趣谈“茄子”和“纽纹面包”

　　What strange connotations the eggplant has inspired! A Lebanese eggplant recipe is called baba ganousb, which means "spoiled old daddy." Eggplant is also one of the ingredients in a Turkish recipe called imam bayaldi. Translated, this means "the priest has fainted."

　　茄子这个词会令我们产生多么奇怪的联想!黎巴嫩有一道用茄子做的菜名叫baba ganousb，意思是“变质的老爸”。土耳其也有一道用茄子做的菜名叫 imam bayaldi，意思是“晕倒的牧师”。

　　Eggplants originated in India and were introduced to Spain in the twelfth century by the Arabs. Before the fifteenth century, the vegetable was used only for decoration, as people believed it was poisonous. In Italy, where eggplant was suspected of causing insanity¹, it was called mala insana, "mad apple". Later, when people had begun eating the vegetable, Europeans called it the "apple of love", for it was believed to arouse passion.

　　茄子原产于印度，十二世纪由阿拉伯人引入西班牙。15世纪之前，由于人们认为茄子有毒，所以它们仅仅被用来作装饰品。在意大利，人们曾怀疑茄子会让人精神错乱，于是把它叫做mala insana，也就是“疯狂的苹果”。之后，人们开始食用茄子的时候，欧洲人就把它们称作“苹果之爱”，因为人们觉得茄子可以引发激情。

　　From apples we move to eggs. Why do we now call this large purple vegetable an eggplant?

　　茄子的称呼由苹果到鸡蛋，为何我们现在称这种大个的紫色蔬菜为eggplant呢?

　　As with most vegetables, there are different types of eggplant. The edible² part of one variety is small and white. It was named eggplant since it looked as if it were growing eggs. Once the name was established in the middle 1700s, it was also applied³ to the purple vatiety.

　　和大多数蔬菜一样，茄子也分不同的种类。其中有种可食用的品种就长得小小白白的。因为看起来好像成长的鸡蛋，所以就被称为eggplant了。茄子的名字一旦在18世纪中叶确定，那么紫色的品种也就同样叫做eggplant了。

　　“扭纹面包”名字起源

　　Wouldn't you think that history would have recorded the name of the person who came up with something as terrific as the pretzel? But that's not what happened. All we know is that in 610 A.D. a monk⁴ in northern Italy first twisted the pretzel into its unusual shape. When children learned their prayers, he rewarded them with the bread shaped to represent the folded arms of children in prayer.

　　难道你不认为历史应该记录下发明这么棒的扭纹面包的人的名字吗?然而历史没有这样的记载。我们所知的只是在公元610年，意大利北部有个修道士第一次把一种面包扭曲成这种与众不同的形状。当孩子们学完祈祷文，修道士就奖励给他们这种好像祷告中交叠的双臂形状的面包。

　　The word pretzel comes either from the Latin pretiole, which means "little gift", or from the Italian bracciatelli, which means "small arms".

　　Pretzel这个词源自于拉丁语pretiloe，意思是“小礼物”，或者源自于意大利语bracciatelli，意思是“小胳膊”。

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