Daring Fare, From the Amazon
來自亞馬遜的大膽烹飪
By Simon Romero

BELÉM, Brazil – To start things off right at Thiago Castanho’s laboratory of Amazonian culinary revelations, take a sip of his signature cocktail, which blends cachaça, made from sugarcane, and jambu, an herb with analgesic properties whose flowers look like yellow and pink eyeballs. Sit back and let the jambu create a pleasant tingling sensation on the tongue.
在卡斯坦荷的亞馬遜烹飪實驗室尋找啟示時，正確的方法是從啜飲他的招牌雞尾酒開始。它以甘蔗製的卡莎薩酒和淡紫黍調成。淡紫黍花朵有如黃色與粉紅色的眼球，是能止痛的草本植物。輕鬆坐下，讓淡紫黍在舌面製造愉悅的刺痛感。

Then on to the food. Try the cassava flat bread with dried shrimp, or a cheese made from the milk of water buffalos. Move on to plates like smoked mapará, a fish that tastes like eel, and then finish things up with a dessert of cupuassu fruit prepared with a sprinkling of flour made from manioc and the fruit of babassu palms, and Mr. Castanho’s ambitions grow clear. He wants to show the world that a bounty of little-known ingredients found in the Amazon has the potential to turn the cuisine of Latin America’s largest nation on its head.
接著是品嚐食物。嚐嚐有蝦米的木薯扁麵包，或是水牛乳酪。再來是味道像鰻魚的煙燻馬巴拉魚，最後以古布阿蘇樹果製成，撒了木薯和巴巴蘇棕櫚樹果粉的甜點結束這一餐，這時卡斯坦荷的野心也昭然若揭。他想告訴世人，亞馬遜許多鮮為人知的食材，具有讓這個拉丁美洲最大國家的美食翻身的潛力。

“When people think of the Amazon, they envision the expanses of rain forest,” Mr. Castanho said.
卡斯坦荷說：「一想到亞馬遜，人們只聯想到大片雨林。

“They forget that human beings have lived in the Amazon for thousands of years, experimenting throughout that time with the ingredients at their grasp,” he said at his restaurant, Remanso do Bosque. “It’s time for the rest of the world to be exposed to some of these sublime creations.”
卡斯坦荷在他的餐廳「雷曼索多波斯克」說：「他們忘了人類居住亞馬遜已數千年，不斷就地取材實驗烹飪。該是讓世界知道這些非凡創造的時候。」

But while Mr. Castanho, 26, studied at a culinary school in Campos do Jordão, an outpost in southeast Brazil, he opted to return to his home city, Belém, a bustling Amazonian river outpost with a metropolitan population of 2.2 million, located about 2,400 kilometers north of São Paulo
雖然26歲的卡斯坦荷是在巴西東南部偏遠城市坎波斯約丹讀的烹飪學校，卻選擇回到家鄉貝倫。貝倫是繁華的亞馬遜河偏遠城市，人口220萬，位於聖保羅以北約2400公里。

Mr. Castanho has become one of Brazil’s most innovative chefs as he pioneers a culinary renaissance in Belém, a once-thriving center of the Amazon rubber trade.
卡斯坦荷已成為巴西最具創意的主廚之一，在曾是亞馬遜繁忙橡膠貿易中心的貝倫，他是領導烹飪復興的先驅。

“Thiago comes around here some days, always bargaining for the freshest catch,” said Brasiliana da Silva, 53, a fishmonger in Belém’s riverside market, the Ver-o-Peso, where boats yield offerings each morning around 4.
貝倫的河濱市場「維歐佩索」的魚販，53歲的達席瓦說：「蒂亞戈有些日子會到這裡來，總是討價還價選購最新鮮的漁獲。」這裡的漁船約清晨4時下貨。

Ver-o-Peso is also where Mr. Castanho comes to buy açaí, the dark purple berrylike fruit which is a staple in this region.
卡斯坦荷也在「維歐佩索」購買阿薩伊，一種暗紫色的莓果，也是該地區的主食之一。

While beachgoers in Rio de Janeiro generally consume açaí in smoothies, Mr. Castanho hews to tradition here, using the fruit to make an unsweetened thick cream with an earthy taste, or combining it with manioc flour to sprinkle on fresh fish.
里約熱內盧的沙灘遊客一般享用阿薩伊冰沙，卡斯坦荷則堅持傳統，以這種水果製成有泥巴味，不加糖的濃稠奶油，或是將它和木薯粉混合，撒在新鮮的魚上。

The inspiration for many of Mr. Castanho’s dishes comes from the streets of Belém, a four-century-old city where the jungle constantly seems to be seeking to reclaim its dominance.
卡斯坦荷許多菜餚靈感來自貝倫的街道，它是個400年的城市，當地的叢林似乎從不間斷想討回它霸主的地位。

So many mangoes, for instance, drop from Belém’s trees that drivers complain of mechanics profiting from repairing cars damaged by falling fruit. Mr. Castanho grew up delivering pizzas for his father’s pizzeria in Belém. But he was immersed in Belém’s cooking traditions when his parents opened Remanso do Peixe, a restaurant serving food from Pará, the Amazonian state.
例如，貝倫有很多芒果從樹上掉落砸壞汽車，讓修車師傅大發利市，駕駛人則抱怨不迭。卡斯坦荷成長過程中常替父親在貝倫的比薩店送比薩。但浸淫於貝倫的烹飪傳統，則是在父母開了供應帕拉州食物的餐廳「雷曼索多皮克塞」之後，帕拉州是個亞馬遜州。

After attending culinary school, Mr. Castanho moved to Lisbon to work for Vitor Sobral, the chef known for reinvigorating Portuguese cuisine, before returning to Belém to open Remanso do Bosque. While its 12-course tasting menu costs about $65 per person, the 130-seat restaurant was full on a recent Friday night. In less than three years, the restaurant has climbed into the ranks of Latin America’s top-rated restaurants.
烹飪學校畢業後，卡斯坦荷先到里斯本，替重振葡萄牙美食的知名主廚爾索布拉爾工作，再返回貝倫，開設「雷曼索多波斯克」餐廳。餐廳的12道菜品嚐菜單每人要價約65美元，最近某周五夜晚130個座位卻全滿。不到3年，它已升格為拉丁美洲的頂級餐廳。

“Thiago is seizing the idea that the future of cooking may rest more in the diversity of ingredients than in technical experimentation, and that the Amazon is uniquely endowed to go down this path,” said Carlos Alberto Dória, a sociologist who writes widely about Brazil’s food traditions.
廣泛撰寫巴西傳統飲食的社會學家多里亞說：「蒂亞戈的想法是，未來的烹飪將更講究食材的多元而非技術的實驗，而亞馬遜走這條路得天獨厚。」

Sometimes this quest for innovation involves forays into the Amazon rain forest surrounding Belém. On one trip by boat on the Guamá River to the Ilha do Combu, a forested island of peach-palms where riverbank families eke out an existence collecting fruits like pupunha and açaí, Mr. Castanho waded through swarms of mosquitoes called carapanãs.
有時候，追求這類創新需要走進貝倫周遭的亞馬遜雨林。一次他乘船順著瓜馬河前往桃樹棕櫚森林島嶼伊拉多康布，那裡臨河人家靠採集果實，如棕櫚果和阿薩伊勉強為生。卡斯坦荷必須涉險穿過成群的卡拉帕納蚊子。

With deforestation rising again and huge dams under construction, Mr. Castanho views the growth of demand for foods from the rain forest as a potential shift providing a more sustainable way to develop parts of the region, starting with the organic cacao grown on the Ilha do Combu.
隨著森林砍伐再度增加，以及巨大水壩的興建，卡斯坦荷將雨林食物需求的成長視為一種潛在的轉變，認為它將為亞馬遜部分地區的發展提供一個更為永續的方式，從生長於伊拉多康布的有機可可豆開始。

“Why should the Swiss be such giants in the world of chocolate when Switzerland doesn’t grow any cacao?” he asked. “We have all the ingredients we need in the Amazon to produce world-class cuisine,” he continued. “Maybe all that’s needed to take things to the next level is some imagination.”
他問：「為什麼瑞士不產可可豆，卻能成為全球巧克力巨人？」他說：「在亞馬遜，我們擁有製造世界一流美食所需的所有食材。也許，將這一切推向另一個境界，需要的只是一點想像力。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/world/daring-fare-from-the-amazons-mouth-to-yours.html

2014-12-02聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版左