- 期刊
OPEN RECIPES, OPENLY ARRIVED AT: HOW TO COOK AND EAT IN CHINESE (1945) AND THE TRANSLATION OF CHINESE FOOD
食譜的開放與普及：《中國菜的烹調與食用方法》及其翻譯問題
摘要
In 1945, Chao Yang Buwei (Zhao Yang Buwei 趙楊步偉, 1889-1981) published the first systematic English language Chinese cookbook. HOW TO COOK AND EAT IN CHINESE. The book is a practical introduction to Chinese foodways, but much more. The text was written mostly by her linguist and philologist husband. Chao Yuenren (Zhao Yuanren 趙元任, 1892-1982), who earned his PhD at Harvard after World War I. He stood for cultural internationalism, that is, a Wilsonian agenda of equality and cosmopolitan world understanding. When Yuenren ran a Chinese language program for American soldiers at Harvard during World War II, Buwei developed a set of Chinese dishes using local ingredients to feed the program instructors. Yuenren produced a classic language text, MANDARIN PRIMER; he and Buwei produced a classic cooking primer. The two books were constructed on much the same principles but faced different challenges in cultural translation. Even in China there was then no national canon which could be called "Chinese food", only regional dishes. In order to translate (or perhaps invent) "Chinese food" for Western kitchens, Buwei selected and adapted dishes and techniques. Yuenren coined terms such as "stir fry" and "pot sticker" and wittily analyzed the structural patterns of culture in Chinese foodways. In the spirit of Wilsonian world democracy, they presented Chinese cookery as something of universal value which the West did not yet have.