双语阅读：川菜是如何征服全世界吃货的？

• Many may remember the 1998 film?Mulan, the tale of a young Chinese girl who pretends to be a man to take her ailing father’s place in the army.

  很多人还记得1998年上映的迪士尼动画电影《花木兰》。在这个故事中，一名中国少女扮作男子替代她年迈体弱的父亲从军。

  In a joint promotion for the original animated feature, McDonald’s released a condiment called SzeChuan sauce for a limited time.

  在配合这部原版动画片的联合推广活动中，麦当劳限时推出了一款名为“川酱”的调味酱。

  Hong Kong-born Kevin Pang, who was raised in the United States, remembers it well from his teenage days.

  香港出生、美国长大的凯文·庞（音）对这款自己少年时代的调味酱记忆深刻。

  “It tasted very much like American Chinese food, it was too sweet. The texture was very gloopy, very sticky, and I think it was a little bit too out there for an American audience. If you eat chicken nuggets, you have barbecue sauce, you have hot mustard, but you don’t have this vaguely Asian style sauce. It was a novelty,” recalls Pang.

  他回忆说：“那个酱尝起来非常像美国的中餐，太甜了。特别黏稠。我认为它有些过于适应美国人的口味了。吃鸡块的时候，会涂烧烤酱、芥末酱，但你不会涂抹这种亚洲风格的酱。这是一个新鲜事物。”

  Interest in the sauce soon dissipated and it was forgotten until 2017, when an episode of cartoon show?Rick and Morty?– which featured a mad scientist and his adventures with his grandson – mentioned the SzeChuan sauce.

  人们很快对这款调味酱失去了兴趣并将它遗忘。直到2017年，动画片《瑞克和莫蒂》的其中一集提到了这款川酱。这部动画片讲的是一位疯狂的科学家带着孙子探险的故事。

  Fans of?Rick and Morty?began demanding the return of SzeChuan sauce, and a few months later, McDonald’s announced it would be revived – but for one day only – on October 7, 2017.

  《瑞克和莫蒂》的粉丝们开始要求重新供应川酱。几个月后，麦当劳宣布将在2017年10月7日再次限时供应川酱——但仅此一天。

  However, on the day, the fast-food chain was completely unprepared for the onslaught of people who turned up to get their hands on the sweet, Asian-style sauce.

  然而，当这一天到来时，麦当劳对于前来索要这款亚洲风味甜酱的人潮毫无准备。

  Each McDonald’s only had two dozen packs of the sauce to give away, and customers who had queued for hours were very angry, shouting: “We want sauce!” At one outlet in Newark, in the American state of New Jersey, the police had to be called in to calm things down.

  每家麦当劳门店只准备了20多包川酱，这让那些排队数小时的顾客非常生气。他们高喊：“我们要川酱！”美国新泽西州纽瓦克的一家门店不得不通过报警来平息事态。

  Sachets of the sauce have appeared on eBay selling for up to 0 each.

  这种小包装酱料在易趣网上的标价一度达到每包250美元（约合1720元人民币）。

  However, the sauce created by McDonald’s lacks any authentic Sichuan flavor. Sadly for fans of the too-sweet McDonald’s sauce, there is no such thing as a generic “Sichuan sauce” in the Chinese province, says cook and food writer Fuchsia Dunlop.

  然而，这款由麦当劳开发的酱料根本不是正宗的四川风味。英国厨师兼美食作家邓扶霞说，在中国四川省根本没有通称“川酱”的东西，这对麦当劳这款甜酱的粉丝们来说非常遗憾。

  “A really good Sichuan meal is like a roller-coaster ride – you have spicy notes, sweet and sour notes, numbing and gentle flavors,” says the British cook who has been researching Chinese cuisine for 25 years. That’s a far cry from what McDonald’s was trying to emulate.

  这位研究中国烹饪长达25年的英国厨师说：“一顿地道的川菜大餐就像是过山车——有辣，有酸甜，有麻，也有柔和的口感。”这与麦当劳试图模仿的东西大相径庭。

  Sichuan cuisine is one of the eight great cuisines of China and is famous for its fiery dishes. But Dunlop says it’s a common misconception that the cuisine focuses only on heat.

  川菜是中国八大菜系之一，以火辣著称。但邓扶霞说，认为川菜只专注于火辣是一种常见的误解。

  “There’s the stereotype that it is all just fiery and hot, and of course Sichuanese love using chillies and Sichuan pepper (hua jiao) – with its lip tingling sensation – but that’s just one part of the story. Sichuan is about complex multilayered flavors,”she says.

  她说：“有人认为川菜只有火辣，这是一种刻板印象。当然，四川人喜欢使用辣椒和花椒——让你的唇齿发麻——但这只是一个方面。川菜有复杂的、多层次的味道。”

  “The really interesting thing about Sichuan cuisine is its diversity of flavors. When I was studying to be a chef there, we learned 23 complex flavors. It is like French classic sauces, but with different balances of sweet, sour, spicy and tingly,” she says.