[中国新闻] 中餐的真正风味与味精

中国猪年开始于2月18日，中国城里到处都是寻觅过节食品的人们。然而尽管中国食品历久不衰，但许多人仍然认为它严格来说是一种低档市场的烹饪，把它看作是廉价的外卖甚于世界上最伟大的烹饪文化之一。
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在杂碎和芙蓉蛋的旧时代，这种名声是有道理的。但既然精美而正宗的中餐在世界许多地方可以找到（如果你知道在哪里找的话），为什么这么多人仍然认为它质量低劣？9 O! T. s& C; g3 f% p& p
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一种解释是中餐厨房中对味精的应用。对于餐厅大厨和中国国内厨师来说，味精是普通的调味品，被认为和盐、酱油和醋一样“寻常”。
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然而对许多人来说，这种白色粉末是一种险恶的食品添加剂，可以联想到工业食品生产以及俗气的、言过其实的包装快餐风味。& }" m+ K+ i- S: B3 v& f- p
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1968年，《新英格兰医学杂志（The New England Journal of Medicine）》用“中国餐馆综合症”为题刊登一封来自一名医生的信，这位医生抱怨中国餐馆食品让他脖子麻痹以及心悸。自此以后味精就引起医疗猜疑。csuchen.de4 Q7 n# Z7 d+ {2 f
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大约有三分之一的美国人表示他们认为味精会让他们生病，而可靠的医学研究显示只有很少数人会真的对味精有反应，而且只有当空腹口服大量味精时才会有反应。

味精的有害生理效果缺乏医疗证据，事实上，当非华裔通常不会给欣赏中国食品制造严重的文化障碍时中国人就使用它。可能是时候丢弃我们的偏见并冷静看待味精了。* ?* Z) V: b1 F% }2 J2 s, W
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当然，味精并非传统的中国调味料。日本科学家池田菊苗（Kikunae Ikeda）在1908年发现味精，他尝试指出昆布（kombu）海藻肉汤的浓烈美味的精确来源。他在实验室提取了海藻中天然的谷氨酸盐，并把它们的非凡滋味称为“鲜味（umami）”。
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西方厨师、食品作家和消费者如今把鲜味的存在及力量理解为一种烹饪概念。然而，在中国，它早就是厨房日常词汇的一分子。中国厨师常常说起鲜味。他们使用许多富于天然鲜味的材料——云南火腿、干贝、蘑菇——来加强原料和酱汁的风味。他们通过应用盐、糖、鸡油和如今的味精来“提鲜味”。6 d1 ^1 V& _7 n$ b  c* L) I

当然，差劲的中国厨师只是把味精简单作为好材料的替代品，如果差劲的美国食品公司用加入盐、糖的碳水化合物和脂肪制造小食。

但好的中国厨师也会用味精，用来提升滋味。如蘑菇、火腿与鸡汤不需要味精，但少量的味精加上盐和麻油可以提升凉拌竹笋的味道。如果你不知道它是味精，你只会感觉味美。
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在过去，我对味精持封闭态度。当我在十多年前开始烹饪和写中国食品，我决定不用味精。我想坚持合适的成份和传统的烹饪方法，并通过显示它并不需要这种受人斥责的添加剂来帮助恢复中国烹饪的声誉。但在这段日子里我不是那么肯定了。鲜味的科学证据时有说服力的，而且作为一种概念，它搞清楚了大量传统烹饪理论。

China’s True Dash of Flavor 2 I' B+ @5 e* p( W. G( |
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Published: February 18, 2007
TODAY the Chinese Year of the Pig begins, and Americans across the country will venture to their local Chinatowns for a festive meal. Yet despite the enduring popularity of Chinese food, many still see it as strictly a down-market cuisine, more the stuff of cheap takeout than one of the world’s great culinary cultures. In the old days of chop suey and egg foo yung, this reputation may have been justified, but now that fine and authentic Chinese dining is available in the United States (if you know where to look for it), why do so many people still think of it as junky?- W5 k! R9 B) T3 Q, m6 H) w- B

Looming large as an explanation is the use of monosodium glutamate, or MSG, in Chinese kitchens. For restaurant chefs and Chinese home cooks, MSG is a ubiquitous seasoning, considered as “normal” as salt, soy sauce and vinegar. Yet for many Americans, the fine white powder is a sinister food additive, tainted by association with industrialized food production and the garish, over-the-top flavors of packaged snacks.

And, ever since 1968, when The New England Journal of Medicine used the headline “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” over a letter from a doctor complaining that Chinese restaurant food gave him numbness in his neck and palpitations, it has also been fingered with medical suspicion.9 v4 J) I6 U/ [! y4 m6 e
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While around a third of Americans say they believe that MSG makes them ill, reputable medical studies have shown that only a tiny proportion of people truly react to it, and then only when it is administered in large oral doses on an empty stomach. All this was explained, and the restaurant syndrome fully debunked, in great detail by the food writer Jeffrey Steingarten in a 1999 essay for Vogue magazine titled “Why Doesn’t Everybody in China Have a Headache?” csuchen.de% T( d/ {& ^: B* u# o# x
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In the absence of medical evidence of any harmful physiological effects of MSG, the fact that the Chinese use it while Americans not of Chinese descent generally don’t creates a serious cultural barrier to the mainstream appreciation of Chinese food. Isn’t it time, perhaps, to cast off our prejudices and take a cool, steady look at MSG?, [0 T. E6 x: J2 ~2 U; @" V( D( Q

MSG is not, of course, a traditional Chinese seasoning. It was discovered in 1908 by a Japanese scientist, Kikunae Ikeda, who was trying to pinpoint the source of the intense deliciousness of broth made from kombu seaweed. In his laboratory, he isolated the natural glutamates in the seaweed, and to their marvelous taste he gave the name “umami,” derived from the Japanese word for “delicious.” His work led directly to the industrial manufacture in Japan and then worldwide of MSG.csuchen.de6 N# i" G; W6 R. }6 o8 R
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Still, MSG was long considered simply to be a flavor enhancer, with little or no taste of its own. In recent years, however, there has been growing acceptance of the existence of a so-called fifth taste — an addition to the traditional quartet of sweet, sour, salty and bitter — known through an emerging consensus by Ikeda’s term, umami. Our tongues, biologists have shown, have distinct receptors that pick up on the taste of MSG and a wider family of umami compounds, and some of our brain cells respond specifically to umami.
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The umami taste comes from the building blocks of proteins, amino acids and nucleotides, which include not only glutamates but also inosinates and guanylates. These delicious molecules appear when animal and vegetable proteins break down, for example in the ripening of Parmigiano cheese or prosciutto di Parma. Industrially made MSG is a chemically “neat” form of one of the umami compounds that delight our taste buds when they occur naturally in cheese, ham andseaweed, just as salt is a “neat” form of the saltiness of seawater and white sugar of the sweetness of sugar cane. Is it any worse for us than refined salt and sugar?( D1 r8 Y" j6 L1 Q3 U- F, }

Western chefs, food writers and consumers are only now cottoning onto the existence of umami and its power as a culinary concept. In China, however, it has long been part of the daily vocabulary of the kitchen. Chinese chefs talk often of “xian wei” — their term for umami. They use many ingredients that are naturally rich in it — Yunnan ham, dried scallops and shiitake mushrooms — to enhance the flavors of their stocks and sauces (just as an Italian cook might use grated Parmigiano or truffles to enhance the umami taste of a dish of pasta). They talk of “ti xian wei” (“bringing out the umami”) in their cooking through the judicious application of salt, sugar, chicken fat and, nowadays, MSG.
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Bad Chinese chefs, of course, just use MSG as a substitute for good ingredients and properly made stocks, just as bad American food companies cook up snack foods made from fat and carbohydrates laced with salt and sugar. But top Chinese chefs also use it, to refine and elevate flavors. There may be no need to add MSG to a delicate soup made from chicken, ham and dried scallops. But in some culinary contexts, it works wonders: a little MSG mixed with salt and sesame oil can lift the flavor of a simple bamboo shoot salad, or add a dash of ecstasy to a stir-fry of pea shoots and garlic. If you didn’t know it was MSG, you would simply find it delicious.% T, j. M4 ~- e, t; i+ M

In the past, I was as closed-minded on the subject of MSG as the purists and hypochondriacs. When I started cooking and writing about Chinese food more than a decade ago, I decided not to use MSG. I wanted to stick up for proper ingredients and traditional cooking methods, and help to rehabilitate the reputation of Chinese cuisine by showing that it didn’t require this reviled additive.

But these days I’m not so sure. The scientific evidence for umami is persuasive, and as a concept it makes sense of a great deal of traditional culinary theory. I see brilliant chefs in China making subtle and skillful use of MSG. And if some outstanding Western chefs — like Heston Blumenthal, whose Fat Duck restaurant in England has three Michelin stars — are willing to risk ridicule and experiment with its culinary potential, perhaps it’s time I should as well. Intellectual curiosity is, tradition has it, a hallmark of the Year of the Pig.

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