英国卫报：人类的感官重要吗？该如何修复？(5)

　　The following summer I brought peaches into another classroom, this time with year 4 classes.

　　第二年夏天，我把桃子带到了另一间教室，这一次是四年级。

　　One nine-year-old girl stared blankly at the fruit and told me she was surprised real peaches didn’t look more like the peach emoji.

　　一个9岁的女孩茫然地看着桃子，告诉我她很惊讶真正的桃子看起来不像桃子表情符号。

　　Since then, we’ve met 10-year-old children who have never tasted a carrot or a raw tomato, and who have no idea what it feels like to hold an onion or a potato.

　　从那时起，我们遇到了一些10岁的孩子，他们从未尝过胡萝卜或生西红柿，他们不知道拿着洋葱或土豆是什么感觉。

　　There are children who could name every football team in the Premier¹ League in the correct order but don’t know that cherries come with stones inside, because they have never seen anyone eating one, never mind tried one for themselves.

　　有些孩子可以按正确的顺序说出英超联赛中每支球队的名字，但他们不知道樱桃里面有核，因为他们从来没有见过有人吃樱桃，更不用说自己尝过了。

　　Teachers have told us about children who smelled a fresh mint leaf and the only thing it reminded them of was chewing gum and mint-scented shampoo.

　　老师们告诉我们，孩子们闻到了新鲜的薄荷叶，唯一让他们想起的就是口香糖和薄荷香味的洗发水。

　　Jason O’Rourke, the head teacher of Washingborough Academy in Lincolnshire and one of the founders² of TastEd, has told me that when asked where food comes from, children at his school used to say “from the supermarket”.

　　林肯郡华盛顿伯勒学院的校长、Tested的创始人之一杰森·奥洛克告诉我，当被问及食物是从哪里来的时，他学校的孩子们过去会说“来自超市”。

　　Now they say “from Mummy’s iPad”.

　　现在他们说“来自妈妈的iPad”。

　　The deep ignorance that children have about food is part of something much bigger: a global food system in which the chains of distribution are so long and impersonal³ that very few of us – adults or children – have any connection with the people who grew or reared what we eat.

　　孩子们对食物的极度无知是一个更大的东西的一部分：在一个全球食品体系中，分配链如此之长和客观，以至于我们中很少有人--无论是成年人还是儿童--与种植或饲养我们所吃的食物的人有任何联系。

　　The sensory⁴ disconnect of modern life didn’t happen all at once.

　　现代生活中的感觉脱节并不是突然发生的。

　　We are living at the endpoint of many centuries of sensory disengagement from our food.

　　我们生活在几个世纪以来感官脱离食物的终点。

　　Although the idea of the five senses is near-universal across human societies, each culture has its own ways of conceptualising those senses.

　　尽管五官的概念在人类社会中几乎是普遍存在的，但每种文化都有自己的方式来概念化这些感官。

　　The cultures in which sensory knowledge of food -- particularly through smell -- are most vivid are hunter-gatherer communities.

　　对食物的感官知识--尤其是通过嗅觉--最生动的文化是狩猎-采集社区。

　　When most humans were hunter-gatherers, no one could afford to eat with their senses switched off.

　　当大多数人类还是狩猎采集者的时候，没有人能在失去感官的情况下吃得到东西。

　　You needed to be able to sniff⁵ out the difference between a poisonous berry and a sweet one, and to listen alertly for the footsteps of wild game.

　　你需要能够闻出有毒的浆果和甜蜜的浆果之间的区别，并警惕地倾听野生动物的脚步声。

　　For hunter-gatherers, senses are survival.

　　对于狩猎-采集者来说，感官就是生存。

　　This became less urgent with the adoption⁶ of farming in the neolithic⁷ period.

　　随着新石器时代农业的采用，这一点变得不那么紧迫了。

　　Suddenly, not everyone in the community was responsible for foraging⁸ or hunting their own food, because we could rely on farmers to supply us with grain.

　　突然间，社区中并不是每个人都负责寻找或狩猎自己的食物，因为我们可以依赖农民为我们提供粮食。

　　Anthropologists have found that as societies modernise⁹, one of the common patterns is that the sense of smell becomes less important and the sense of sight becomes more so.

　　人类学家发现，随着社会的现代化，一种常见的模式是嗅觉变得不那么重要，而视觉变得更加重要。

1 premier   

adj.首要的；n.总理，首相

参考例句：

• The Irish Premier is paying an official visit to Britain.爱尔兰总理正在对英国进行正式访问。
• He requested that the premier grant him an internview.他要求那位总理接见他一次。

2 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

3 impersonal   

adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的

参考例句：

• Even his children found him strangely distant and impersonal.他的孩子们也认为他跟其他人很疏远，没有人情味。
• His manner seemed rather stiff and impersonal.他的态度似乎很生硬冷淡。

4 sensory   

adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的

参考例句：

• Human powers of sensory discrimination are limited.人类感官分辨能力有限。
• The sensory system may undergo long-term adaptation in alien environments.感觉系统对陌生的环境可能经过长时期才能适应。

5 sniff   

vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视

参考例句：

• The police used dogs to sniff out the criminals in their hiding - place.警察使用警犬查出了罪犯的藏身地点。
• When Munchie meets a dog on the beach, they sniff each other for a while.当麦奇在海滩上碰到另一条狗的时候，他们会彼此嗅一会儿。

6 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

7 neolithic   

adj.新石器时代的

参考例句：

• Cattle were first domesticated in Neolithic times.新石器时代有人开始驯养牛。
• The monument was Stone Age or Neolithic.该纪念碑是属于石器时代或新石器时代的。

8 foraging   

v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西）

参考例句：

• They eke out a precarious existence foraging in rubbish dumps. 他们靠在垃圾场捡垃圾维持着朝不保夕的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The campers went foraging for wood to make a fire. 露营者去搜寻柴木点火。 来自辞典例句

9 modernise   

vt.使现代化

参考例句：

• If it works,it would help to modernise the entire economy.这项（改革）一旦实施起效，将有助于整体经济的现代化进程。
• They attempted in vain to modernise these antiquated industries.他们企图使这些陈旧的工业现代化，结果劳而无功。