[双语] 小笼包出英文自传了，作者居然不是小笼女？！

看着小笼包，

爱它，

就把它吃掉！

如果你还有以上幼稚的想法，说明你的吃货水准着实不高...比你强的，有的活成了小笼包，甚至为其袋盐~

有的不顾语言的障碍，活活把小笼包写成了经典——《上海小笼包索引（Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index）》：

本索引的作者是个叫Christopher的美国老歪，为了小笼包，他整整吃了16个月，好辛（xing）苦（fu）...

Christopher St. Cavish, an American food critic, has been quite the buzz lately because he spent 16 months on aninvestigation of Xiao Long Bao, or the Chinese soup dumplings, and put all theresults in his just-published Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index.

本着学术的精神，他走访了50多家小笼包子店，吃了近15斤的包子（很多嘛？！），还写了个公式给各家的包子打分：

Altogether, Cavish ate 7.2 kilograms of soup dumplings in 50 plus different restaurants across Shanghai. Eachrestaurant was given a score based on the formula (weight of soup + weight offilling) ÷ thickness of the skin, and then grouped into one of three classes.Class A was the best.

日前这位小哥接受了采访，袒露了他对小笼包赤果果的热爱之情，还给出了三个层次的理由...

1.谁让我爱鼎泰丰...

I wanted a data-based defense of Din Tai Fung, which I like tremendously. I hate the debate around them—it’s almost never about the actual dumplings. I just wanted a snappy comeback for when people started slagging it off, telling me how Jia Jia or Fu De or whatever is soooo much better. So that was my ulterior motive.

2.我对小笼包的爱，不是敷衍！

I wanted to write about food in a new way. I was growing tired of reading the same old subjective clichés with no meat to them: “delicious,” “nom nom,” “melts in your mouth,” or whatnot. So I thought, What would happen if I measure something objectively? Xiao long bao happen to be the perfect thing for that. Three of the four standards for what makes a good one (thin skin, a lot of soup, a lot of meat) can be measured easily and with cheap tools. You can’t do that with sheng jian bao, with hongshao rou, with a hairy crab.

3.学术盲点我不做谁做？！

I find these types of quests fun; I’d never seen a comprehensive survey of so many xiao long bao places, much less one in English; xiao long bao are basically one of our mascots.

另外他还表示，这么奇怪的课题做出来了，可能大家都会很好奇，小笼包又便宜，没准儿还能火一把。

的确是呢，吃了这么多小笼包，根据小哥的描述，也没花太多钱...

According to my data, I spent exactly 712.5 RMB, or $114.92 USD, on the dumplings. But all told, I’m easily above 10,000 RMB if you count the printing, the website, etc.

注意... 小编说的是没花太多...

说了这么多，小哥终于揭露了索引中Class A的小笼包，人家是有科学依据的：

Zun Ke Lai is at the top of The Index (score: 24.32), followed by Taibei Mingchu (18.52), Jade Garden (17.96), and Ding Xin Di (for now, a single restaurant in its market testing phase, jointly founded by an old dim sum chef from the State Guest House; 16.42). There are nine others in Class A, and that’s the way to read The Index.

小哥有一个伟大的学（chi）术（huo）理想，将小笼包和其他中国经典美食，推向世界，此处应该有掌声!!!

Chinese food is my main interest. The majority of my writing is about Chinese food and the culture that surrounds it. The country has such an incredible, rich cuisine. At the same time, it’s very poorly represented in the West and in English media, for a variety of complex reasons. My whole goal is to translate a tiny slice of Chinese culture into something that can be shared with Western chefs and eaters. There is just so much to be learned from China’s food culture.

太励志了，他甚至已经决定了下一个挑战的目标：

好吧，我们拭目以待吧~

另外，其实这份索引看不大明白... 因为... 看起来都很好吃的样子...

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