This is an easy question for a Chinese to ask, but a Westerner might find it difficult to answer. Many people in the West are gourmets and others are gluttons, but scattered among them also is a large number of people who are apparently pretty indifferent to what goes into their stomachs, and do not regard food as having any ultimate moral effect on them. How, they might ask, could eating a hamburger or drinking Coca Cola contribute anything to making you a saint or a sinner? For them, food is quite simply a fuel.
这是一个中国人常问的问题，而西方人却很难作答。在西方，很多人都是美食家，还有其他一些是暴饮暴食者，而混杂于这两者中间的还有一种对吃进肚子的食物漠不关心的。这些人也许会问，吃一个汉堡，喝点可口可乐就会变成圣人或罪人？对于他们来说，食物就是一种能量。


        Kenneth Lo, however, expresses a point of view that is profoundly different and typically Chinese, deriving from thousands of years of tradition. The London restaurateur Fu Tong, for example, quotes no less an authority than Confucius (the ancient Sage known in Chinese as K'ung-Fu-Tzu) with regard to the primal importance of food. Food, said the sage, is the first happiness. Fu Tong adds: "Food to my countrymen is one of the ecstasies of life, to be thought about in advance; to be smothered with loving care throughout its preparation; and to have time lavished on it in the final pleasure of eating."
肯尼斯·洛认却表达了一种截然不同的，典型的中国化的观点。这种观点源于从几千年中国文化。例如，一家伦敦餐馆的董福就引用了如同孔夫子（中国人陈这位古代圣人为孔夫子）的权威人士的话。圣者言，食乃是人生最大的幸福。董福还说：“食物对中国人来说是生活中的一大乐事，需要预先准备，需要精心烹饪，还要肯花时间去享受吃得乐趣。”

       How did this come about? Certainly, a kind of Chinese food was exported to North America when many thousands of Chinese went there in the 19th century to work on such things as the U.S. railways. They settled on or near the west coast, where the famous    or infamous    "chop suey joints" grew up, with their rather inferior brand of Chinese cooking. The standard of the restaurants improved steadily in the United States, but Lo considers that the crucial factor in spreading this kind of food throughout the Western world was population pressure in the British colony of Hong Kong, especially after 1950, which sent families out all over the world to seek their fortunes in the opening of restaurants. He adds,, however, that this could not have happened if the world had not been interested in what the Hong Kong Chinese had to cook and sell. He detects an increased interest in sensuality in the Western world: "Colour, texture, movement, food, drink, and rock music    all these have become much more part and parcel of the average person's life than they have ever been. It is this increased sensuality and the desire for greater freedom from age-bound habits in the West, combined with the inherent sensual concept of Chinese food, always quick to satisfy the taste buds, that is at the root of the sudden and phenomenal spread of Chinese food throughout the length and breadth of the Western World."
这是怎么回事呢？十九世纪成千上万的工人去美国去做诸如修建铁路之事时，食物也随之传到了北美。他们在美国西海岸或靠近西海岸的地方定居，在那里知名的、不知名的“杂烩店”开始风靡起来，经营的都是些低档次的中国菜。在美国，这些餐馆的档次在稳步提高。但洛认为促使中餐在西方世界流行起来的关键因素在于英国殖民地——香港的巨大人口压力。特别是20世纪50年代以后，许多家庭都想到世界各地开餐管赚钱。他还说，如果世界对香港华人的烹饪和经营不感兴趣的话，也不可能发生这样的事情。他发现西方人越来越重视感观上的享受：色泽、质地、运动、食物，饮料以及摇滚乐，这些都成为大部分人生活中的重要组成部分。由于西方人这种与日俱增的感官享乐主义，与打破旧习获取更多自由的渴望，在加上中国饮食所固有的感知理念，很容易满足人的味觉，才使得中国饮食在全世界各地发展得如此迅速。


       The preparation is detailed, and the enjoyment must therefore match it. Thus a proper Chinese meal can last for hours and proceed almost like a religious ceremony. It is a shared experience for the participants, not a lonely chore, with its procession of planned and carefully contrived dishes, some elements designed to blend, others to contrast. Meat and fish, solids and soups, sweet and sour sauces, crisp and smooth textures, fresh and dried vegetables -- all these and more challenge the palate with their appropriate charms.
准备工作十分详细，而美餐的享用自然也应与之匹配。因此吃一顿真正的中餐可能要好几个小时，其过程就像一次宗教仪式。它需要从那与这共同分享，而非各自份额任务，因为有一系列经认真策划、精心设计的菜肴，其中一些成分是用于调味，另一些则用于衬托。肉类、鱼类、炒菜、汤菜、酸汤甜汁、吹生生滑溜溜之物，鲜菜、干菜---所有这些以及其他，他们各局特色都在调我们的胃口。

       In a Chinese meal that has not been altered to conform to Western ideas of eating, everything is presented as a kind of buffet, the guest eating a little of this. a little of that. Individual portions as such are not provided. A properly planned dinner will include at least one fowl, one fish and one meat dish, and their presentation with appropriate vegetables is not just a matter of taste but also a question of harmonious colours. The eye must be pleased as well as the palate; if not, then a certain essentially Chinese element is missing, an element that links this cuisine with that most typical and yet elusive concept Tao.
在一次为首西方饮食思潮影响的中餐中，所有食品摆在餐桌上，犹如一种自助餐。宾客们可吃点这个，吃点那个。担任份饭是不会提供的。搭配合理的一餐至少应该包括一道鸡，一道鱼，和一道肉，而他们与适当的蔬菜搭配摆出也并非仅是味道的问题，也是要色泽搭配问题，味觉要满足，视觉也是如此。否则，一种本质上中国特色的东西，也就是是中华美食与那典型而林人难以琢磨的道家观念相联系的因素也就消失了。


Emily Hahn, an American who has lived and worked in China, 'has a great appreciation both of Chinese cooking and the "way" that leads to morality and harmony. She insists that "there is moral excellence in good cooking", and adds that to the Chinese, traditionally, all life. all action and all knowledge are one. They may be chopped up and given parts with labels, such as "Cooking". "Health", "Character" and the like. but none is in reality separate from the other. The smooth harmonies and piquant contrasts in Chinese food are more than just the products of recipes and personal enterprise. They are an expression of basic assumptions about life itself.
艾米莉·汉，一个曾在中国生活和工作过的美国人，她十分欣赏中国烹饪和体现的道德与和谐的方式。她认为好的烹饪反映一种美德，而且她还认为，在中国人们的传统生活中，每个人的行为与知识都能达到一种合谐。他们虽可以被切割开来，分成部分，贴上标签，如“饮食”、“健康”及“特色”等等，但是实际上，没有一种能与其相分离。中国饮食中这种水**融和令人垂涎的相互衬映并不只是烹饪食物和个人生意的产物。它们是对生活本身的一种诠释。


OVER~

此时不顶，何时顶？

一直怀疑这篇文章是上个世纪初写的，看着那些汉语拼音完全不懂

回复：15楼
以下是我个人的翻译，在语言的组织上不是很好，可以再精简一些，但大概意思应该是这样的——
这是一种经验的分享，而不是一个单独的步骤。这些菜肴的制作经历了一系列经认真的策划和精心的设计，其中的一部分设计元素是为了与菜肴融合，起到调味的作用，而另一部分（设计）则是为了起到衬托的作用。


顶一个~刚好学到这篇课文。。。