TED英語演講稿：探尋美式中餐的由來

　　【演講內(nèi)容節(jié)選】

　　chinese restaurants have played an important role in american history, as a matter of fact. the cuban missile crisis was resolved in a chinese restaurant called yenching palace in washington, d.c., which unfortunately is closed now, and about to be turned into walgreen's. and the house that john wilkes booth planned the assassination of abraham lincoln is actually also now a chinese restaurant called wok 'n roll, on h street in washington.

　　事實上，中國餐館在美國歷史上發(fā)揮了很重要的作用。古巴導彈危機是在華盛頓一家名叫“燕京館”的中餐館里解決的。很不幸，這家餐館現(xiàn)在關(guān)門了，即將被改建成沃爾格林連鎖藥店。而約翰·威爾克斯·布斯刺殺林肯總統(tǒng)的那所房子現(xiàn)在也成了一家中餐館，就是位于華盛頓的“鍋和卷”。

　　and if you think about it, a lot of the foods that you think of or we think of or americans think of as chinese food are barely recognizable to chinese, for example: beef with broccoli, egg rolls, general tso's chicken, fortune cookies, chop suey, the take-out boxes.

　　如果你仔細想想，就會發(fā)現(xiàn)很多你們所認為或我們所認為，或是美國人所認為的中國食物，中國人并不認識。比如西蘭花牛肉、蛋卷、左宗棠雞、幸運餅干、雜碎、外賣盒子。

　　so, the interesting question is, how do you go from fortune cookies being something that is japanese to being something that is chinese? well, the short answer is, we locked up all the japanese during world war ii, including those that made fortune cookies, so that's the time when the chinese moved in, kind of saw a market opportunity and took over.

　　所以有趣的是，幸運餅干是怎么從日本的東西變成中國的東西的呢?簡單地說，我們在二戰(zhàn)時扣押了所以的日本人，包括那些做幸運餅干的。這時候，中國人來了，看到了商機，自然就據(jù)為己有了。

　　general tso's chicken -- which, by the way, in the us naval academy is called admiral tso's chicken. i love this dish. the original name in my book was actually called the long march of general tso, and he has marched very far indeed, because he is sweet, he is fried, and he is chicken -- all things that americans love.

　　左宗棠雞，在美國海軍軍校被稱為左司令雞。我很喜歡這道菜。在我的書里，這道菜實際上叫左將軍的長征，它確實在美國很受歡迎 ，因為它是甜的，油炸的，是雞肉做的——全部都是美國人的最愛。

　　so, you know, i realized when i was there, general tso is kind of a lot like colonel sanders in america, in that he's known for chicken and not war. but in china, this guy's actually known for war and not chicken.

　　我意識到左宗棠將軍有點像美國的桑德斯上校(肯德基創(chuàng)始人)，因為他是因雞肉而出名的而不是戰(zhàn)爭。而在中國，左宗棠確實是因為戰(zhàn)爭而不是雞肉聞名的。

　　so it's kind of part of the phenomenon i called spontaneous self-organization, right, where, like in ant colonies, where little decisions made by -- on the micro-level actually have a big impact on the macro-level.

　　這就有點像我所說的自發(fā)組織現(xiàn)象。就像在螞蟻群中，在微觀層面上做的小小決定會在宏觀層面上產(chǎn)生巨大的影響。

　　and the great innovation of chicken mcnuggets was not nuggetfying them, because that's kind of an easy concept, but the trick behind chicken mcnuggets was, they were able to remove the chicken from the bone in a cost-effective manner, which is why it took so long for other people to copy them.

　　麥樂雞塊的發(fā)明并沒有給他們帶來切實收益，因為這個想法很簡單，但麥樂雞背后的技巧是如何用一種劃算的方式來把雞肉從骨頭上剔出來。這就是為什么過了這么久才有人模仿他們。

　　we can think of chinese restaurants perhaps as linux: sort of an open source thing, right, where ideas from one person can be copied and propagated across the entire system, that there can be specialized versions of chinese food, you know, depending on the region.

　　我們可以把中餐館比作linux：一種開源系統(tǒng)。一個人的想法可以在整個系統(tǒng)中被復制，被普及。在不同的地區(qū)，就有特別版本的中國菜。