红色肉类似乎不可能是美味巧克力的完美配方，但是新西兰的一位食品学家认为他研制出的高蛋白、含50%牛肉的巧克力将受到欢迎。

Mustafa Farouk, Senior Food Technologist at Ag Research has partnered with Auckland boutique chocolate maker Devonport Chocolates to bring meat chocolate to the masses. The quirky idea of combining the two very different ingredients came to Dr. Farouk one day, while looking at ways of adding value to beef and pondering ways the staple food might be consumed in the future. Mixing beef and chocolate seemed like the perfect way for people to get proteins and other nutrients in meat, because chocolate is such a popular dessert.

穆斯塔法?法鲁克是农业研究所的高级食品工艺师，他与奥克兰市的精品巧克力生产商德文波特合作来向大众推广肉类巧克力。一天，法鲁克博士正在研究给牛肉增值的方法并考虑未来人们摄入主食的方式，这时他想到了这个将两种截然不同的食材混合在一起的古怪的点子。由于巧克力是十分受大众喜爱的甜品，将牛肉和巧克力混合在一起似乎是让人们摄入肉类中蛋白质和其他营养成分的极佳办法。

无肉不欢者的最爱：牛肉巧克力

So Farouk took a very lean cut from the hind quarter of a Waikato-raised bovine, turned into what he calls "chocolate butter", which I assume is a sort of fine paste, and handed it over to Devonport Chocolates to use in their confectionery. The resulting combination reportedly has a consistency similar to a Turkish delight, and while the food scientist admits you can tell that it's not regular chocolate, the taste of meat is almost impossible to pick up. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Farouk described the taste of beef chocolate as "wonderful", adding that although people are initially put off by the unique dessert when they here it is 50% beef, once they bite into it and taste the rich chocolate flavor, most agree that it is excellent.

想到这里，法鲁克从一头怀卡托牛后腿那里取了一份极瘦的肉，加工成他所谓的“巧克力黄油”（我猜这是一种细腻的糊状物），并将它交给德文波特巧克力公司来制作糖果。据说，最终的混合物尝起来像土耳其软糖。虽然食品学家承认你可以辨别出牛肉巧克力不是普通的巧克力，但是你很难分辨出肉味。在一次接受《新西兰先驱报》的采访中，法鲁克形容牛肉巧克力的味道“绝妙”。法鲁克还说，尽管人们最初得知这种特别的巧克力含50%的牛肉时会望而却步，但是一旦他们尝了一口，感受到浓烈的巧克力滋味，大多数人都会认为牛肉巧克力非常棒。

"We knew we could turn meat into different forms, but whether we could actually fool people by making it look like chocolate is what we didn’t know," Dr. Farouk said. "When you try it now, you don't know what you're eating." He adds that it's very easy to change the texture of beef chocolate from very smooth to a dessert that has some body, fiber to it, but from whatever feedback they have released so far, the smooth one is tastier.

“我们知道肉有多种做法，但是能不能把肉做得跟巧克力一样，‘骗过’人，我们也不知道，”法鲁克博士说。“如果你现在尝一口，你都不会知道你在吃什么。”他补充说，要改变牛肉巧克力的口感非常简单，既可以做出非常丝滑的口感，也可以做出较粗的纤维口感，但是从他们目前发布的反馈来看，丝滑的牛肉巧克力更好吃。

Beef chocolate started out as a crazy experiment, but its creator now wants to make it commercially viable. "Devonport are very excited about it and it's highly likely that we'll partner with them and try to get it into the market," he told Stuff.co.nz. "And once people realise the advantages of having this, I'm sure it will take off." The meat required to make this bizarre treat would cost an estimated $17 a kilogram, and turned into chocolates, it would retail at $2.50 a cube.

牛肉巧克力一开始只是一次疯狂的试验，但是它的发明者现在想要对它进行商业推广。“德文波特对此非常兴奋，很有可能我们还会和他们合作，把牛肉巧克力推向市场，”他对新闻网Stuff.co.nz说道。“一旦人们认识到吃这种巧克力的好处，我肯定它会受到热捧。”据估计，制作一千克这种古怪点心所需的牛肉成本价是17美元，制成巧克力后，每块的零售价格将是2.5美元。

And this is only the beginning, as Farouk is now experimenting with lamb and venison, to see if they'll work as well as beef. In the past, the scientist also created beef ice-cream, a dairy-free dessert he says was very tasty.

并且，这只是个开始，因为法鲁克现在正在用羊肉和鹿肉做实验，来看看它们会不会取得像牛肉一样好的效果。以前法鲁克还制作过一种不含奶的牛肉冰激凌，他说这道甜品味道非常好。

Vocabulary

boutique: 精品店

bovine: 牛的；牛科动物

confectionery: 糕点糖果

lean: 瘦的

venison: 鹿肉