| The oddest thing I have been served was at another of the restaurants near the lake. |
在湖畔的另一家餐館，我吃到過一種最奇特的食物。 |
| On this particular occasion we had been invited again to eat a fish huo guo. It was all very pleasant. Then the waiter arrived with a strange contraption which he fitted on top of the communal bouillon. It was a cylinder about the size of a top hat, slightly narrower at the waist and with a lid. I wondered what this was all about. |
那一次，又有人請我們去吃魚肉火鍋。用餐的整個過程都很愉快。之后，服務員拿來了一個奇妙的裝置，安裝在湯鍋的上方。那是一個圓筒，大小和高頂禮帽差不多，在中部微微收細，有一個蓋子。我很好奇這是用來做什么的。 |
| A few moments later he reappeared with a pail of fish. They were the size of goldfish, and they were alive. He took the lid off the cylinder, and upended the pail into the boiling bouillon. For a few seconds there was vigorous splashing, then silence. |
過了一會兒，那個服務員帶著一桶魚再次出現。那些魚只有金魚大小，都是活的。他把蓋子從圓筒上拿掉，把一桶魚都倒進了沸騰的湯里。鍋中猛地響起湯水潑濺的聲音，幾秒種后又沉寂下去。 |
| I looked on this scene of appalling carnage with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. Fortunately, the screams of fish are inaudible to the human ear. The waiter took the cylinder away, and we ate the fish whole. It was like chewing a mouthful of mud and needles. |
我眼睜睜地看著這場令人震驚的屠殺，盡力做出熱切的樣子。值得慶幸的是，人類的耳朵聽不到魚類所發出的尖叫。服務員把圓筒拿走，我們將魚整條吃下，口感近似于咀嚼滿口的泥巴和細針。 |
| Sometimes, though, I get my revenge. For all the breadth of their own culinary tradition, the Chinese are remarkably unadventurous when it comes to other cultures. In fact, they're total jessies. Serve them lean roast beef or lamb with the faintest trace of pink in it and you'll have them bleating like medieval serfs being knouted with a knotted rope. |
不過有時候，我也會報復一下。盡管中國人的傳統食譜包羅萬象，但他們面對其他飲食文化時卻毫無冒險精神。事實上，他們在這方面完全是膽小鬼。請他們吃精瘦的烤牛羊肉，上面只要還殘留有一絲粉紅色，他們就會像被粗繩鞭打的中世紀農奴一樣驚叫。 |
| Give them a taste of it, I say. It'll put a bit of backbone in them – if they haven't already had that for breakfast… |
嘿，給他們嘗一口那個，那會讓他們的“脊梁骨更硬一點”；不過，可能他們早飯就把脊骨吃下肚了……
（China.org.cn 李瀟 譯）
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