Longreads Best of 2016: Food Writing

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories.

我们请几位作家和编辑在不同类别中选择一些他们今年最喜欢的故事。

Here, the best in food writing.

在这里，最好的美食写作。

* * *

** **

Rachel Khong

雷切尔孔

Former executive editor at Lucky Peach magazine; author of the novel, Goodbye, Vitamin, forthcoming in July 2017, and the cookbook, All About Eggs.

《Lucky Peach》杂志前执行主编；小说《再见，维生素》（将于 2017 年 7 月出版）和食谱《关于鸡蛋的一切》的作者。

## Citizen Khan (Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker)

## 公民可汗（凯瑟琳·舒尔茨，《纽约客》）

I would read anything by Kathryn Schulz, and this story makes a perfect case why.

我会读凯瑟琳·舒尔茨的任何作品，这个故事完美地说明了原因。

Ostensibly it’s the story of a man named Zarif Khan, who in 1909 found his way to Wyoming from the Khyber Pass, and made a name for himself selling tamales (the name: “Hot Tamale Louie”).

表面上看，这是一个名叫扎里夫·汗 (Zarif Khan) 的人的故事，他于 1909 年从开伯尔山口找到了前往怀俄明州的道路，并以销售玉米粉蒸肉而闻名（名字：“热玉米粉蒸肉路易”）。

Khan was a recognizably curmudgeonly chef (God forbid you put ketchup on his burgers!) of the sort writers reliably profile today.

可汗是一位公认的脾气暴躁的厨师（上帝禁止你在他的汉堡上放番茄酱！），今天作家们可靠地描述了这一类厨师。

But “profile” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what this goosebump-inducing story is.

但“个人资料”甚至还没有触及这个令人起鸡皮疙瘩的故事的表面。

Woven into this tale are captivating tangents—about Wyoming’s inclusive beginnings, the various histories of naturalization (and denaturalization), tamales, and Muslims in this country (a history that goes back so much further than Trump would have you believe)—that turn out not to be tangents at all: the heart of this story about tamales and burgers is a story about America, and the immigrants that make it.

这个故事中交织着一些引人入胜的离题——关于怀俄明州包容性的起源、入籍（和非入籍）、玉米粉蒸肉和这个国家的穆斯林的各种历史（历史可以追溯到比特朗普让你相信的更久远的历史）——结果根本不是离题：这个关于玉米粉蒸肉和汉堡的故事的核心是一个关于美国和创造它的移民的故事。

In Schulz’s hands it’s skilled and quietly hilarious.

在舒尔茨的手中，它既熟练又安静地搞笑。

The story felt fitting when it was published in June; it feels even more essential now.

这个故事在六月出版时感觉很合适。现在感觉更加重要。

## At Tampa Bay Farm-to-Table Restaurants, You’re Being Fed Fiction (Laura Reiley, Tampa Bay Times)

## 在坦帕湾从农场到餐桌的餐厅，你正在被喂饱小说（劳拉·雷利，坦帕湾时报）

I read this story about food fraud slack-jawed.

我读到这个关于食品欺诈的故事时，我目瞪口呆。

Laura Reiley’s basic premise is this: when you go to a restaurant advertising “local” or “farm to table,” it’s not only possible but highly likely(!) you’re being lied to.

劳拉·雷利（Laura Reiley）的基本前提是：当你去一家宣传“本地”或“农场到餐桌”的餐厅时，你不仅有可能而且很有可能（！）被骗了。

Years of working in restaurant criticism made Reiley rightly skeptical of menu claims, and suspicious that more was afoot than frozen cakes passed off as homemade.

多年从事餐厅批评工作的雷利对菜单上的说法持怀疑态度，他怀疑除了冷冻蛋糕冒充自制蛋糕之外，还有更多的事情正在发生。

For her story she systematically investigates restaurants in the Tampa area that make declarations about their ingredients—sometimes embarrassingly high-mindedly—that they don’t exactly see through.

在她的故事中，她系统地调查了坦帕地区的餐馆，这些餐馆对其成分做出了声明——有时是令人尴尬的高尚——但他们并没有完全看穿。

A lot impresses me here, like Reiley’s persistence, guts, attentiveness, commitment, and spy moves (she kept ziptop baggies her purse to secrete away fish to lab-test later).

这里有很多事情给我留下了深刻的印象，比如赖利的坚持、勇气、专注、承诺和间谍行动（她把拉链袋放在钱包里，以便稍后将鱼藏起来进行实验室测试）。

The piece’s focus is on restaurants in Tampa, but it makes a broader statement about our convoluted food supply chains, and what it means to be an eater and consumer living in our increasingly weird world.

这篇文章的重点是坦帕的餐馆，但它对我们错综复杂的食品供应链以及生活在我们日益奇怪的世界中的食客和消费者意味着什么进行了更广泛的阐述。

Helen Rosner

海伦·罗斯纳

Executive editor of Eater

《食客》执行主编

## Inside the Gentrification of Grand Central Market (Jesse Katz, L.A.

## 大中央市场绅士化内部（Jesse Katz，洛杉矶）

Magazine)

杂志）

It’s a tired old saw by now, the idea that the real trick with great food writing is that food isn’t food, it’s a lens — but that doesn’t make it any less utterly true.

现在这已经是老生常谈了，优秀的美食写作的真正秘诀在于食物不是食物，而是一个镜头——但这并没有使它变得不那么完全正确。

What made me fall into such electrifying, jealousy-inducing love with this L.A.

是什么让我对这个洛杉矶产生了如此激动人心、令人嫉妒的爱情？

Mag piece by Jesse Katz is that it takes so many non-food elements that, individually, could be engines for an incredible story — urban planning, real estate, gentrification and displacement, history and nostalgia, immigration and assimilation — and weaves them together into a piece that not only vividly sketches the ordered-chaos of Grand Central Market, but also meticulously and immersively establishes both the emotional and cultural stakes of the whole place.

杰西·卡茨 (Jesse Katz) 的杂志文章指出，它采用了如此多的非食品元素，这些元素单独可以成为一个令人难以置信的故事的引擎——城市规划、房地产、中产阶级化和流离失所、历史和怀旧、移民和同化——并将它们编织成一个作品，不仅生动地勾勒出大中央市场有序的混乱，而且还细致地、身临其境地建立了整个地方的情感和文化利害关系。

And god, what a sampler of technique: It’s beautifully reported, rigorously researched, and dips into first person at exactly the right times and in the right ways, all while juggling an expansive cast of characters and a half-dozen micronarratives, which orbit the particular story of one stall hawking nouveau bagels and lox.

天哪，这真是一个技巧的采样器：它的报道精美，经过严格的研究，并在正确的时间和以正确的方式深入到第一人称，同时兼顾了广泛的角色和六个微观叙事，这些叙事围绕一个摊位兜售新派百吉饼和熏鲑鱼的特殊故事。

It’s one of the most perfect food stories I’ve ever read.

这是我读过的最完美的美食故事之一。

## Dinner at Tao with the “FoodGod” Jonathan Cheban (Joshua David Stein, G.Q.)

## 与“美食之神”乔纳森·切班（Joshua David Stein，G.Q.）在道共进晚餐

Joshua David Stein is an emperor of extravagantly florid prose.

约书亚·大卫·斯坦因是一位散文华丽的皇帝。

For most writers, high diction is suicide; for Stein — especially in this hilarious, joyous, absurd, deeply loving profile of Jonathan Cheban, Kim Kardashian’s best friend and the self-proclaimed “Food God” — it’s a precision instrument.

对于大多数作家来说，高水平的措辞无异于自杀。对于斯坦因来说——尤其是在金·卡戴珊最好的朋友、自称为“食神”的乔纳森·切班（Jonathan Cheban）的搞笑、欢乐、荒唐、深爱的形象中——这是一个精密的仪器。

Stein doesn’t play it straight, but he also doesn’t give in to easy targets; he relates his evening with Cheban at a Manhattan clubstaurant with brilliant sincerity, titrating his snark to the microliter and shining the spotlight on a particular sort of mainstream celebrity and consumer culture that, in the world of food media, is usually sniffed at, if it’s acknowledged at all.

斯坦因行事不直，但他也不会向容易的目标屈服。他极其真诚地讲述了他与切班在曼哈顿一家俱乐部餐厅共度的夜晚，把他的尖刻刻薄到了微升，并将聚光灯聚焦在一种特殊的主流名人和消费文化上，而在食品媒体的世界里，这种文化通常会被嗤之以鼻，即使它得到了承认。

But really, honestly, it’s just a flat-out privilege as a reader to read words and sentences this exuberantly deployed.

但说实话，作为读者，阅读如此丰富的单词和句子完全是一种特权。

Tove K.

托夫·K.

Danovich

达诺维奇

A freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon, whose work has appeared in Best Food Writing 2016, Lucky Peach, New York Times, and others.

俄勒冈州波特兰市的一名自由记者，其作品曾发表在《2016 年最佳美食写作》、《Lucky Peach》、《纽约时报》等杂志上。

## Escaping the Restaurant Industry’s Motherhood Trap (Amanda Kludt, Eater)

## 逃离餐饮业的母性陷阱（Amanda Kludt，Eater）

I’ve always loved the flexibility of food writing.

我一直喜欢食物写作的灵活性。

Travel, culture, policy, environment, crime, and just about everything else can fall under its umbrella.

旅行、文化、政策、环境、犯罪以及几乎所有其他事物都可以归入其保护范围。

It does, however, make it difficult to narrow down my favorite essays.

然而，它确实让我很难缩小我最喜欢的文章的范围。

Though there was plenty of excellent food writing in 2016, few pieces touched a nerve like Amanda Kludt’s article on the lack of options for mothers who work in the restaurant industry.

尽管 2016 年有很多优秀的美食文章，但很少有文章能像阿曼达·克鲁特 (Amanda Kludt) 的文章那样触动人心，这篇文章讲述了在餐饮业工作的母亲们缺乏选择。

Before I became a food writer, I spent five years as a hostess and then a server in New York City restaurants.

在成为一名美食作家之前，我曾在纽约市的餐馆担任过五年女主人，然后担任服务员。

This article spread through former coworkers’ social media pages faster than a Sunday brunch rush.

这篇文章在前同事的社交媒体页面上传播的速度比周日早午餐高峰还要快。

With so much food writing to choose from, it’s extra important to give credit to pieces like this one that spill out of the insular world of foodies and food writers.

有如此多的美食写作可供选择，对像这篇从美食家和美食作家的孤立世界中溢出的作品给予认可就显得尤为重要。

People often complain that women are underrepresented in the upper levels of the food world–whether as writers, chefs, or restauranteurs–but this article explores some of the policies that created the situation in the first place.

人们经常抱怨女性在食品界上层的代表性不足——无论是作为作家、厨师还是餐馆老板——但本文首先探讨了一些造成这种情况的政策。

Jason Diamond

贾森·戴蒙德

Sports editor for Rolling Stone; author of the memoir Searching For John Hughes.

滚石杂志体育编辑；回忆录《寻找约翰·休斯》的作者。

## California Dreaming (Marian Bull, Eater)

## 加州梦（玛丽安·布尔、食者）

I reread Marian Bull’s brilliant Eater feature on Sqirl, “the quirky, punky, small-but-scrappy indie star of LA’s restaurant scene,” while sitting at Sqirl.

当我坐在 Sqirl 餐厅时，我重读了玛丽安·布尔 (Marian Bull) 在 Sqirl 上发表的精彩《食客》专题，“洛杉矶餐厅界的古怪、朋克、小而斗志旺盛的独立明星”。

I ordered too much: the crispy rice bowl and the famous ricotta toast with jam smeared atop.

我点了太多：锅巴和著名的乳清干酪吐司，上面涂着果酱。

There I was, a New Yorker sitting there pondering my own “undying, sun-soaked fantasy of Los Angeles” as the subhead puts it, thinking about how rare it is that a long piece that ponders our current, almost cultish obsession with specific restaurants and the people that run them would actively make me want to try the food.

我，一个纽约人坐在那里，思考着我自己的“洛杉矶永恒的、阳光普照的幻想”，正如副标题所说，思考着我们目前对特定餐厅和经营它们的人近乎狂热的迷恋的长篇文章会积极地让我想要尝试这些食物，这是多么罕见。

It wasn’t a review or some short piece on one specific dish.

这不是一篇评论，也不是关于某一道菜的短文。

No, Bull made me feel like I needed to be part of the story.

不，布尔让我觉得我需要成为故事的一部分。

And yes, I’m happy I went.

是的，我很高兴我去了。

## At Thomas Keller’s Per Se, Slips and Stumbles (Pete Wells, The New York Times)

## 在托马斯·凯勒的《本身》中，失误和绊倒（皮特·威尔斯，《纽约时报》）

Length-wise, this may not technically qualify as a longread, but it was one of the great events of 2016.

从长度上看，这在技术上可能不符合长读的条件，但它是 2016 年最伟大的事件之一。

Pete Wells walked into the Per Se kitchen, left nobody alive, and dear god it was beautiful.

皮特·威尔斯 (Pete Wells) 走进 Per Se 厨房，没有留下任何人活着，天哪，这真是太美了。

## In Sickness, in Health, in White Castle (Allison Robicelli, Food52)

## 在疾病中，在健康中，在白色城堡（艾莉森·罗比切利，Food52）

Honestly, the world needs more pieces like this one.

老实说，世界需要更多这样的作品。

“You drive into the darkness underneath the D tracks, searching for moments from your South Brooklyn childhood, when things like cancer and terrorism weren’t part of reality.” What do you drive for?

“你开车驶入 D 轨道下的黑暗，寻找南布鲁克林童年的时光，那时癌症和恐怖主义等事情并不属于现实。”你开车做什么？

Sliders, of course.

当然是滑块。

Aaron Gilbreath

亚伦·吉尔布雷斯

Contributing editor to Longreads; essayist and journalist; author of the essay collection Everything We Don’t Know.

Longreads 的特约编辑；散文家和记者；散文集《我们不知道的一切》的作者。

## Changing of the Tide: The Galician Sisters Chipping Away at the Patriarchy, One Barnacle at a Time.

## 潮流的变化：加利西亚姐妹逐渐削弱父权制，一次一只藤壶。

(Matt Goulding, Slate)

（马特·古尔丁，《石板》）

It’s too easy to dismiss food as a simple, surface-level topic.

人们很容易将食物视为一个简单、肤浅的话题。

I live in a food-obsessed city where the topic of conversation is often whether you’ve tried the new Korean street-style sandwich cart or tasted the clam butter cocktail at Bar So-and-So.

我生活在一个痴迷于美食的城市，那里的话题常常是你是否尝试过新型韩国街头三明治车，或者在某某酒吧品尝过蛤蜊黄油鸡尾酒。

It grates on me.

这让我很恼火。

Can we talk about politics or books, please?

我们可以谈谈政治或书籍吗？

Enough with the fancy sandwich.

吃够了精美的三明治。

But food can function as a gateway to deeper understanding.

但食物可以作为加深理解的门户。

As one of the first expressions of a culture that we encounter, food frequently peaks our interest enough to learn more about the ways other people live, and can provide a window into deep, serious topics.

作为我们遇到的一种文化的第一个表现形式，食物常常能激发我们的兴趣，足以让我们更多地了解其他人的生活方式，并可以提供一扇了解深刻、严肃的话题的窗口。

In this piece about four Galician sisters who gather gooseneck barnacles in Spain, Matt Goulding uses food to discuss something bigger.

在这篇关于四位加利西亚姐妹在西班牙采集鹅颈藤壶的文章中，马特·古尔丁用食物来讨论更大的事情。

By profiling these percebeiras doing their job, he not only shows readers a lesser-known facet of the coastal economy, he reveals how woman still struggle for equality and respect, not just in the male-dominated seafood industry, but in society.

通过对这些工作人员的剖析，他不仅向读者展示了沿海经济鲜为人知的一面，还揭示了女性如何仍在为平等和尊重而奋斗，不仅是在男性主导的海鲜行业，而且在社会中。

As a reader, the parallels are pleasing.

作为一名读者，这些相似之处是令人愉快的。

While these Spanish women pry barnacles from wet rocks amid dangerous crashing waves, women at large still have to pry the tough, barnacle clutches of laws, sexism and misogyny from themselves.

当这些西班牙妇女在危险的海浪中从潮湿的岩石中撬开藤壶时，广大妇女仍然必须从自己身上撬开法律、性别歧视和厌女症的藤壶牢笼。

Barnacles as food, barnacles of oppression; prying chitinous arthropods and weakening the status quo ─ abstract concepts make a lot more sense when readers can put a face to them.

藤壶作为食物，藤壶是压迫；窥探几丁质节肢动物并削弱现状——当读者能够面对抽象概念时，它们就会变得更有意义。

Human stories like Goulding’s drive home important ideas.

像古尔丁这样的人类故事让人们明白了重要的想法。

Crushing the patriarchy remains one of the great subjects of modern time.

粉碎父权制仍然是现代的伟大主题之一。

Nearly one hundred years after women’s suffrage in America, forty-four years after Roe v.

美国妇女获得选举权已近一百年，罗伊诉特朗普案已四十四年。

Wade, women STILL fight for equal rights and equal pay, and they still fight for their right to manage their own bodies.

韦德，女性仍然在争取平等权利和同工同酬，她们仍然在争取管理自己身体的权利。

It’s insane, but that’s where we’re at.

这很疯狂，但这就是我们现在的处境。

As one sister said after pulling a macho fisherman from the frigid water: “Imagine that: A raging chauvinist saved by a couple of women.

正如一位姐妹将一名男子气概的渔夫从冰冷的水中拉出来后所说：“想象一下：一个愤怒的沙文主义者被几个女人救了。

It will be a long time before he lives this down.”

他还需要很长一段时间才能把这一切铭记于心。”

Michelle Weber

米歇尔·韦伯

Longreads Senior Editor and Editor at WordPress.com / Automattic.

Longreads 高级编辑和 WordPress.com / Automattic 编辑。

## Carl’s Jr., and the Thing That Happened There (Chris Onstad, Eater)

## 小卡尔，以及那里发生的事情（克里斯·昂斯塔德，《食客》）

Why is Carl’s Jr. not a global fast-food juggernaut to rival McDonald’s?

为什么小卡尔 (Carl’s Jr.) 无法成为与麦当劳相媲美的全球快餐巨头？

It might be Chris Onstad’s fault.

这可能是克里斯·昂斯塔德的错。

I’ll read any essay Eater publishes in its excellent “Life in Chains” series exploring the role chain restaurants play in our lives and cities, but I’ll happily re-read (and re-re-read) Onstad’s chronicle of a fateful encounter with his younger brother in a Carl’s Jr. restroom in mid-1982.

我会读《Eater》在其出色的“连锁生活”系列中发表的任何一篇文章，探讨连锁餐厅在我们的生活和城市中扮演的角色，但我会很高兴地重读（并重读）昂斯塔德的编年史，讲述了 1982 年中在小卡尔的卫生间里与他弟弟的一次命运般的相遇。

It’s got everything: french fries, Jimmy Carter, urinals, brooding Bulgarian piano geniuses.

这里什么都有：炸薯条、吉米·卡特、小便池、沉思的保加利亚钢琴天才。

It may be only tangentially about food, but it describes the kind of shenanigans that can’t happen anywhere but the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant, and is a kind of beautifully perverse (and funny) paean to chicken nuggets and childhood.

它可能只是与食物无关，但它描述了那种除了快餐店的浴室之外不会发生在任何地方的恶作剧，并且是对鸡块和童年的一种美丽反常（又有趣）的赞歌。

Sari Botton

纱丽波顿

Writer, contributing editor to Longreads, editorial director of the non-profit TMI Project, and owner of Kingston Writers’ Studio.

作家、Longreads 的特约编辑、非营利组织 TMI 项目的编辑总监以及 Kingston Writers’ Studio 的所有者。

## The State of the Domestic Goddess (Emily Gould, Eater)

## 家庭女神的状态（艾米丽·古尔德，《食者》）

This piece delivers in more ways than one.

这件作品以多种方式表达。

Written by an essayist and novelist whose work I’ve long admired, is equal parts cook book review, personal essay and humorous social commentary.

这本书的作者是一位散文家和小说家，我一直很欣赏他的作品，其中既有库克书评、个人散文，也有幽默的社会评论。

Now that she’s married with a kid, Emily Gould’s passion for cooking has been curbed.

现在艾米丽·古尔德已经结婚并有了孩子，她对烹饪的热情已经受到抑制。

In her quest to revive the domestic fantasy she entertained pre-motherhood of effortlessly making and serving deicious meals to her family, she road-tests cook books by two very different American “domestic goddesses”: Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s All Easy, and Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings.

为了重振她在成为母亲之前所怀有的家庭幻想，即毫不费力地为家人制作和提供美味佳肴，她路试了两位截然不同的美国“家庭女神”的烹饪书籍：格温妮丝·帕特洛的《一切都很容易》和克丽丝·泰根的《渴望》。

## Pete Wells Has His Knives Out (Ian Parker, The New Yorker)

## 皮特·威尔斯拔出了刀（伊恩·帕克，《纽约客》）

A ranging profile of New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells.

《纽约时报》餐厅评论家皮特·威尔斯的广泛简介。

It offers insight into how he formulates the reviews that can make or break restaurants, and how restaurateurs like Momofuku’s David Chang and Per Se’s Thomas Keller are affected by those sometimes scathing reviews.

它提供了关于他如何制定影响餐厅成败的评论的见解，以及像 Momofuku 的 David Chang 和 Per Se 的 Thomas Keller 这样的餐馆老板如何受到这些有时严厉的评论的影响。

## The Unrecognizable Genius of Guy Fieri (Jason Diamond, Esquire)

## 盖伊·费里 (Guy Fieri) 难以辨认的天才（杰森·戴蒙德、Esquire）

In Ian Parker’s New Yorker Profile of New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells (which I’ve cited just above this), he of course mentions Wells’s hilarious, scathing take-down of Food Network star Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant, Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar.

在伊恩·帕克 (Ian Parker) 为《纽约时报》餐厅评论家皮特·威尔斯 (Pete Wells) 撰写的《纽约客简介》(Pete Wells) 中，他当然提到了威尔斯对美食网明星盖伊·费里 (Guy Fieri) 时代广场餐厅盖伊的美国厨房和酒吧 (Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar) 的搞笑而严厉的批评。

In September, at Esquire, Jason Diamond came to Fieri’s defense with a smart and entertaining profile praising all things Fieri.

9 月，在《Esquire》杂志上，杰森·戴蒙德 (Jason Diamond) 为 Fieri 辩护，他以聪明而有趣的方式赞扬了 Fieri 的一切。

http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a48351/the-genius-of-guy-fieri/

http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a48351/the-genius-of-guy-fieri/

See more from our Best of 2016 series

查看我们的 2016 年最佳系列的更多内容