Pork, Love, and Money: Life According to La Piraña Lechonera
It’s an overcast, temperate Saturday morning in the middle of May in the South Bronx.
这是五月中旬南布朗克斯一个阴天、气候温和的周六早晨。
The Yankees, who play in a glittering $2 billion magnet that serves as the borough’s main attraction, are on a five-game winning streak, attempting to pull away with early control of the American League East, and they will be facing the White Sox in their stadium several hours from now.
洋基队在价值 20 亿美元的磁石上打球，成为该行政区的主要吸引力，目前已取得五连胜，试图早日夺取美国联盟东区的控制权，几个小时后他们将在体育场迎战白袜队。
I’m ten minutes away from home plate, in a trailer at the intersection of Wales Avenue and East 152nd Street, boxed in by brutalist housing built by the city in the early ’60s.
我在威尔士大道和东 152 街交叉口的一辆拖车里，距离本垒只有 10 分钟路程，周围是这座城市 60 年代初期建造的野兽派住宅。
A car with an augmented sound system is parked on the corner with its doors open, blasting Latin trap and Polo G as a crew of early twentysomethings with neck and brow tattoos—some with thin facial hair seemingly drawn in fine tip marker, others in warm-weather sheisties—dance, slapbox, smoke weed, and drink on the curb in front of a bodega at 9 a.m.
一辆配有增强音响系统的汽车开着车门停在街角，播放着拉丁陷阱和 Polo G 音乐，一群二十出头的年轻人脖子和眉毛上都有纹身——有些人脸上稀疏的毛发似乎是用细尖记号笔画的，另一些人则在温暖的天气里穿着神秘的衣服——上午 9 点在一家杂货店前的路边跳舞、打闹、吸大麻和喝酒。
Driving into the South Bronx—the portal connecting New York City to Westchester, Connecticut, and New Jersey—feels like traveling through the dense guts of a great beast.
开车进入南布朗克斯——连接纽约市和威彻斯特、康涅狄格州和新泽西州的门户——感觉就像穿越一头巨兽浓密的内脏。
It’s a digestive tract composed of on-ramps and approaches to elevated superhighways, of bridges and tunnels, of roads to elsewhere at the expense of what has been cast as a way-station neighborhood, sending an unsubtle message from Robert Moses that there are more important places to be.
它是一条消化道，由入口匝道和通往高架高速公路的通道、桥梁和隧道、通往其他地方的道路组成，而牺牲了被视为中转站的社区，罗伯特·摩西明确地传达了一个信息：还有更重要的地方。
But we are here, below the swarming network of weekend commuters, and Chef Angel Jimenez is prepping for a day of service at his one-of-a-kind restaurant slash weekly block party, La Piraña Lechonera .
但我们在这里，在周末通勤者蜂拥而至的网络之下，主厨 Angel Jimenez 正在为他独一无二的餐厅 La Piraña Lechonera 每周举办的街区派对做准备。
Jimenez is in his late fifties and has a bullet-shaped head jutting between broad shoulders like a dorsal fin.
希门尼斯五十多岁了，子弹形状的头部像背鳍一样突出在宽阔的肩膀之间。
He has the ringed eyes, complexion, midsection, thick arms, and coarse hands of a man who has enjoyed life’s carnal pleasures—and worked very hard to enjoy them.
他有圆环的眼睛、肤色、上半身、粗壮的手臂和粗糙的双手，就像一个享受过生活中肉体快乐的人——并且为了享受这些快乐而付出了很大的努力。
He’s wearing Carhartt work pants and a pava, a brimmed woven hat made with strips of palm that appear to form a halo of straw flames (or thorns) on its wearer’s head.
他穿着 Carhartt 工作裤，戴着帕瓦（pava），这是一顶用棕榈条制成的有边编织帽，看起来在佩戴者的头上形成了稻草火焰（或荆棘）的光环。
The hats are historically connected to the uniform of the jíbaro, hard-laboring farmers who live off the land in Puerto Rico.
这些帽子在历史上与 jíbaro（波多黎各靠土地为生的辛勤劳动农民）的制服有关。
This is not so different from the chef’s childhood.
这与厨师的童年并没有什么不同。
At 14, he got his first job cutting sugarcane alongside his father for $3 an hour in his native Aguadilla, a coastal city on the island’s northwest corner.
14 岁时，他找到了第一份工作，与父亲一起在家乡阿瓜迪亚（该岛西北角的沿海城市）砍甘蔗，每小时 3 美元。
Jimenez relates this history to me with a grin, a Heineken deuce bottle in his hand and a half-smoked, clipped joint sticking out of his mouth.
希门尼斯微笑着向我讲述这段历史，他手里拿着一瓶喜力啤酒，嘴里还伸出一根抽了一半的、剪短的大麻烟。
He’s walking me and his precocious five-year-old son, Samuel, through the preparation of rice, guineos (green bananas), and the multiple elements that compose his seafood salad (peeled shrimp, frozen containers of picked crab, and precooked octopus, all prepped and held separately) for service.
他带着我和他早熟的五岁儿子塞缪尔一起准备米饭、几尼诺斯（绿色香蕉），以及海鲜沙拉的多种成分（去皮虾、冷冻的蟹肉容器和预煮章鱼，所有这些都单独准备和保存）。
“I’m doing with him what my father did with me,” he says.
“我对他所做的就像我父亲对我所做的那样，”他说。
Angel both is and isn’t performative.
天使既是表演者，又不是表演者。
He’s an organic, extroverted showman; his resting speed is most people’s 150 miles per hour.
他是一个自然、外向的表演家；他的静息速度是大多数人的每小时 150 英里。
He’s instantly warm and familiar with strangers, loud and gregarious.
他对陌生人立刻变得热情、熟悉、大声、合群。
Angel is what social media content farmers would refer to—and exploit—as an “authentic New York character.” I first met him last August.
天使是社交媒体内容农民所指称和利用的“真正的纽约人物”。我第一次见到他是去年八月。
I was in the borough to cover the Hip Hop 50 celebration , and I stopped by La Piraña for lunch.
我在该行政区报道嘻哈 50 周年庆祝活动，并顺便去拉皮拉纳吃午餐。
The line was modest, but getting a plate of Piraña’s signature dish—lechon, or roast pork doused with garlic sauce—took two hours for reasons I couldn’t understand at the time.
排队的人不多，但吃到一盘皮拉纳的招牌菜——烤乳猪（lechon），或者浇上蒜酱的烤猪肉——花了两个小时，原因我当时无法理解。
While I was waiting, Angel pulled from a Heineken and chatted up the crowd, occasionally fighting with an inebriated local woman he clearly had some history with, and offhandedly mentioned to me that earlier that day he had served a plate of lechon to Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor.
在我等待的时候，安吉尔把车从喜力啤酒里拿出来，和人群聊天，偶尔会和一位醉酒的当地妇女打架，他显然和他有过一段历史，并随口向我提到，那天早些时候，他给最高法院法官索尼娅·索托马约尔端了一盘烤乳猪。
The story had the flavor of a guy talking elaborate shit from his station at a dominoes table on a street corner, but when I checked him on it, Angel pulled out his phone.
这个故事的味道就像是一个人在街角的多米诺骨牌桌上大谈特谈，但当我检查他的情况时，安吉尔拿出了他的手机。
Sure enough, there was a selfie taken that day, posed with the justice from Soundview.
果然，那天有一张和声景法官合影的自拍照。
When it was finally my turn to order, Angel had run out of rice, guineos, and seafood salad, leaving only the lechon.
终于轮到我点菜的时候，安吉尔的米饭、金币和海鲜沙拉都用完了，只剩下烤乳猪了。
I shared it with my wife, passing the hefty clamshell back and forth in the car, eating roast pork off our laps with a plastic fork.
我和我的妻子分享了它，在车里来回传递着沉重的翻盖，用塑料叉子吃着我们腿上的烤猪肉。
It was somehow one of the best meals I had last year, and I haven’t been able to shake the experience since.
不知何故，这是我去年吃过的最好的一餐，从那以后我就无法摆脱这种经历。
Jimenez has the ringed eyes, complexion, midsection, thick arms, and coarse hands of a man who has enjoyed life’s carnal pleasures.
希门尼斯有着圆环的眼睛、肤色、上腹部、粗壮的手臂和粗糙的双手，就像一个享受过生活中肉体快乐的人一样。
The late historian Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra writes that whole roasted pork has been a staple of Puerto Rican cuisine since the early days of Spanish colonization five centuries ago.
已故历史学家克鲁兹·米格尔·奥尔蒂斯·夸德拉 (Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra) 写道，自五个世纪前西班牙殖民初期以来，全烤猪肉一直是波多黎各美食的主食。
The first pigs in the Antilles were brought to the island by Christopher Columbus in 1493 as part of his second voyage.
1493 年，克里斯托弗·哥伦布在第二次航行中将安的列斯群岛的第一批猪带到了岛上。
The pig, resilient, cheap, and plentiful, with a feral breed running wild in the island’s mountains and reproducing organically, became the protein of the masses, raised and hunted by laborers and bosses alike.
猪的生命力强、价格便宜、数量多，是一种在岛上山区野生的野生品种，可以有机繁殖，成为大众的蛋白质，被工人和老板饲养和猎杀。
Slaughtering and preparing pigs, butchering their meat, and making blood sausage and cracklins all took on a communal aspect.
屠宰和准备猪、宰杀它们的肉、制作血肠和脆皮脆饼都具有公共性。
A pig roast was standard fare at celebrations and weddings, a foodstuff that denoted good fortune and good times—a tradition carried on by Piraña.
烤猪是庆祝活动和婚礼上的标准菜肴，这种食物象征着好运和美好时光，这是皮拉尼亚继承的传统。
Angel’s first love was the ocean.
天使的初恋是海洋。
He was a born swimmer and a determined fisherman in his beach town, Aguadilla, which is where he got the nickname “Piraña,” for the infamous freshwater omnivore.
他是一位天生的游泳运动员，也是一位坚定的渔民，生活在他的海滩小镇阿瓜迪亚，他在那里得到了“皮拉尼亚”的绰号，即臭名昭著的淡水杂食动物。
He learned how to roast pork from his parents, but, just as important, they taught him that selling food could be a lucrative side hustle.
他从父母那里学会了如何烤猪肉，但同样重要的是，他们教会他卖食物可能是一项有利可图的副业。
When his father wasn’t cutting sugarcane, he’d set up a grill on the beach and barbecue chuletas and freshly caught tuna for locals and tourists.
当他父亲不砍甘蔗时，他会在海滩上架起烧烤架，为当地人和游客烧烤 Chuletas 和新鲜捕获的金枪鱼。
Angel has never worked in a restaurant in any professional capacity, but he is a consummate New York City street entrepreneur, a live-in super in his building up the street from La Piraña who also works as a union HVAC technician five days a week, primarily servicing the condensers in Hunts Point that power the teeming Bronx market’s cold spaces.
安吉尔从未以任何专业身份在餐厅工作过，但他是纽约市一位完美的街头企业家，是他在拉皮拉纳 (La Piraña) 街道上的住所超级老板，他还担任工会暖通空调技术员，每周工作五天，主要为亨茨角 (Hunts Point) 的冷凝器提供服务，为拥挤的布朗克斯市场的冷空间提供动力。
And, during the warm weather months for the last 23 years, on Saturdays and Sundays, he sells roast pork out of a trailer he bought off a friend and modified himself to serve as a makeshift kitchen.
而且，在过去 23 年天气温暖的月份里，每逢周六和周日，他都会在一辆拖车里出售烤猪肉，这辆拖车是他从朋友那里买来的，并将自己改装成临时厨房。
He claims it’s a financial necessity.
他声称这是经济上的需要。
“I got nine kids, chulo,” he tells me (the chef calls everyone “chulo,” and everyone who I met that he knew before that Saturday calls him “chulo” as well), in addition to five grandkids, or, as he refers to them, “nine kids plus tax.” And while I’m sure he needs the money and the restaurant is a welcome, regular shot in the arm for his checking account, I suspect that added income isn’t the sole, or even the greatest, motivating factor behind his dabbling in the food service industry.
“我有九个孩子，chulo，”他告诉我（厨师称每个人为“chulo”，而我在周六之前认识的每个人也都称他为“chulo”），此外还有五个孙子，或者用他的话说，“九个孩子加税”。虽然我确信他需要钱，而且这家餐厅是他支票账户中受欢迎的定期一剂强心剂，但我怀疑增加收入并不是他涉足食品服务行业的唯一甚至最大的激励因素。
Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor has made Piraña visits.
最高法院法官索尼娅·索托马约尔访问了皮拉尼亚。
Every Friday during baseball season, Angel picks up four or five 120- to 150-pound whole pigs from Hunts Point, depending on how busy he expects the weekend to be.
棒球赛季期间的每个星期五，安吉尔都会从 Hunts Point 挑选四到五头 120 到 150 磅重的整猪，具体取决于他预计周末的繁忙程度。
He rubs them down with a seasoning blend that was the only part of the process he insisted on keeping to himself ( but you can find videos of it online ) and butchers each pig into three or six pieces (the front quarters, ribs, and hind quarters, either splayed or halved).
他用调味料混合物将它们擦掉，这是他坚持自己保留的过程的唯一部分（但你可以在网上找到它的视频），并将每头猪屠宰成三到六块（前躯、肋骨和后躯，要么八字要么一半）。
Around 4 a.m.
凌晨 4 点左右
on Saturday and Sunday mornings, six to twelve chunks of pig on four sheet pans go into an old double-decker Blodgett bread oven on the sidewalk a half block down the street from the trailer that looks like it survived an atomic blast and could survive another one.
周六和周日早上，四个平底锅上的六到十二块猪块被放入距离拖车半个街区的人行道上的一个旧双层布洛杰特面包烤箱中，看起来它在原子弹爆炸中幸存下来，并且可能在另一次原子弹爆炸中幸存下来。
Angel bought the oven used from a shop on the Bowery twenty years ago for a thousand dollars.
安吉尔二十年前花了一千美元从包厘街的一家商店买了用过的烤箱。
The pig roasts in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for eight and a half to fourteen hours, undisturbed aside from occasional visits from Angel to drain the pooling rendered fat off the pans into a five-gallon plastic utility bucket.
猪在华氏 300 度的烤箱中烤了八个半到十四个小时，除了安吉尔偶尔会来将锅里的油脂排到一个五加仑的塑料桶中之外，没有受到任何干扰。
He begins selling plates at 12:30 p.m., and by 5 or 6 in the afternoon each day, both pigs will be gone.
他从中午12点30分开始卖盘子，每天下午5、6点，两只猪就卖光了。
Barbecue is a depreciating asset, one of those “lose a third of its value when you drive it off the lot” situations.
烧烤是一种不断贬值的资产，属于“当你把它赶走时，它的价值就会损失三分之一”的情况之一。
It’s one of several foodstuffs that demand urgency.
它是需要紧急处理的几种食品之一。
There are some popular barbecue palaces in New York that our natives have dismissed as “mid,” that they forfeited to hordes of TikTok food tourists years ago.
纽约有一些受欢迎的烧烤宫殿，我们的当地人认为它们是“中等”，几年前他们就将它们拱手让给了成群的 TikTok 美食游客。
They’d be shocked if they could be at some of these establishments when the brisket first emerges from the smoker, covered in glistening bark, the hunk of cow belly quivering, juices flowing in rivulets erotically down the muscle face when first sliced in half.
如果他们能在其中一些场所看到牛胸肉第一次从烟熏炉中出来时，他们会感到震惊，牛胸肉覆盖着闪闪发光的树皮，牛肚大块在颤抖，第一次切成两半时，汁液沿着肌肉面顺流而下。
A pig roast was standard fare at celebrations and weddings, a foodstuff that denoted good fortune and good times—a tradition carried on by Piraña.
烤猪是庆祝活动和婚礼上的标准菜肴，这种食物象征着好运和美好时光，这是皮拉尼亚继承的传统。
What these people don’t understand is that the crush of New York City real estate, the pressure of low-yield barbecue’s ever-slimming margins as meat prices continue to rise exponentially, and the ambition of these restaurants’ owners—who long ago decided a compromise was necessary—force the meeting of demand, which doesn’t allow for you to experience this product in its platonic form.
这些人不明白的是，纽约市房地产的挤压、低产量烧烤的利润随着肉类价格持续呈指数级上涨而不断缩小的压力，以及这些餐馆老板的野心（他们很久以前就决定妥协是必要的）迫使满足需求，这不允许你以柏拉图式的形式体验这种产品。
Many of the city’s barbecue joints overproduce for every contingency to ensure they never sell out (no pun intended).
这座城市的许多烧烤店都会为每一次突发事件进行过量生产，以确保它们永远不会卖完（没有双关语的意思）。
The brisket I described is just one hunk in a fleet coming out of an industrial smoker, which cools on sheet trays, is wrapped in plastic, and is left to sit, often for days in a large walk-in fridge, until the laws of FIFO (First In, First Out, a necessity of restaurant asset management) allow for its number to be called, at which point it is reheated in a combi oven, then left to sit in a steam table, the flesh exposed, for hours, drying out.
我所描述的牛胸肉只是从工业烟熏机中出来的一批肉中的一块，它在托盘上冷却，用塑料包裹，通常在大型步入式冰箱中放置数天，直到 FIFO（先进先出，餐厅资产管理的必要条件）法则允许调用它的编号，此时它在万能烤箱中重新加热，然后放在蒸汽台上，肉暴露在外，几个小时，直到变干。
When the meat finally gets to the guest, they are right to sniff it, douse it in a sauce to reanimate it with moisture and flavor, and deem it “just fine.”
当肉最终到达客人手中时，他们会正确地闻一闻，将其浸入酱汁中，使其充满水分和风味，并认为它“很好”。
This is what makes La Piraña special.
这就是拉皮拉尼亚的特别之处。
It’s New York City’s greatest smokeless barbecue restaurant, and it’s in the same league as the mythical Texas temples that open at an appointed time and sell slowly to a line throughout the day, delivering the freshest possible product at its moment of inception, then closing for the day whenever they run out.
它是纽约市最大的无烟烧烤餐厅，与神秘的德克萨斯寺庙处于同一水平，在指定的时间开放，全天慢慢地排队销售，在开业时提供最新鲜的产品，然后在售完时就关门。
The essay you are reading is only adding to a rich history of fine journalism dedicated to La Piraña over the years, and as a result, Angel will never suffer from a shortage of demand.
您正在阅读的这篇文章只是为多年来致力于拉皮拉尼亚的优秀新闻历史增添了一笔，因此，《天使》永远不会遭受需求短缺的困扰。
He could invest in equipment that would allow him to produce more food every weekend.
他可以投资购买设备，让他每个周末都能生产更多食物。
He could hire a staff and expand his hours.
他可以雇佣一名员工并延长工作时间。
I asked him if he’d ever been approached by the usual coterie of investor types looking to capitalize on his success, as nearly every piece ever written about Angel suggests his ambition is to one day open a restaurant.
我问他是否曾被那些希望利用他的成功的普通投资者接触过，因为几乎所有关于安吉尔的文章都表明他的野心是有一天开一家餐馆。
“Sure.
“当然。”
But I don’t want partners.
但我不想要合作伙伴。
Partners mean problems,” he admits, as he dumps steaming rice into a deep hotel pan before “service.” He seems uninterested in the expectations and oversight that come with a structured business and entirely comfortable running his restaurant on his schedule, his way.
合作伙伴意味着问题，”他承认，在“服务”之前，他将热气腾腾的米饭倒入酒店的深锅中。他似乎对结构化业务带来的期望和监督不感兴趣，并且完全按照自己的时间表、自己的方式经营餐厅。
It is antithetical to any modern coherent reading of capitalism in New York City’s restaurant industry.
它与任何对纽约市餐饮业资本主义的现代连贯解读是对立的。
The door stays open on La Piraña’s trailer, and every 10 to 15 minutes, a steady chorus of neighbors pop their heads in to say hello, play with Samuel, and sneak a taste of the seafood salad.
La Piraña 的拖车门一直开着，每隔 10 到 15 分钟，就有一群邻居齐声探头打招呼，和 Samuel 一起玩，并偷偷尝尝海鲜沙拉。
Angel composes a sample for me in a translucent seven-ounce cup.
安吉尔在一个半透明的七盎司杯中为我配制了样品。
It’s not a symphony but a cacophony, an orchestral stab of flavors and textures.
这不是一首交响乐，而是一种刺耳的声音，一种味道和质感的管弦乐。
The braised shredded crab coats everything.
红烧蟹丝包裹着一切。
The firm chew of shrimp competes with the softer chew of the octopus, which competes with the even softer chew of the whole olives from a jarred salad.
虾的坚硬咀嚼与章鱼的较软咀嚼相竞争，章鱼与罐装沙拉中的整个橄榄的更软咀嚼相竞争。
There’s the crunch of the raw onion and peppers.
有生洋葱和辣椒的嘎吱声。
And there’s the current of tri-heat provided by a dousing of Red Devil pepper sauce, chopped chipotle peppers, and the garlic sauce (whole raw garlic cloves blended with vegetable oil), all backed by the sturdy baseline of a synthetic umami-rich broth, studded with chicken bouillon and sazón that reminds you of something you’d sip to ease a swollen throat on a sick day when you were a kid.
淋上红魔鬼辣椒酱、切碎的墨西哥辣椒和蒜酱（整颗生蒜瓣与植物油混合），提供三重热感，所有这些都以合成鲜味丰富的肉汤为底线，里面点缀着鸡汤和萨松，让你想起小时候生病时喝的东西来缓解喉咙肿胀。
Forgive the cliché, but it’s a dish, in its balance of chaos and comfort, that explains a chef.
请原谅这种陈词滥调，但这是一道在混乱与舒适之间取得平衡的菜肴，这是一位厨师的解释。
As Angel prepares these elements and the rice, we make small talk, and his stance at his station is loose, shifting his weight back and forth, pacing in place to the music in his head.
当安吉尔准备这些原料和米饭时，我们闲聊，他在站上的姿势很宽松，来回移动他的体重，随着他脑海中的音乐在适当的位置踱步。
He works on autopilot, entirely by feeling, with no timers for any of the multiple pots he has going at any time.
他完全凭感觉自动驾驶，任何时候他进行的多个底池都没有计时器。
Every element in the trailer can be utilized.
预告片中的每个元素都可以利用。
An empty, thin cardboard sazón package can be a cutting board; an empty tin of chipotles can be a measuring cup.
一个空的薄纸板 sazón 包装可以用作切菜板；一罐墨西哥辣椒空罐可以用作量杯。
He stops to sharpen an ancient knife with a long, flat steel file and occasionally thinks to wipe down surfaces with his all-purpose kitchen rag.
他停下来用一把又长又扁的钢锉磨一把古老的刀，偶尔会想用他的通用厨房抹布擦拭表面。
It’s of a piece with the space: the broken-down produce boxes that serve as floor mats in the kitchen; the old, stomped-out, grease-sodden square of frayed carpet on the customer-facing side of a homemade counter; some odd plastic animal decorations Samuel utilizes as toys; the walls papered in a scrapbook collage of old-press, pixelated pictures clearly printed off of a phone camera and cards quoting bible verses, commemorating the lives of deceased friends and family members.
它与空间融为一体：破损的农产品盒子充当厨房的地垫；自制柜台面向顾客的一侧，铺着一块旧的、被踩坏的、沾满油脂的磨损地毯；塞缪尔用一些奇怪的塑料动物装饰品作为玩具；墙壁上贴满了旧印刷的剪贴簿拼贴画、清晰地从手机摄像头打印出来的像素化图片以及引用圣经经文的卡片，以纪念已故朋友和家人的生活。
His restaurant tells a random and cohesive story in the same way your apartment does.
他的餐厅就像你的公寓一样，讲述着一个随机而有凝聚力的故事。
The line begins to form around 11 a.m.
上午 11 点左右开始排队。
A middle-aged Latina woman in street clothes and an NYPD windbreaker is one of the first guests, and she’s brought a coworker, a tall white man who is a first-time customer.
一位身穿便服、身穿纽约警察风衣的中年拉丁裔妇女是第一批客人之一，她带来了一位同事，一位身材高大的白人，他是第一次来店。
She looks over her shoulder, down the trailer steps and back at the forming line, and marvels, “Look at the diversity,” referring to the seemingly hand-chosen-by-central-casting New York collection of people who clearly live up the street and don’t feel like cooking today.
她回头看了看拖车的台阶，然后回头看着正在排队的人，惊叹道，“看看多样性”，指的是纽约中央选角看似手工挑选的一群人，他们显然住在街上，今天不想做饭。
And also seeded with Polish tourists staying in Columbus Circle, wrinkled Filipino downtown affluent artist types, and young white and Black would-be food influencers who traveled from Astoria referencing their Infatuation apps.
还包括居住在哥伦布圆环的波兰游客、皱巴巴的菲律宾市中心富裕艺术家类型，以及从阿斯托里亚出发参考他们的 Infatuation 应用程序的年轻白人和黑人潜在的美食影响者。
Angel’s longtime friend and neighbor Will Valentine, a neatly attired Puerto Rican immigrant who clearly enjoys Angel’s food, is next to me, filming it all on a live feed for around 250 viewers at any given time on his 50,000-follower TikTok account , which doubles as the restaurant’s unofficial social media presence.
Angel 的老朋友兼邻居 Will Valentine 是一位衣着整洁的波多黎各移民，显然很喜欢 Angel 的食物，他就在我旁边，在他拥有 50,000 名粉丝的 TikTok 帐户（同时也是该餐厅的非官方社交媒体）上随时为大约 250 名观众进行现场直播。
Angel asks all the obvious first-timers how they heard about the restaurant.
安吉尔询问所有第一次来的人他们是如何听说这家餐厅的。
They all say the New York Times , referring to Pete Wells recently naming La Piraña the fifth-best restaurant in the city .
他们都提到了《纽约时报》，指的是皮特·威尔斯 (Pete Wells) 最近将 La Piraña 评为该市第五大餐厅。
“ New York Times has me at number five right now.
“《纽约时报》目前将我排在第五位。
The people over me?
我之上的人？
Number four?
第四名？
To eat there, you need 300 bucks,” he says, referring to what is arguably the crown jewel of Rita Sodi and Jody Williams’s Greenwich Village haute empire, Via Carota.
在那里吃饭，你需要 300 美元。”他说，他指的是丽塔·索迪 (Rita Sodi) 和乔迪·威廉姆斯 (Jody Williams) 格林威治村高级帝国 Via Carota 的皇冠上的明珠。
“My food costs $20 or $30.
“我的食物花费 20 或 30 美元。
You can’t eat better for less than that in New York.” And he’s right.
在纽约，你不可能花更少的钱吃到更好的东西。”他是对的。
(Several days after my visit, La Piraña was moved down to sixth place, displaced by Blanca, the impossible-to-get-into, several-hundred-dollars-a-head tasting menu spot in Bushwick, only serving to reinforce his point.)
（在我访问几天后，La Piraña 下降到了第六位，被 Blanca 取代，Blanca 是布什威克 (Bushwick) 一家不可能进去的、人均花费数百美元的品尝菜单餐厅，这只是强化了他的观点。)
Angel uses his phone to play a blaring soundtrack of brass-heavy salsa songs about love and lust and heartbreak and passion through a speaker and trudges up the street to grab the first tray of pork.
安吉尔用手机上的扬声器播放着刺耳的铜管重音萨尔萨歌曲配乐，这些歌曲讲述了爱情、欲望、心碎和激情，然后艰难地沿着街道去拿第一盘猪肉。
He can gauge the doneness by sight, so with a glance at 12:40 p.m., he knows we’re ready.
他可以通过肉眼判断熟度，所以中午 12:40 一看，他就知道我们已经准备好了。
The first tray is the ribs, as the middle section is the thinnest, most tender meat that cooks the fastest, and it’s Angel’s favorite.
第一盘是排骨，中间的肉最薄、最嫩，煮得最快，也是Angel的最爱。
From the top of the oven, he cuts me a hunk, and I understand why.
他从烤箱顶部切了我一大块，我明白为什么。
The cuero, or lacquered skin, is a lard pie crust, starting with a shatteringly crisp exterior an inch thick, getting softer and richer with each layer of derma.
漆皮是猪油馅饼皮，一开始是一英寸厚的酥脆外壳，每一层真皮都变得更加柔软和丰富。
You can only enjoy a few indulgent bites as you feel your heart rate slowing, but if you’re into that genre of excess, it’s transcendent.
当你感觉心率减慢时，你只能尽情享受几口食物，但如果你喜欢这种过度的类型，那就太棒了。
The flesh beneath is steaming out of the oven, glossed with fat and pig liquor, shredded without any shredding necessary, in a liminal state between solid and liquid.
下面的肉从烤箱中冒出热气，涂满了脂肪和猪液，无需任何撕碎就被撕碎，处于固体和液体之间的临界状态。
It wants a starch to soak, perhaps some carbonite fried yellow rice with canned pigeon peas out of Angel’s battered rondeau, or some boiled guineo, or some slices of bread painted with drawn garlic butter and caramelized in a sandwich press, but it’s an intense rush in its pure form, eaten out of my palm as I stand at an angle to protect my clothes from raining grease on a Bronx sidewalk.
它需要淀粉来浸泡，也许是一些碳酸盐炒黄米和罐装木豆从天使的打浆的回旋曲，或一些煮吉尼奥，或一些涂上大蒜黄油并在三明治压榨机中焦糖的面包片，但它是一种纯粹的强烈的匆忙，当我以一定角度站立以保护我的衣服免受布朗克斯人行道上雨点油脂的影响时，它是从我的手掌中吃掉的。
Angel comes down the street from the oven carrying a steaming third of two pigs on a sheet pan.
安吉尔从烤箱里走出来，手里拿着平底锅上的两只猪，冒着热气。
He stops at the foot of the trailer steps so that the many camera phones—on what has become a Supreme capsule drop line—can eat first, a cross between displaying a cut of beef before grilling it at a steakhouse and lowering the lights as your family wheels out a cake with lit candles on your birthday.
他在拖车台阶脚下停下来，以便让许多拍照手机（后来成为 Supreme 胶囊下降线）可以先吃东西，这既是在牛排馆烤牛肉之前先展示一块牛肉，又是在你的生日那天，当你的家人推出点燃蜡烛的蛋糕时，关掉灯光。
After Samuel gets the first plate, which Angel insists on dousing with Red Devil and garlic sauce to educate, train, and challenge his palate, the customers begin filing in and placing their orders.
塞缪尔拿到第一盘后，安吉尔坚持在上面浇上红魔鬼和蒜酱来教育、训练和挑战他的味觉，顾客开始排队下订单。
The following is a partial list attempting to explain why it takes so long to get food at La Piraña:
以下是部分列表，试图解释为什么在 La Piraña 需要这么长时间才能获得食物：
If any of this might bother you after more than an hour in line, I’d suggest finding somewhere else to eat.
如果这些可能会在排队一个多小时后困扰您，我建议您找其他地方吃饭。
Because, rather than the mark of a disorganized amateur, this seems to be the exact style of service intended at the exact pace Angel designed.
因为，这似乎不是一个杂乱无章的业余爱好者的标志，而是按照安吉尔设计的确切速度提供的确切服务风格。
He is entirely uninterested in moving things along, often talking with guests for longer than the guest seems to want to after their long wait to eat.
他对推动事情完全不感兴趣，经常与客人交谈的时间比客人在漫长的等待用餐后想要的时间要长。
He never checks a watch, uses a scale, or measures anything, but, including joint breaks, everything moves like clockwork.
他从不检查手表、使用秤或测量任何东西，但是，包括关节断裂，一切都像发条一样运转。
I could see some logic in this being purposeful, to cultivate a line and a mystique, but it’s also inconceivable that Angel would be interested in this degree of preconceived anti-advertising calculation.
我可以看出这是有目的的，培养线条和神秘感的一些逻辑，但也难以想象安吉尔会对这种程度的先入为主的反广告计算感兴趣。
The flesh beneath is steaming out of the oven, glossed with fat and pig liquor, shredded without any shredding necessary, in a liminal state between solid and liquid.
下面的肉从烤箱中冒出热气，涂满了脂肪和猪液，无需任何撕碎就被撕碎，处于固体和液体之间的临界状态。
Angel simply appears to have a muscle memory and an internal clock that keeps perfect time according to the schedule he’s settled on.
安吉尔似乎只是拥有肌肉记忆和内部时钟，可以根据他设定的时间表保持完美的时间。
Before service, Angel told me that each tray of pig yields about 25 orders, so I counted, and because his process is so unscientific, and because he gave away at least two orders in ice-cream-scoop-size samples, I couldn’t believe the first tray came out to exactly 25 orders, including Samuel’s.
服务前，Angel告诉我，每盘猪的产量大约是25单，我就数了数，因为他的流程太不科学，而且他至少送出了两单冰淇淋勺大小的样品，我简直不敢相信第一盘竟然正好有25单，包括Samuel的。
It’s done little to dissuade the locals, the tourists, the writers who have been praising this process, and its chef for just shy of a quarter century.
这并没有阻止当地人、游客、赞扬这一过程的作家以及近四分之一个世纪的厨师。
Everyone tips, but the regulars pay tribute, leaving deuces of Heineken on the countertop sheathed in a brown paper sleeve.
每个人都会给小费，但常客们会向他们致敬，并在台面上留下用棕色纸套包裹的喜力啤酒。
No one made the mistake of buying any other brand.
没有人犯过购买其他品牌的错误。
A microeconomy has sprung up around the line.
微观经济已经在这条线上兴起。
A half block down, a middle-aged Puerto Rican man named Francisco sets up a tent (with Angel’s blessing), selling a menu of fried foods (empanadas, catfish, meat-stuffed guineos) for the hungry and impatient to snack on while waiting for the main event.
半个街区外，一位名叫弗朗西斯科（Francisco）的中年波多黎各男子搭起了一个帐篷（在天使的祝福下），出售一系列油炸食品（肉馅卷饼、鲶鱼、肉夹馍鱼），供饥饿且不耐烦的人在等待主要活动时享用。
Across the street, a bodega on the corner is bustling, serving as bathroom, bar, and bake sale for the line.
街对面的拐角处有一家小酒馆，熙熙攘攘，充当着浴室、酒吧和面包店的角色。
Their patience makes sense, of course because the food is so fucking good, but the theater is an important part of the appeal.
他们的耐心当然是有道理的，因为食物实在太棒了，但剧院是吸引力的重要组成部分。
Angel gave several people discounts, seemingly at random, and told a regular who had been waiting for two hours and said he’d return tomorrow, who was holding cash in hand and trying to give it to him, to come back and pay him on Sunday, for no reason I could fathom.
安吉尔给了几个人折扣，似乎是随机的，并告诉一位已经等了两个小时的常客，说他明天会回来，他手上拿着现金，试图给他，周日回来付钱给他，我无法理解为什么。
I did some back-of-the-napkin math, and taken at his word, Angel pays $3 per pound on 120- to 150-pound pigs, so let’s say each pig costs roughly $400.
我在餐巾纸后面做了一些计算，按照他的话，安吉尔为 120 至 150 磅重的猪每磅支付 3 美元，所以假设每头猪的成本约为 400 美元。
He sells plates of pork and rice for $20 (we’ll leave the $8-ish seafood salads out of this) and preps two pigs a day, which yield roughly four trays, and if 25 orders per tray holds steady, that’s 100 plates.
他以 20 美元的价格出售一盘猪肉和米饭（我们将 8 美元左右的海鲜沙拉排除在外），每天准备两头猪，大约生产 4 盘，如果每盘 25 份订单保持稳定，那就是 100 盘。
So if you exclude rice, condiments, and paper goods, just off the pig alone, the $800 Angel spends and the $2,000 he makes yields a 40% food cost, which is fine but would get a chef at a serious restaurant fired on the first P&L review, particularly when you consider that the $1,200 per day (plus tips and Heinekens) is a fraction of what he could make, at the rate he serves, at the incredibly low price he sells at, and without the portion control or increased prices he could easily institute.
因此，如果你排除大米、调味品和纸制品，仅从猪身上扣除，天使花费的 800 美元和他赚取的 2,000 美元相当于 40% 的食品成本，这很好，但一家严肃餐厅的厨师在第一次损益审查时就会被解雇，特别是当你考虑到每天 1,200 美元（加上小费和喜力啤酒）只是他能赚到的一小部分，按照他的服务价格，以他令人难以置信的低价格出售，如果没有份额控制或提高价格，他可以轻松实施。
There are easy and obvious versions of this restaurant that maximize the profit and serve more people far more efficiently; it’s the anti-Chipotle.
这家餐厅有简单明了的版本，可以最大化利润并更有效地为更多人服务；这是反Chipotle的。
As if hearing my inner monologue while struggling with that equation in my English-major head, an emotionally unstable man named “E”—who was drunk when I got there that morning, played with Samuel for a while, then left—shuffles back into the trailer.
仿佛听到了我在英语专业的头脑中与这个方程作斗争时内心的独白，一个情绪不稳定的名叫“E”的男人——那天早上我到达那里时喝醉了，和塞缪尔玩了一会儿，然后离开了——慢吞吞地回到了拖车里。
Chef hands him a free plate containing the entirety of the menu, because, as he told me that morning, they had grown up together.
厨师免费递给他一个包含整个菜单的盘子，因为正如他那天早上告诉我的那样，他们是一起长大的。
As he does so, he proudly advertises it to his paying customers watching, telling them, “Money is not everything in life!” Which is both clearly a bit and something he’s proving he means throughout service in front of our eyes.
当他这样做时，他自豪地向观看的付费客户做广告，告诉他们，“金钱不是生活中的一切！”这显然是一点，也是他在整个服务过程中在我们眼前证明他的意思。
Angel is also a tireless maniac with no kill switch.
安吉尔也是一个不知疲倦的疯子，没有终止开关。
I’m several decades younger than him, slept more, drank less, and didn’t work at all during the day, while he worked incredibly hard—and six hours into service, I was exhausted, and he was moving with the energy and humor of Josh Hart in the first quarter.
我比他年轻几十岁，睡得更多，喝得更少，白天根本不工作，而他却异常努力地工作——服务了六个小时，我就筋疲力尽了，而他在第一季度充满了乔什·哈特的活力和幽默。
After a few hours, I’d seen the routine with the trays of pork a few times and asked all my biographical questions, and all the “real reporting” was done, so I leaned against a wall in the trailer and just watched him work for a while.
几个小时后，我已经看过几次端着猪肉托盘的例行公事，问了所有关于我的传记问题，所有的“真实报道”都完成了，所以我靠在拖车里的墙上，只是看着他工作了一会儿。
And somewhere between my second and third Heineken deuce, it occurred to me that Angel likes to cook in the exact same state I do: with a drink going somewhere just off his cutting board, with a great playlist in the background, in no particular hurry, surrounded by old friends and strangers who quickly feel like old friends as everyone snacks and laughs and talks shit at a party you hope will never end.
在我第二次和第三次喜力二分之间，我突然想到，安吉尔喜欢在和我完全相同的状态下做饭：一杯饮料刚从切菜板上拿出来，背景中有一个很棒的播放列表，并不特别匆忙，周围都是老朋友和陌生人，他们很快就感觉自己像老朋友了，每个人都在一个你希望永远不会结束的聚会上吃零食、笑、说废话。
His “business” is one of the more ingenious ways I’ve ever seen someone figure out how to make money doing something they’d happily do for free.
他的“生意”是我见过的最巧妙的方式之一，有人想出如何通过做他们乐意免费做的事情来赚钱。
He’d told me as much earlier.
他很早就告诉过我了。
I just dismissed it.
我刚刚驳回了它。
I mistook his sentiment for boilerplate pablum that any standard, cynical, money- and ego-driven chef will tell you when asked what their restaurant means to them.
我把他的观点误认为是样板文章，任何标准的、愤世嫉俗的、金钱和自我驱动的厨师在被问到他们的餐厅对他们意味着什么时都会告诉你。
Now I’m not so sure.
现在我不太确定了。
It happened while I was trying to eat a steaming piece of rib meat next to his massive, freestanding oven up the block.
事情发生的时候，我正想在街区那块巨大的独立式烤箱旁边吃一块热气腾腾的肋骨。
I took my first crunching, melting bite and closed my eyes, probably looking crazy as I was both appreciating it and trying to figure out how the fuck I could possibly describe all of the insanity I was tasting and experiencing in writing.
我咬下第一口，嚼起来融化了，然后闭上眼睛，可能看起来很疯狂，因为我既欣赏它，又试图弄清楚我他妈的如何才能在写作中描述我所品尝和经历的所有疯狂。
Chef Angel read my exultant face, drawn tight with concentration, and broke the silence.
安杰尔主厨看到了我全神贯注、欣喜若狂的表情，打破了沉默。
“See?
“看到了吗？
That’s it.
就是这样。
For me, it’s love.
对我来说，这就是爱。
People love me.
人们爱我。
People come from all over the world to eat my food, for the experience.
人们来自世界各地来吃我的食物，以获得体验。
That’s why I do it.”
这就是我这样做的原因。”