美国国家公共电台 NPR Food Manga: Where Culture, Conflict And Cooking All Collide

Food Manga: Where Culture, Conflict And Cooking All Collide

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep with one sure way to learn something about an overseas culture - learn about its food. This installment¹ of Hidden Kitchens takes us to Japan. In particular, it takes us to comic books known as manga. They're everywhere in Japanese life and often adapted for the screen. And some of the stories obsess² over food. So the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, bring us a report they call "War And Food And Manga."

DEB AOKI: Manga is a cradle-to-grave phenomenon. It's a visual storytelling medium that people enjoy from the day they first start seeing pictures to the day they die.

MILES THOMAS: Practically every interest has a manga dedicated³ to it - shooting pool, swimming, high school basketball, gambling⁴, sex.

NANCY STALKER: Food manga, gurume manga, gourmet⁵ manga is one of the major genres⁶ within manga that's just been growing exponentially.

AOKI: There's "Food Wars."

STALKER: "Detective Glutton⁷."

THOMAS: "Cooking Master Boy."

STALKER: "Soldier Of Food," "Criminal Grub."

AOKI: "Kitchen Princess."

STALKER: "Antique Bakery," "Nobunaga No Chef."

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

STALKER: "A Chef Of Nobunaga."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "A CHEF OF NOBUNAGA")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Japanese).

STALKER: The young chef at a contemporary high-end hotel wakes up in the late 15th century in a battlefield during Japan's century of civil war. He becomes the chef of a very notorious warlord Oda Nobunaga. He uses his culinary skills to lure⁸ enemy combatants off the battlefield with the smell of grilled⁹ meat. My name's Nancy Stalker, professor of Japanese history and culture at the University of Texas at Austin.

BRIAN ZHONG: There always has to be conflict in mangas, especially food magna. There has to be some sort of battle. My name is Brian Zhong, and I'm a member of AnimeFX at San Francisco State University. There's never any real peace in manga. If there is peace, it's very short, one or two chapters. War produces content.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

THOMAS: One of the most popular anime in America last year was "Food Wars." My name is Miles Thomas, anime marketing¹⁰ at Crunchy Roll.

AOKI: "Food Wars" is the best. "Shokugeki No Soma" - cooking wars. My name is Debra Aoki. I write about manga for Anime News Network. I'm also a cartoonist. "Shokugeki No Soma" is in the best-selling manga magazine in the world, Shonen Jump - super popular. All boys read it. The hero of it is this boy named Soma.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SHOKUGEKI NO SOMA")

YOSHITSUGU MATSUOKA: (As Soma Yukihira, speaking Japanese).

AOKI: He's, like, your classic shonen manga hero. He's got the spiky¹¹ hair - it's red - and 16 years old, a little full of himself. He's been working at his family restaurant for years.

THOMAS: His dad sends the kid to a food boarding school where battle is the context. Who's going to win this battle between this spinach¹² dish and this sauteed scallion dish?

AOKI: When Soma cooks something that's really delicious, people just put it in their mouth, and they're just so overcome with ecstasy¹³ that their clothes explode off. The artist originally was known for doing soft-core comics. So you see these girls - like, they're eating something. It's like, oh, I can't stand it. It's so good. Boom - and then their clothes explode off.

LEYLA AKER: The modern manga industry came into being after World War II, with Osamu Tezuka, who created "Astro Boy." He was influenced by Walt Disney. That American content was brought over by the occupation. My name is Leyla Aker at Viz Media. We specialize in Japanese graphic¹⁴ novels and anime. During the American occupation of Japan, a large portion of the Japanese population subsisted¹⁵ on handouts¹⁶ given by the American forces.

STALKER: There were severe shortages of food during the occupation - eating bark from trees and replacing sawdust for flour in recipes. Many Japanese died of starvation.

AKER: In the manga called "Yakitate!! Ja-pan," a young boy, Kazuma, his family grows rice. His grandfather insists every morning that they eat a traditional Japanese breakfast - miso soup, rice, natto. And Kazuma and his sister, they want to eat bread.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "YAKITATE!! JA-PAN")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Japanese).

AKER: And their grandfather, who lived through the occupation and the war, was like, are you crazy? Why would you eat bread for breakfast? The stuff is gross. And it's this picture of General MacArthur holding a roll and saying, eat this.

THOMAS: There's this anime called "Grave Of The Fireflies" about these two orphans¹⁷ during World War II who are starving and hungry. They steal food, trying their hardest to survive. And there's these candies that this girl really like in a metal tin. They're this girl's entire world.

TIFFANY CHEN: It really makes you think about the darker side of food, when people don't have enough of it to survive. My name's Tiffany Chen at Crunchy Roll, a streaming service for anime. For a long time, World War II was just a history that you studied in class but never really felt connected with it. A lot of younger people don't actually even know about the atomic bomb. After watching this film, it was a pretty sobering moment.

STALKER: Food has always been tied up in Japan's national identity. Traditionally, the eating of the four-legged creatures was proscribed¹⁸ by Buddhist¹⁹ belief. The Japanese military began to introduce beef in order to compete with Western soldiers. The emperor first publicly ate meat in 1872. Eating beef was seen as something that would help build the national physique and make the Japanese more like Westerners.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

AOKI: "Oishinbo" and "Cooking Papa," they're both really popular manga for adult men. In "Oishinbo," the main character is this scrappy reporter. His father is, like, this really snooty gourmet who sets up this ritzy gourmet club for only rich people. They have dueling²⁰ palate battles. It's written by Tetsu Kariya, who is very opinionated about what real food is, creating all this drama about food issues - around growing it, around cooking it, about what it means to eat expensive food and cheap food and what is good food. Food manga like "Oishinbo" and "Food Wars," in some ways it's a war within theirself, fighting to be the best - the way of the sword, the way of the chef.

INSKEEP: "War And Food And Manga" was produced by the Kitchen Sisters with Brandi Howell and mixed by Jim McKee. Hear more Kitchen Sisters stories on their podcast, "Fugitive²¹ Waves."

1 installment   

n.(instalment)分期付款；(连载的)一期

参考例句：

• I shall soon pay the last installment of my debt.不久我将偿付我的最后一期债款。
• He likes to buy things on the installment plan.他喜欢用分期付款法购买货物。

2 obsess   

vt.使着迷，使心神不定，（恶魔）困扰

参考例句：

• I must admit that maps obsess me.我得承认我对地图十分着迷。
• A string of scandals is obsessing America.美国正被一系列丑闻所困扰。

3 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

4 gambling   

n.赌博；投机

参考例句：

• They have won a lot of money through gambling.他们赌博赢了很多钱。
• The men have been gambling away all night.那些人赌了整整一夜。

5 gourmet   

n.食物品尝家；adj.出于美食家之手的

参考例句：

• What does a gourmet writer do? 美食评论家做什么？
• A gourmet like him always eats in expensive restaurants.像他这样的美食家总是到豪华的餐馆用餐。

6 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

7 glutton   

n.贪食者，好食者

参考例句：

• She's a glutton for work.She stays late every evening.她是个工作狂，每天都很晚才下班。
• He is just a glutton.He is addicted to excessive eating.他就是个老饕，贪吃成性。

8 lure   

n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
• He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。

9 grilled   

adj. 烤的, 炙过的, 有格子的 动词grill的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• He was grilled for two hours before the police let him go. 他被严厉盘查了两个小时后，警察才放他走。
• He was grilled until he confessed. 他被严加拷问，直到他承认为止。

10 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

11 spiky   

adj.长而尖的，大钉似的

参考例句：

• Your hairbrush is too spiky for me.你的发刷，我觉得太尖了。
• The spiky handwriting on the airmail envelope from London was obviously hers.发自伦敦的航空信封上的尖长字迹分明是她的。

12 spinach   

n.菠菜

参考例句：

• Eating spinach is supposed to make you strong.据说吃菠菜能使人强壮。
• You should eat such vegetables as carrot,celery and spinach.你应该吃胡萝卜、芹菜和菠菜这类的蔬菜。

13 ecstasy   

n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷

参考例句：

• He listened to the music with ecstasy.他听音乐听得入了神。
• Speechless with ecstasy,the little boys gazed at the toys.小孩注视着那些玩具，高兴得说不出话来。

14 graphic   

adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的

参考例句：

• The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
• Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。

15 subsisted   

v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Before liberation he subsisted on wild potatoes. 解放前他靠吃野薯度日。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Survivors of the air crash subsisted on wild fruits. 空难事件的幸存者以野果维持生命。 来自辞典例句

16 handouts   

救济品( handout的名词复数 )； 施舍物； 印刷品； 讲义

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts. 士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Even after losing his job, he was too proud to accept handouts. 甚至在失去工作后，他仍然很骄傲，不愿接受施舍。

17 orphans   

孤儿( orphan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poor orphans were kept on short commons. 贫苦的孤儿们吃不饱饭。
• Their uncle was declared guardian to the orphans. 这些孤儿的叔父成为他们的监护人。

18 proscribed   

v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They are proscribed by federal law from owning guns. 根据联邦法律的规定，他们不准拥有枪支。 来自辞典例句
• In earlier days, the church proscribed dancing and cardplaying. 从前，教会禁止跳舞和玩牌。 来自辞典例句

19 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

20 dueling   

n. 决斗, 抗争(=duelling) 动词duel的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• More light-hearted But somewhat puzzled, Vladimir prepared to meet Eugene on the dueling ground. 弗拉基米尔心里轻松了一些，但仍感到有些困惑，在这种心情下，他准备去决斗场地迎战叶甫盖尼。 来自英汉 - 翻译样例 - 文学
• They had been dueling for hours and finally called a draw. 他们一直决斗了数小时，最后打成平局。

21 fugitive   

adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者

参考例句：

• The police were able to deduce where the fugitive was hiding.警方成功地推断出那逃亡者躲藏的地方。
• The fugitive is believed to be headed for the border.逃犯被认为在向国境线逃窜。