美国国家公共电台 NPR Food For Thought: 10 Restaurants That Shaped America

Food For Thought: 10 Restaurants That Shaped America

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When's the last time you ordered turtle for dinner? Turtle was a typical entree² at the finest restaurants a hundred years ago. A new book documents our nation's changing tastes and what they say about our culture. It's called "10 Restaurants That Changed America." NPR's Neda Ulaby met the author at one of those restaurants in New York.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE³: The glamour⁴ of Gotham might have started at Delmonico's...

(CROSSTALK, LAUGHTER)

ULABY: ...With its clubby, red leather chairs, black and white tile floors and mahogany panels. It opened in 1837.

PAUL FREEDMAN: You can't have the modern American restaurant without Delmonico's.

ULABY: Historian Paul Freedman says Delmonico's was not America's first restaurant, but it raised the bar for the hash houses, oyster⁵ sellers and taverns⁶ that were then the only places in the country to sit down and eat.

FREEDMAN: Delmonico's is the first to have refined offerings, beautiful food, beautiful surroundings, well-mannered waiters, a bit of Paris in New York.

ULABY: Abraham Lincoln loved Delmonico's potatoes. Mark Twain threw a birthday party there. And when Oscar Wilde ordered the terrapin⁷ - that's turtle - he raved⁸ about it, Freedman says, in an 1885 essay.

FREEDMAN: The two greatest sites in America are Yosemite Valley and Delmonico's restaurant.

ULABY: Freedman picked this and nine other restaurants with the following criteria⁹. The place had to be exemplary so lots of other restaurants copied it or it came to define a category.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

ULABY: For example, an Italian place - Mama Leone's. It closed in 1994, but when it started almost a century earlier, Mama Leone's was a haunt for Italian immigrants and artists. Its main customer was Enrico Caruso when it was founded.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ENRICO CARUSO: (Singing in Italian).

ULABY: Over the years Mama Leone's would become a veritable Vesuvius of red sauce joint¹⁰ cliches.

FREEDMAN: Flirtatious¹¹ waiters, lots of entertainment, naked statues, huge portions...

ULABY: Mama Leone's was also one of the first theme restaurants with a shtick beyond its food. Freedmen's chapter about it is also a mini history of Italian eateries in America. Eating out is how he explores class mobility¹², the civil rights movement and women's changing status.

Jane Kramer wrote about his social history "10 Restaurants That Changed America" in this week's New Yorker magazine. She remembers eating at Sylvia's, the famous soul food restaurant in Harlem in the 1960s and power lunching at the Four Seasons in the 1980s.

JANE KRAMER: He captured the Zeitgeist perfectly¹³.

ULABY: Kramer adored the book partly because it's so knowing about the conflict between an elite¹⁴ food culture with beautiful dining out options.

KRAMER: And the high-fat, high-salt fast food restaurants to which the majority of Americans go. It sets the person who can read and absorb a book like that far apart from the mainstream¹⁵.

ULABY: Kramer would have appreciated more original and ethnic¹⁶ diversity, so she loved a chapter about the Mandarin¹⁷ in San Francisco and Chinese restaurants and a look at one national chain - Howard Johnson's...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hot dogs and hamburgers...

ULABY: ...Which changed how a broad swath of middle-class families dined on the road.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: ...And fried clams¹⁸ to eat.

FREEDMAN: You can't have fast food restaurants without Howard Johnson's.

ULABY: About half of the influential¹⁹ restaurants Paul Freedman picked are now out of business, some recently like the Four Seasons in New York. Delmonico's almost closed several times. Prohibition²⁰ nearly killed it.

FREEDMAN: It declined precipitously. By the First World War, it had horrible things like turkey hash with fried bananas.

ULABY: The food has since improved.

WILLIAM OLIVIA: So this is the lobster²¹ Newberg. At the moment it's garnished²² with a little asparagus, pea shoots and lobster mushrooms.

ULABY: Lobster Newberg was invented here. Executive chef William Olivia says he constantly goes back to the Epicurean cookbook created by an early Delmonico's chef written in 1894 and containing almost 4,000 recipes.

OLIVIA: I look at them all the time. I'll actually take the book out - the Epicurean out, and I'll look at it. And I'll say, OK, is there anything that we can make work today?

FREEDMAN: Are you ever tempted²³ to make terrapin?

OLIVIA: Terrapin - we haven't messed around with.

ULABY: Turtle - still out. The truth, Olivia says, is he feels a lot of Wall Street guys who like their steak and booze.

OLIVIA: And you know, when we start doing foodie stuff, these guys are a little, like, you know, what the heck is this?

ULABY: His job is to keep this restaurant maybe more profitable than influential. But he says...

OLIVIA: Hopefully in 175 years from now somebody will be writing about me.

ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 entree   

n.入场权，进入权

参考例句：

• She made a graceful entree into the ballroom.她进入舞厅时显示非常优雅。
• Her wealth and reputation gave her entree into upper-class circles.她的财富和声望使她得以进入上层社会。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 glamour   

n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住

参考例句：

• Foreign travel has lost its glamour for her.到国外旅行对她已失去吸引力了。
• The moonlight cast a glamour over the scene.月光给景色增添了魅力。

5 oyster   

n.牡蛎；沉默寡言的人

参考例句：

• I enjoy eating oyster; it's really delicious.我喜欢吃牡蛎，它味道真美。
• I find I fairly like eating when he finally persuades me to taste the oyster.当他最后说服我尝尝牡蛎时，我发现我相当喜欢吃。

6 taverns   

n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They ain't only two taverns. We can find out quick." 这儿只有两家客栈，会弄明白的。” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• Maybe ALL the Temperance Taverns have got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?" 也许所有的禁酒客栈都有个闹鬼的房间，喂，哈克，你说是不是？” 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

7 terrapin   

n.泥龟；鳖

参考例句：

• The diamondback terrapin in this undated photo has two heads.这张未标日期的图片上的钻纹龟有两个头。
• He also owns a two-headed goat,a two-headed terrapin and the world's only living three-headed turtle.他还拥有双头山羊、淡水龟，以及世上现存唯一的三头乌龟。

8 raved   

v.胡言乱语( rave的过去式和过去分词 )；愤怒地说；咆哮；痴心地说

参考例句：

• Andrew raved all night in his fever. 安德鲁发烧时整夜地说胡话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They raved about her beauty. 他们过分称赞她的美。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

10 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

11 flirtatious   

adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的

参考例句：

• a flirtatious young woman 卖弄风情的年轻女子
• Her flirtatious manners are intended to attract. 她的轻浮举止是想引人注意。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

13 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

14 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

15 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

16 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

17 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

18 clams   

n.蛤；蚌，蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.（在沙滩上）挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The restaurant's specialities are fried clams. 这个餐厅的特色菜是炸蚌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We dug clams in the flats et low tide. 退潮时我们在浅滩挖蛤蜊。 来自辞典例句

19 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

20 prohibition   

n.禁止；禁令，禁律

参考例句：

• The prohibition against drunken driving will save many lives.禁止酒后开车将会减少许多死亡事故。
• They voted in favour of the prohibition of smoking in public areas.他们投票赞成禁止在公共场所吸烟。

21 lobster   

n.龙虾，龙虾肉

参考例句：

• The lobster is a shellfish.龙虾是水生贝壳动物。
• I like lobster but it does not like me.我喜欢吃龙虾，但它不适宜于我的健康。

22 garnished   

v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her robes were garnished with gems. 她的礼服上装饰着宝石。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Serve the dish garnished with wedges of lime. 给这道菜配上几角酸橙。 来自《简明英汉词典》

23 tempted   

v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词）

参考例句：

• I was sorely tempted to complain, but I didn't. 我极想发牢骚，但还是没开口。
• I was tempted by the dessert menu. 甜食菜单馋得我垂涎欲滴。