2023年经济学人 俄罗斯如何用盛宴作为武器（在线收听）

    Culture

    文艺版块

    World in a dish

    盘中世界

    Superpower food

    超级大国盛宴

    The knife and fork have been powerful weapons in Russia’s arsenal.

    刀叉一直是俄罗斯军火库中的强大武器。

    Josef Stalin understood the power of feasts.

    约瑟夫·斯大林深知盛宴的力量。

    His chefs created sumptuous spreads which were designed to intimidate his guests.

    他让厨师们准备了丰盛的宴席，来震慑他的宾客。

    Witold Szablowski, a Polish author, suggests that when Stalin hosted Allied leaders for the Yalta conference in 1945, buckets of caviar and Crimean champagne helped him secure territorial concessions in eastern Europe.

    波兰作家维特多·沙博尔夫斯基认为，当斯大林在1945年设宴接待盟军领导人参加雅尔塔会议时，一桶桶的鱼子酱和克里米亚香槟帮助他获得了东欧的领土特许权。

    Mr Szablowski argues that Soviet and Russian rulers have long fought with knives and forks.

    沙博尔夫斯基认为，苏联和俄罗斯的统治者长期以来一直用刀叉作战。

    “What’s Cooking in the Kremlin”, his book, looks at their gastro-diplomacy.

    他的著作《克里姆林宫的餐桌》研究了俄罗斯统治者的美食外交。

    State dinners reached an apogee under Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s.

    20世纪70年代，在列昂尼德·勃列日涅夫的领导下，俄罗斯国宴达到了登峰造极的地步。

    One chef recalls a roasted pheasant, perched on a pedestal of bread and decked with its own feathers.

    一位厨师回忆曾烤过一整只野鸡，然后把它放置在面包做成的底座上，并插上鸡毛作为装饰。

    At a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, Richard Nixon was so impressed that he had photos taken of every dish.

    1986年，在与米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫的一次会面中，理查德·尼克松对宴席惊叹不已，并让人把每道菜都拍照留念。

    Margaret Thatcher was known for her picky eating, but even she called for seconds—then thirds, then fourths—of fresh blinis.

    玛格丽特·撒切尔以饮食挑剔而著称，但就连她也吃了一份又一份新鲜布利尼薄饼。

    Ironically, those who presided over these displays could be alienated by their lavishness.

    具有讽刺意味的是，用盛筵招待宾客的主人可能会因其过分奢华而远离这些食物。

    Viktor Belyaev, one of the Kremlin’s longtime chefs, says Brezhnev preferred familiar fare.

    克里姆林宫的资深厨师维克托·别利亚耶夫说，勃列日涅夫更喜欢家常饭菜。

    When he returned home from banquets, he would ask for fried potatoes with soured milk.

    当他从宴会回到家时，他会要一份炸土豆配酸奶。

    Mr Szablowski argues that cooks are adept observers of human nature; that may be why lichniks, the personal chefs to Soviet leaders, were part of the KGB.

    沙博尔夫斯基认为，厨师是深谙人性的观察者，这可能就是为什么利奇尼克（苏联领导人的私人厨师）也属于克格勃。

    (Spiridon Putin, Vladimir Putin’s grandfather, catered to Lenin and Stalin and was probably part of the secret police.)(斯皮里东·普京，弗拉基米尔·普京的祖父，曾是列宁和斯大林的厨师，也可能是秘密警察的一员。)The vignettes in this book reveal a different side to political figures and thereby dent the image they cultivate.

    这本书中的小故事揭示了政治人物不同的一面，从而削弱了他们塑造的形象。

    It is hard, for instance, to see Mr Putin in the same way after hearing of his childlike obsession with ice-cream.

    例如，听说普京像小孩子一样对冰淇淋无比痴迷后，就很难再用以前的眼光看待他。

    “What’s Cooking in the Kremlin” also chronicles how food has shaped ordinary people’s lives.

    《克里姆林宫的餐桌》还记录了食物如何塑造普通人的生活。

    Mr Szablowski speaks to women who worked in canteens in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone and gave chocolate to soldiers afflicted by radiation poisoning.

    沙博尔夫斯基采访了在切尔诺贝利隔离区食堂工作的妇女，她们给遭受辐射中毒的士兵送去巧克力。

    More recently, during the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in eastern Ukraine, a woman called Natalya spent weeks feeding the fighters in underground tunnels.

    更近一些时候，在乌克兰东部亚速钢铁厂被包围期间，一位名叫娜塔莉亚的女子连续几个星期在地下隧道为士兵送去食物。

    Each tale in the book is accompanied by a recipe.

    书中的每个故事都附有一份食谱。

    Here Natalya calls for one or two cans of Spam, cooked in 30 litres of water collected from the plant’s industrial tanks.

    在这个故事中，娜塔莉亚用一两罐午餐肉罐头，从工厂的工业水箱里收集30升水，然后把罐头煮熟。

    The darkest section of the book covers the famine of 1932-33, when Stalin destroyed Ukrainian agriculture, causing millions of deaths (and crushing a restive region).

    本书最黑暗的部分讲述了1932-33年的饥荒，当时斯大林摧毁了乌克兰的农业，导致数百万人死亡(并粉碎了一个试图反抗的地区)。

    Hanna Basaraba was six years old when the Holodomor happened.

    乌克兰大饥荒发生时，汉娜·巴萨拉巴只有六岁。

    “I remember being hungry non-stop,” she recalls.

    “我记得我无时无刻不感到饥饿。”她回忆道。

    She ate tree bark and rotten potatoes; others boiled linen clothing to make soup.

    她不得不吃树皮和腐烂的土豆，其他人用亚麻衣服煮汤。

    One of Ms Basaraba’s neighbours was driven to madness and was believed to have eaten her own children.

    巴萨拉巴的一位邻居被逼疯了，据说她吃掉了自己的孩子。

    Nine decades later, Ukrainians are again being brutalised by a tyrant in Moscow.

    九十年后，乌克兰人再次受到莫斯科暴君的残暴对待。

    As well as dropping bombs, Mr Putin has blocked grain exports via the Black Sea in order to wreck the country’s economy.

    除了投掷炸弹，普京还阻止了经由黑海的粮食出口，目的是破坏该国的经济。

    Like Stalin, he is ruthless enough to use food as a weapon.

    像斯大林一样，他冷酷无情到可以把食物用作武器。