2021年经济学人 《吃到灭绝》书评（1）

Books and Arts -- Book Review

文学与艺术——书评

Rare foods -- Refined tastes

稀有的食物——精致的口味

Eating to Extinction¹. By Dan Saladino.

《吃到灭绝》，作者：丹·萨拉迪诺。

The French eat foie gras, the Icelandic devour² hakarl (fermented fish with an aroma³ of urine), Americans give thanks by baking tinned pumpkin⁴ in a pie.

法国人吃鹅肝，冰岛人吃哈卡尔（一种带有尿味的发酵鱼），美国人吃罐头南瓜做成的南瓜派来庆祝感恩节。

The range of human foods is not just a source of epicurean joy but a reflection of ecological⁵ and anthropological⁶ variety -- the consequence of tens of thousands of years of parallel yet independent cultural evolution.

范围广泛的人类食物不仅是享口腹之乐的源泉，也是生态和人类学多样性的反映——这是数万年平行而独立的文化进化的结果。

And yet, as choice has proliferated⁷ in other ways, diets have been squeezed and standardised.

然而，随着选择以其它的方式激增，饮食已经被挤压并且标准化了。

Even Parisians eventually let Starbucks onto their boulevards.

甚至巴黎人最终也让星巴克进入了他们的林荫大道。

Dan Saladino, a food journalist at the BBC, reminds readers of what stands to be lost.

BBC美食记者丹·萨拉迪诺在提醒读者，我们可能会失去什么。

In “Eating to Extinction” he travels far and wide to find “the world’s rarest foods”.

在《吃到灭绝》一书中，他走遍世界各地，寻找“世界上最稀有的食物”。

These include the murnong, “a radish-like root with a crisp bite and the taste of sweet coconut”; for millennia⁸ it was a primary food for Australia’s Aboriginals⁹, before almost vanishing.

其中包括murnong，“一种像萝卜一样的根，咬起来很脆，有椰子的甜味”；几千年来，它一直是澳大利亚原住民的主要食物，后来几乎消失了。

The unpasteurised version of English Stilton, meanwhile, was salvaged¹⁰ from hygiene¹¹ rules by an American enthusiast¹² who renamed it Stichelton.

与此同时，英国斯蒂尔顿奶酪的未经巴氏灭菌的版本被一位美国爱热心人从卫生法规中抢救出来，并将其重新命名为斯蒂切尔顿。

The book’s overarching theme is the rapid decline in the diversity of human foods over the past century.

这本书的中心主题是：在过去的一个世纪里，人类食物的多样性迅速下降。

Inside the stomach of a man who died 2,500 years ago, and whose body was preserved when it sank into a Danish peat bog¹³, researchers found the remains¹⁴ of his last meal: “a porridge made with barley¹⁵, flax and the seeds of 40 different plants”.

在2500年前去世的一名男子的胃里，研究人员发现了他最后一餐的残留物：“一种由大麦、亚麻和40种不同植物的种子制成的粥。”

In east Africa, the Hadza, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer tribes, “eat from a potential wild menu that consists of more than 800 plant and animal species”.

在东非，作为仅存的狩猎采集部落之一的哈扎族人，“吃的是由大概800多种植物和动物组成的野生菜肴”。

By contrast, most humans now get 75% of their calorie intake¹⁶ from just eight foods: rice, wheat, maize¹⁷, potatoes, barley, palm oil, soya and sugar.

相比之下，大多数人如今75%的卡路里摄入来自这八种食物：大米、小麦、玉米、土豆、大麦、棕榈油、大豆和糖。

Even within each of those food groups there is homogenisation.

甚至在这些食物群体中也存在同质化现象。

Decades of selective breeding and the pressures of global food markets mean that farms everywhere grow the same varieties of cereals and raise the same breeds of livestock¹⁸.

数十年的选择性育种和全球粮食市场的压力意味着各地的农场都在种植相同品种的谷物，饲养相同品种的牲畜。

Why should anyone care about having 25 varieties of wheat when a single one can be optimised to produce more grain, in more reliable fashion and with a guarantee of the same taste, year after year?

当一种小麦可以年复一年地以更可靠的方式生产出更多的谷物，并保证同样的味道时，人们为什么还要在乎小麦的种类有没有达到25种呢？

For the same reason that fund managers seek to diversify¹⁹ their assets.

与基金经理寻求资产多样化的原因相同。

In an ever-changing world, diversity is an insurance policy.

在一个不断变化的世界里，多样性是一种保险策略。

The pressures of climate change and rapidly spreading diseases make that insurance all the more important.

气候变化和迅速传播的疾病带来的压力使得这种保障变得更加重要。

1 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

2 devour   

v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷

参考例句：

• Larger fish devour the smaller ones.大鱼吃小鱼。
• Beauty is but a flower which wrinkle will devour.美只不过是一朵，终会被皱纹所吞噬。

3 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

4 pumpkin   

n.南瓜

参考例句：

• They ate turkey and pumpkin pie.他们吃了火鸡和南瓜馅饼。
• It looks like there is a person looking out of the pumpkin!看起来就像南瓜里有人在看着你！

5 ecological   

adj.生态的，生态学的

参考例句：

• The region has been declared an ecological disaster zone.这个地区已经宣布为生态灾难区。
• Each animal has its ecological niche.每种动物都有自己的生态位.

6 anthropological   

adj.人类学的

参考例句：

• These facts of responsibility are an anthropological datums- varied and multiform. 这些道德事实是一种人类学资料——性质不同，形式各异。 来自哲学部分
• It is the most difficult of all anthropological data on which to "draw" the old Negro. 在所有的人类学资料中，最困难的事莫过于“刻划”古代的黑人。 来自辞典例句

7 proliferated   

激增( proliferate的过去式和过去分词 )； （迅速）繁殖； 增生； 扩散

参考例句：

• Books and articles on the subject have proliferated over the last year. 过去一年以来，论及这一问题的书和文章大量涌现。
• Influenza proliferated throughout the country. 流感在全国蔓延。

8 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

9 aboriginals   

（某国的）公民( aboriginal的名词复数 )； 土著人特征； 土生动物（或植物）

参考例句：

• He remained fascinated by the Aboriginals' tales. 他一直对澳大利亚土著居民的传说极感兴趣。
• They drove the aboriginals out of their lands at sword point. 他们以武力将土著人赶出他们的家园。

10 salvaged   

（从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的过去式和过去分词 )； 回收利用（某物）

参考例句：

• The investigators studied flight recorders salvaged from the wreckage. 调查者研究了从飞机残骸中找到的黑匣子。
• The team's first task was to decide what equipment could be salvaged. 该队的首要任务是决定可以抢救哪些设备。

11 hygiene   

n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic）

参考例句：

• Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
• He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。

12 enthusiast   

n.热心人，热衷者

参考例句：

• He is an enthusiast about politics.他是个热衷于政治的人。
• He was an enthusiast and loved to evoke enthusiasm in others.他是一个激情昂扬的人，也热中于唤起他人心中的激情。

13 bog   

n.沼泽；室...陷入泥淖

参考例句：

• We were able to pass him a rope before the bog sucked him under.我们终于得以在沼泽把他吞没前把绳子扔给他。
• The path goes across an area of bog.这条小路穿过一片沼泽。

14 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

15 barley   

n.大麦，大麦粒

参考例句：

• They looked out across the fields of waving barley.他们朝田里望去,只见大麦随风摇摆。
• He cropped several acres with barley.他种了几英亩大麦。

16 intake   

n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口

参考例句：

• Reduce your salt intake.减少盐的摄入量。
• There was a horrified intake of breath from every child.所有的孩子都害怕地倒抽了一口凉气。

17 maize   

n.玉米

参考例句：

• There's a field planted with maize behind the house.房子后面有一块玉米地。
• We can grow sorghum or maize on this plot.这块地可以种高粱或玉米。

18 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

19 diversify   

v.（使）不同，（使）变得多样化

参考例句：

• Our company is trying to diversify.我们公司正力图往多样化方面发展。
• Hills and woods diversify the landscape.山陵和树木点缀景色。