發(fā)明“左宗棠雞”的國民黨廚師彭長貴逝世

Peng Chang-kuei, the Taiwanese chef who invented General Tso’s chicken, a dish nearly universal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, died on Wednesday in Taipei. He was 98.

名菜“左宗棠雞”(General Tso's Chicken)的發(fā)明者、臺灣廚師彭長貴本周三在臺北過世，享年98歲。左宗棠雞是美國的中餐館里常見的一道菜。

The death was reported by The Associated Press.

美聯(lián)社報道了他的死訊。

The British food scholar Fuchsia Dunlop has called General Tso’s chicken — lightly battered pieces of dark chicken fried in a chili-accented sweet-and-sour sauce — “the most famous Hunanese dish in the world.”

英國美食學者扶霞(Fuchsia Dunlop)說左宗棠雞是“世界上最著名的湘菜”。這道菜是把深色的雞塊裹上薄薄一層面粉，用帶辣味的酸甜醬烹炒而成。

But like many Chinese dishes that have found favor with Americans, General Tso’s chicken was unknown in China until recently. Nor was it, in the version known to most Americans, Hunanese, a cuisine defined by salty, hot and sour flavors.

但是就像很多美國人喜歡的中國菜一樣，左宗棠雞直到最近才在中國變得知名起來。而且它也不是大多數(shù)美國人以為的湘菜。湘菜的特色是咸、辣、酸。

Mr. Peng, an official chef for the Nationalist government, which fled to Taiwan after the 1949 revolution in China, said he created the dish during a four-day visit by Adm. Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1955. On the spur of the moment, he assigned it the name of a Hunanese general, Zuo Zongtang, who had helped put down a series of rebellions in the 19th century.

彭長貴是國民黨政府的全職廚師，1949年中國革命后，國民黨政府逃到臺灣。在1955年臺灣海峽危機期間，彭長貴在參謀長聯(lián)席會議主席、海軍上將亞瑟·W·雷德福(Arthur W. Radford)為期四天的訪問中發(fā)明了這道菜。受時局啟發(fā)，他給這道菜用湖南將領左宗棠的名字起名，左宗堂曾參與過19世紀的一系列平亂活動。

“Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop, the author of “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” (2007), which is devoted to the cuisine of Hunan. “The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar.”

“最初這道菜的味道是典型的湘菜——重油、酸、辣、咸，”彭長貴告訴扶霞;后者曾寫過介紹湘菜為主的《改良中國食譜》(Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook)(2007年)一書。“最初的左宗棠雞是正宗湘菜味道，是不放糖的。”

The dish made its way to New York in the early 1970s after Chinese chefs in New York, preparing to open the city’s first Hunanese restaurants — Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan and Hunam — visited a restaurant that Mr. Peng had opened in Taipei. They adapted the recipe to suit American tastes.

20世紀70年代初，這道菜傳到了紐約，當時紐約一些中國廚師參觀了彭長貴在臺北開的一家餐館之后，準備在紐約開第一批湘菜館——Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan(湘園)和Hunam(湖南)。

“We didn’t want to copy chef Peng exactly,” Ed Schoenfeld, an assistant to the restaurant’s owner, David Keh, told the website Salon in 2010. “We added our own spin to dishes. And so our General Tso’s chicken was cut differently, into small dice, and we served it with water chestnuts, black mushrooms, hoisin sauce and vinegar.” The chef was Wen Dah Tai.

“我們不想完全復制彭師傅的食譜，”Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan的老板戴維·凱(David Keh)的助手艾德·舍恩菲爾德(Ed Schoenfeld)2010年曾這樣對Salon網(wǎng)站表示。“我在這道菜中加入了自己的創(chuàng)新。所以我們的左宗棠雞不一樣，是切成雞丁，然后跟荸薺、香菇、海鮮醬和醋一起炒。”這里的主廚是戴文達(Wen Dah Tai，音)。

At Hunam, the chef Tsung Ting Wang — who was also a partner with Michael Tong in another prominent Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, Shun Lee Palace — put a Sichuan spin on the dish. He crisped up the batter and sweetened the sauce, producing a taste combination that millions of Americans came to love. He called it General Ching’s chicken. But as the dish traveled, the General Tso name adhered.

在Hunam餐廳，主廚王春庭(Tsung Ting Wang，音)則為這道菜注入了一種四川風味。他還和邁爾克·董(Michael Tong)一起在曼哈頓經(jīng)營著一家知名中餐館順利宮(Shun Lee Palace)。王春庭把面糊炸得酥脆，醬料調得更甜一些，打造出一種逐漸得到數(shù)百萬美國人青睞的風味。它稱之為General Ching’s chicken。但隨著這道菜流傳開來，人們還是使用General Tso這個說法。

Both restaurants were awarded four stars, the highest rating, by Raymond Sokolov, the restaurant critic of The New York Times.

兩家餐廳都獲得了《紐約時報》餐廳評論家雷蒙德·A·索科洛夫(Raymond Sokolov)的四星評價，也就是最高的評級。

In 1973, with Hunan fever raging, Mr. Peng came to New York and, with Mr. Keh, opened Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan on East 44th Street, near the United Nations. Mr. Peng discovered, to his consternation, that his creation had preceded him, and that the child was almost unrecognizable.

1973年，隨著湖南菜的風靡，彭長貴隨凱來到紐約，在東44街靠近聯(lián)合國總部的地方開設了彭叔湘園餐廳(Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan)。他驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)，自己創(chuàng)造的菜品先于他抵達了這里，而且這些后來的演繹幾乎讓他無從辨認。

“New Yorkers didn’t realize he was the real thing, and some treated him like he was copying,” Mr. Schoenfeld said.

“紐約人不知道他做的才是正宗的，有些人對待他的方式就好像他在抄襲別人，”舍恩菲爾德說。

The tangled history of the dish was explored in 2014 in a documentary, “The Search for General Tso,” directed by Ian Cheney.

伊恩·切尼2014年制作的紀錄片《尋找左宗棠》(The Search for General Tso)對這道菜錯綜復雜的歷史進行了探索。

Peng Chang-kuei was born in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, in 1918. His family was poor.

彭長貴1918年出生于湖南省會長沙一個貧苦的家庭。

At 13, after running away from home, he began serving an apprenticeship under the celebrated Hunanese chef Cao Jing-shen. Formerly a family chef to Tan Yan-kai, prime minister of the Nationalist government in the late 1920s, Mr. Cao had opened the restaurant Jianleyuan in Changsha.

13歲的時候，他離家出走，開始在湖南名廚曹藎臣手下做學徒。曹藎臣原本是上世紀20年代國民政府行政院院長譚延闿的家廚，當時已經(jīng)在長沙開了自己的餐廳健樂園。

In the 1930s, after the Japanese invasion, Mr. Peng moved to Chungking, the temporary Nationalist capital, where he began to gain renown. After World War II, he was installed as the government’s head banquet chef. He emigrated to Taiwan in 1949, leaving his wife and two sons behind, and continued to cater official functions.

在30年代，日本入侵之后，彭長貴搬到了國民政府的臨時首都重慶，在那里開始出名。二戰(zhàn)結束后，他被任命為政府的國宴廚師長。1949年，他移居臺灣，繼續(xù)為官方提供服務，將妻子和兩個兒子留在了大陸。

He is survived by a son, Peng Tie-Cheng. Complete information on other survivors was not available.

他的兒子彭鐵誠仍然健在。目前沒有有關其他身后人的完整信息。

New York proved to be a fraught experiment, as Mr. Peng’s restaurant soon closed. “Doom trailed Uncle Peng,” the food critic Gael Greene wrote in New York magazine in 1973. “The pressures of Manhattan restaurant reality were too much for the brilliant teacher.”

事實證明，紐約是一個艱難的嘗試，彭長貴的餐廳很快就關張了。“厄運追隨著彭叔，”美食評論家蓋爾·格林(Gael Greene)1973年在《紐約雜志》(New York magazine)上寫道。“曼哈頓餐館的現(xiàn)實壓力，對這位杰出的老師來說有些過大。”

Undaunted, Mr. Peng borrowed money from friends and opened Yunnan Yuan on East 52nd Street, near Lexington Avenue, where Henry A. Kissinger, then the secretary of state, became a faithful customer.

不愿服輸?shù)呐黹L貴向朋友們借錢，在東52街靠近列克星敦大道(Lexington Avenue)的地方開了一家新的餐廳滇園(Yunnan Yuan)。時任美國國務卿的亨利·A·基辛格(Henry A. Kissinger)成了那里的忠實主顧。

“Kissinger visited us every time he was in New York, and we became great friends,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop. “It was he who brought Hunanese food to public notice.”

“基辛格每次來紐約都會到店里來，我們成了好朋友，”彭長貴告訴扶霞。“是他讓湘菜獲得了大眾的注意。”

General Tso’s chicken began to assume celebrity status when Bob Lape, a restaurant critic, showed Mr. Peng making the dish in a segment for ABC News. The station received some 1,500 requests for the recipe.

餐廳評論家鮑勃·萊普(Bob Lape)在ABC新聞頻道的節(jié)目中播放了彭長貴烹飪左宗棠雞的畫面后，令這道菜聲名大噪。這家電視臺收到了大約1500個詢問菜譜的請求。

Encouraged, Mr. Peng reopened his old restaurant as Peng’s, bringing his signature dish with him. Reviewing the restaurant in the The Times in 1977, Mimi Sheraton wrote, “General Tso’s chicken was a stir-fried masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature.”

受到鼓舞的彭長貴重開了那家舊餐館，改名彭家餐廳(Peng’s)，并把這道招牌菜帶了過去。米米·謝拉頓(Mimi Sheraton)1977年在《時報》評價這家餐廳，“左宗棠雞是一道經(jīng)典的炒菜，在風味和溫度上都堪稱火辣。”

He left the restaurant in 1981 and opened Peng’s Garden in Yonkers, then returned to Taiwan in the late ’80s and opened the first in a chain of Peng Yuan restaurants there. The menu featured General Tso’s chicken. It was listed on the menu in Mandarin as Zuo Zongtang’s farmyard chicken, and in English as chicken à la viceroy.

1981他離開這家餐廳，在揚克斯開設了彭園(Peng’s Garden)，然后在80年代末返回了臺灣，在那里開設了彭園湘菜館(Peng Yuan，英文名與揚克斯的店不同——譯注)連鎖店的第一家店。菜單上的主打菜品就是左宗棠雞。這道菜在菜單上的中文名字是左宗棠雞，英文則寫為chicken à la viceroy(直譯為總督雞——譯注)。

In 1990 he opened a branch of his restaurant in the Great Wall Hotel in Changsha, but it was not a success.

1990年，他在長沙的長城賓館開設了一家分店，但不太成功。

As Hunanese chefs adopted General Tso’s chicken, the dish entered a strange second career. In a sweeping act of historical revisionism, it came to be seen as a traditional Hunan dish. Several Hunanese chefs have described it in their cookbooks as a favorite of the 19th-century general’s.

隨著湖南廚師都開始做左宗棠雞，這道菜迎來奇怪的第二春。在一大片修正歷史的行動中，它開始被視作一道傳統(tǒng)湖南菜。有幾位湘籍廚師在自己的烹飪書里說這道菜是那位19世紀的將領最喜歡的菜。