland出售價格低於5英鎊的冰凍龍蝦（用它們來烹飪熱月龍蝦味道極好）。

Lobsters and oysters are robust creatures and they breed vigorously. We have artificially kept them as prestige foods, so it is unsurprising that their price is now dropping.

龍蝦和牡蠣生命力頑強，繁殖能力也很強。它們昂貴的身價是人爲的，因此現在價格下降也就不令人驚訝了。

Now that previously aristocratic salmon is the go-to protein at every corporate event or provincial wedding, perhaps we should wonder at what is next. The answer may again come from under the sea. In the 1930s Josef Stalin ordered the introduction of the red king or Kamchatka crab to the Barents Sea to create a new source of cheap protein for Soviet workers. Eventually the crabs, indigenous to the northern Pacific, grew to accept their warmer home, breeding prolifically, moulting more regularly and growing up to 2m in leg span.

既然以前只有富人才能享用的三文魚成了企業活動或者婚禮上的首選蛋白質，或許我們應該想想下一個會輪到誰。答案或許依然來自於海中。上世紀30年代，約瑟夫斯大林(Josef Stalin)下令把紅帝王蟹（即勘察加蟹，Kamchatka crab）引入巴倫支海(Barents Sea)，目的是爲蘇聯的工人開闢一種新的廉價蛋白質來源。最終，這種原產於北太平洋的螃蟹開始適應更溫暖的新家，開始大量繁殖、更加頻繁地換殼，足展長度達到了2米。

They were so successful that they began migrating across the ocean floor in vast packs. Spider crabs the width of cars are, even now, moving along the bottom of the North Sea towards the UK coast, eating everything in their path. It is the stuff of science fiction movies.

它們繁殖得太好，因此開始成羣地穿過海底進行遷徙。即使是現在，有汽車寬度那麼大的蜘蛛蟹也在北海海底向英國海岸遷移，吃掉它們行進路途上的一切。這簡直就是科幻電影中發生的事情。

At the moment, Kamchatka crab is a delicacy in London restaurants, where the ability to select a live, angry, metre-wide creature from a tank and have it killed and brought steaming to the table is a spectacle that delights the super rich. But the crabs have reached the Norwegian coast. It is only a matter of time before they come ashore here, lurching up the beach having acquired a taste for human flesh — so we need to start acquiring a taste for theirs, fast. King crabmeat is superb, with a meatier texture and sweeter taste than its skinny little capitalist cousin. Surely, government must intervene. Drop the prices — we need to eat them before they eat us.

現在，勘察加蟹是倫敦餐廳中的一道佳餚。看着廚師從水箱裏選擇一隻鮮活、張牙舞爪、寬度達到一米的勘察加蟹，宰殺並蒸好端上桌，成爲了超級富豪的一件樂事。但這些螃蟹們已經抵達了挪威海岸。這些螃蟹在英倫三島登陸，在嚐到人肉的滋味後橫行海灘只是時間問題——因此，我們要先下手爲強，先把它們當成美味，而且要快。紅帝王蟹的肉質絕佳，比它們在資本主義國家生長的瘦小兄弟更肥碩，更鮮甜。政府必須要加以干預。降低價格——我們得在它們吃掉我們之前吃掉它們。