乾旱改變加州的廚房與餐桌
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.
加利福尼亞，聖塔克魯茲——安德莉亞·阮(Andrea Nguyen)以撰寫食譜爲生，她知道，在加州乾旱期間，用高壓鍋煮燉越南粉不是什麼好選擇。不過，一碗半是湯水的美味越南湯麪也可以在不到一個小時就做好，這段時間她經常做。
“We’re all trying to do what we can,” she said. “It’s all about consciousness.”
“我們都在努力，”她說，“這和觀念有關。”
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，家庭廚師和餐館大廚開始適應新的事實，他們不再開大水龍頭沖洗蔬菜，煮一大鍋水做意大利麪之前也會三思而行。
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.
加利福尼亞州進入嚴重乾旱已經是第四個年頭，但今年春天，節約生活用水這件事變得認真起來。加州官員第一次要求每個城鎮的居民節約用水，否則就得面臨嚴重後果。
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.
有些居民已經開始自作主張地懲罰、羞辱那些在乾旱中不節約用水的人，他們用社交媒體曝光那些過分灌溉草坪的人，以及其他明顯浪費水資源的行爲。
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.
目前還沒有和烹飪相關的曝光，或許是因爲烹飪時用水不像維護庭院或者洗浴時那樣，需要那麼多的精打細算——現在用大桶接淋浴時排放的涼水，已經成了許多家庭必做的事情。
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，在加利福尼亞，從廚子到清潔人員，餐飲界還是深刻地感覺到了乾旱對烹飪的影響，從購物方式到市場上能買到的食物都發生了變化。
“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濾鍋上用自來水沖洗乾淨了，”《落日》(Sunset)雜誌的食品編輯與《Saveur》雜誌的前執行主編瑪爾戈·特魯(Margo True)說。
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.”
她和其他幾位廚師說，人們現在更多用蒸東西取代煮東西，用更少的廚具烹製食品，她說，這符合目前流行的整體餐趨勢，這樣的一餐可以用一個大烤盤就做好。“這很儉省，”她說，“但是能讓人感覺良好。”
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.
食品生產商也被迫做出改變。奶酪生產商需要依賴動物產奶，它們原本有豐盛的飼料進食，現在奶的口味有了極大的變化，生產商們也只得去適應。奧克蘭的霍多大豆小吃店(Hodo Soy Beanery)得想辦法改變生產豆腐的方式，因爲豆腐需要很多水來清洗和冷卻。
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.
在各個方面，乾旱（外加較爲溫暖的冬天和極爲寒冷的春天）改變了許多加州名產的產量、質量、預期生產情況和價格。
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.
櫻桃的收成非常少，很快就下市了。草莓和羅勒的上市期比任何人記憶中都早。最早的一批桃子也提早上市了兩星期，根據美國農業部的市場報告，上週它的價格上升了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.
廚師們還得面對更多短缺狀況。根據加利福尼亞稻米協會報道，今年該州稻米將減產30%。6月，農民的用水受到進一步的新限制，他們得決定停止種植哪些莊稼。
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.
其他州的商家也開始感受到乾旱帶來的影響。茱莉亞·柴爾德(Julia Child)的甥女菲拉德爾菲亞·卡辛斯(Philadelphia Cousins)現居科羅拉多，她發現自己買不到加州產的牛油果了。
“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.”
“我覺得在未來幾個月裏，我們還會面臨更多短缺，不只是牛油果，”卡辛斯女士說，她和阿姨密切合作，經營烹飪基金會。“這種情況真讓我心碎，我從小在加利福尼亞長大，那裏曾是那樣肥沃多產。”
There is an upside: Some produce has become heartbreakingly delicious.
不過也有好的一面：有些東西變得極度美味。
“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.”
“今年我開始留意到某些非常特別的食材，”蘇珊娜·戈因(Suzanne Goin)說，她在洛杉磯擁有四家餐廳，包括A.O.C與Lucques。“果實變小了，產量也小了，但它們的滋味卻變得極爲濃郁美妙。當然，價錢也更貴了。”
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.
較少的灌溉令果實的細胞較爲缺水，因此果實會變得個頭較小，味道更濃。喜歡“早到女孩”(Early Girl)用幹農法耕種的西紅柿的人們早就知道這一點。這種方法在乾旱變得如此嚴重之前就已經產生，它降低作物慣常的灌溉量，讓它依靠自己能獲取的水存活。
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.
在餐館和自家廚房，大廚們都改變了操作規程。“昨天晚上我在家煮了一些甜菜，然後用這些水澆樹，”戈因說。
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.
在餐廳，廚師們把食物放進冷藏間解凍，不再使用數次換水的辦法。最後剩下的冰塊被堆放在植物下面，不再放進熱水中溶解。洗碗工改爲用力擦拭盤子，不再往上面灑水，並且在把碟子放進洗碗機時堆得更緊密。
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.
大瑟爾的波斯特農莊酒店的大廚約翰·考克斯在四月發現了一種省水新技術，他拼裝出一臺空氣壓縮機，把盤中的剩餘食品在放入洗碗機之前吹下去，消息傳開後，他頓時成了廚師們心目中的英雄。他估計，自己的做法每天可以節省一千加侖的水。
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.
對於用餐者們來說，最明顯的不同發生在他們剛剛坐到桌邊的時候。新的州法規禁止侍者不經詢問就給客人上水。舊金山的奧克塔維亞是大廚梅麗莎·佩萊羅(Melissa Perello)最新開的餐廳，在這裏，一位侍者走上來，先問了好，接着說，“由於缺水，我們只在客人要求時才提供飲用水。”如果她不這樣說，餐廳可能會被罰款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.
廚房裏有標誌提醒僱員關緊水龍頭，佩萊羅說，水價上升、供應短缺、農產品提早上市，這一切都迫使她發揮更多創意。
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.
喬伊斯·戈德斯坦(Joyce Goldstein)是灣區的大廚，也是餐廳顧問和美食作家，幾十年來一直用加州農產品烹飪，她說，乾旱之下出產的作物要用不同的方式烹飪。“它們很快就會煮得爛熟，”她說。食材變得更柔軟，如果烹飪時間過長，就會損失質感，最近她在爲《舊金山紀事報》(The San Francisco Chronicle)撰寫的關於罐裝保存食品的專欄裏提到這一點。
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.
早熟的桃子太軟，所以沒法烹飪，只得用罐裝保存。做法是將熱的濃鹽水用姜、丁香和肉桂調味，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.
“這些日子裏真的要當心，要格外注意食材，”她說。
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.
較少的灌溉會令果實較小，這對農民來說是種挑戰。大衛·松本(David Masumoto)一家在弗雷斯諾有一處店鋪，批發經營佔地80英畝的果園中出產的果實，這些日子以來，他們有意用盡可能少的水來灌溉，因此要出售較小的“金粉”桃子就變得有些困難。
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.
消費者通常覺得乾旱是很抽象的，松本的女兒 Nikiko Masumot說，“我們試着在節約水資源的同時仍然種出美味的水果，結果沒有人買。”
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.
她感到非常難過，於是發起了一場社交媒體宣傳活動，使用“#SmallFruitRevolution”（小水果革命）標籤，試圖改變消費者把水果的個頭同質量等同起來的觀念。
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.
新觀念也來到加利福尼亞一些大型技術公司的自助食堂。好胃口管理公司(Bon Appétit Management Company)經營着650多家美術館、大學與公司的食堂，谷歌和繽特力(Plantronics)都是它的客戶，公司總裁梅奇·甘茲勒(Maisie Ganzler)說，客戶開始接受節水觀念，把它視爲減少食物浪費的一部分。
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.
公司在研究依靠太陽能的溶液培養花園，最近還爲若干公司的食堂製作了海報，比較不同水果和蔬菜生長所需要的水量。公司用並不完美，不需農民深耕的蔬菜烹飪。一家公司停止在週五供應牛排，因爲穀物喂飼的牛成長需要消耗大量水資源。
“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.”
“在這個世界上，我們經常會有無力感，控制自己的食物會讓你感覺有了一些掌控能力，”甘澤拉說。“在乾旱到來之際，所有人都有深深的無力感。”
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.
並非所有的加州廚師都相信廚房內的改變會對事態有所幫助。人們願意相信自己在做正確的事，但效果很可能只是杯水車薪。環保律師與作家尼柯萊特·哈恩·尼曼(Nicolette Hahn Niman)說，她的丈夫比爾·尼曼(Bill Niman)是現代美國草飼牛工業的先驅之一。
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.
不過，節約資源仍然會讓她感覺好一點。今年，她不再種植新的作物，只是繼續灌溉原本種的多年生作物，比如羽衣甘藍和龐大的燈籠果灌木。
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.
擁有花園的大廚們開始討論，自行種植食材是不是減輕農業用水壓力的好辦法（加利福尼亞州擁有價值464億美元的農業），擁有花園是否過於昂貴和浪費。
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.
索諾馬食品界人士瑪西·斯莫澤斯(Marcy Smothers)擁有一檔廣播節目“與伍爾夫和斯莫澤斯共餐”，多年來，她每年都長途跋涉，到肯德爾-傑克遜(Kendall-Jackson)莊園釀酒廠的年度銷售會上購買10棵最新的該莊園特色家傳西紅柿植株，以此慶祝母親節。今年她放棄了在家裏種西紅柿。
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.
現在，斯莫澤斯用煮開朝鮮薊的水來澆花。她還開始使用哈羅德·麥克吉(Harold McGee)最早使用的冷水烹飪意大利麪方法，這需要做很多攪拌，但比傳統做法節省一半的水。
“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，每週要吃兩三次意大利麪，”她說。“我們都在儘量做我們能做的。”
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.
越南廚師阮女士也在爲乾旱時期調整越南粉的做法，她也有同感。傳統上，湯裏的肉和骨頭應該煮到發白，然後把湯扔掉。燉湯需要三小時，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.
爲了補償蒸食和縮短烹飪時間所損失的鮮味，她放入了大量八角、姜、肉桂和鹽，還放了一點蘋果，在越南粉做好後使用魚醬做最後調味。
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.
做出的湯仍然仍然濃郁芬芳，但和文火煮燉幾小時的越南粉不太一樣了。這個食譜會收進阮女士的第五本食譜書中，該書於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.”
“我覺得它把握住了越南粉的精髓，但有了很大轉變，”她說。“你可能會覺得這碗越南粉對世界更有益處。”
Recipe: Pressure Cooker Beef Pho
菜譜：高壓鍋蒸越南牛肉粉
