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The news that the world has America, not Italy, to thank for the tomato base on pizza has gone down about as well as putting cream in carbonara among Italian gastro-nationalists.

披萨上的番茄酱要归功于美国，而不是意大利，这一消息在意大利美食民族主义者中的反响就像在意大利面中加入奶油一样炸裂。

In a new book called La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste (literally “Italian Cuisine Does Not Exist”), food historian Alberto Grandi claims, among other things, that Italians only discovered tomato sauce when they emigrated to the Americas, where tomatoes are native, in the 19th century.

在一本名为《意大利美食不存在》（La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste）的新书中，美食历史学家阿尔贝托-格兰迪（Alberto Grandi）声称，意大利人只是在 19 世纪移民到西红柿的原产地美洲时才发现了番茄酱。

“Pizza became red in America,” Grandi told La Repubblica newspaper. “Before that it was plain focaccia, sometimes adorned with pieces of tomato.”

“披萨在美国变成了红色，”格兰迪告诉《共和报》。“在此之前，比萨是普通的福卡夏饼，有时会用番茄片装饰。

It’s not the first time that Grandi, who teaches business history and the history of European integration at Parma University, has taken to the press to debunk myths about his own country’s (famously defended) cuisine. He’s made a career out of it.

格兰迪在帕尔马大学教授商业史和欧洲一体化史，这已经不是他第一次在媒体上揭穿关于自己国家美食（著名的捍卫主义）的神话了。他已经以此为职业。
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In an interview with the FT last year, he said that everything from parmesan and panettone to carbonara and tiramisu weren’t fundamentally Italian. Perhaps most controversially, he claimed that parmesan produced in Wisconsin was more authentic than Italy’s because it was closer to the original cheese produced in Parma-Reggio a millennium ago. A brave man, indeed.

去年，他在接受英国《金融时报》采访时说，从帕尔马干酪、帕内托内馅饼到意大利面和提拉米苏，从根本上说都不是意大利的。也许最有争议的是，他声称威斯康星州生产的帕尔马干酪比意大利的更正宗，因为它更接近千年前帕尔马-雷焦（Parma-Reggio）生产的原始奶酪。他是真的敢说。

While the journalist, herself Italian, said hearing a food expert say that her national cuisine is “based on lies” was like being let in on an unspeakable family secret, others, naturally, were furious. Coldiretti, a powerful and somewhat frightening agricultural body in Italy, described the article as “a surreal attack on the symbolic dishes of Italian cuisine”. On his equally divisive podcast, Grandi joked that he should only leave the house “with personal security guards, like Salman Rushdie”.

尽管这位记者本身是意大利人，但听到一位美食专家说她的国家美食“建立在谎言之上”，就像被揭开一个不可言说的家族秘密一样，其他人自然也感到愤怒。Coldiretti是意大利一个强大而有影响力的农业组织，将这篇文章描述为对意大利美食象征性菜肴的“超现实攻击”。
格兰迪在他同样带有歧义的播客中开玩笑说，他应该 “像萨尔曼-拉什迪那样，有私人保镖保护才能出门”。
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You’d think, then, he might have been wary of publishing a book literally alleging that there’s no such thing as Italian food. He was quick to point out, though, that he’s never questioned the quality of Italian food or products. “The point is that we confuse identity with the roots, which we are crossbreeding,” he told La Repubblica. “We wrongly talk about identity: cuisine changes continuously.” For example, the Italians and French are the biggest consumers of sushi in Europe. And while “to taste Parmigiano-Reggiano as our grandparents ate it, we would have to go to Wisconsin”, he’s not saying that Italian Parmesan isn’t still the best.

因此，你可能认为他会对出版一本关于意大利食品根本不存在的书。不过，他很快指出，他从未质疑过意大利食品或产品的质量。“他对《共和国报》说：”问题的关键在于，我们混淆了身份和根源，而我们正在杂交根源。“我们错误地谈论了身份：美食在不断变化”。例如，意大利人和法国人是欧洲最大的寿司消费者。虽然 “要想品尝到我们祖辈吃过的 Parmigiano-Reggiano，我们必须去威斯康星州”，但他并不是说意大利的帕尔马干酪仍然不是最好的。

He’s not wrong: on that or tomato sauce on pizza. Tomatoes today might seem like a central element of all European cuisines, but it’s true that they’re actually a newer ingredient, and certainly not one that’s native to Italy. The Spanish discovered them in central America in the 16th century, and brought them back to Europe as part of what’s known as the Columbian Exchange: the transfer of plants and animals between the old and new worlds. Without it, all cuisines would look, and taste, quite different today. There’d be no oranges in Florida, for example. No chillies in Asia. No coffee in Columbia. No chocolate in Switzerland. No cigarettes in France. Quelle horreur!

他说得没错：对于披萨上的番茄酱也是如此。如今，番茄似乎是所有欧洲美食的核心元素，但事实上，它们实际上是较新的食材，而且绝对不是意大利的本土产物。16世纪，西班牙人在中美洲发现了它们，并将它们带回欧洲，作为所谓的哥伦布交换的一部分：即在新旧世界之间的植物和动物的交换。没有这种交换，今天所有的美食看起来和味道都会大不相同。例如，佛罗里达州就没有橙子。亚洲就没有辣椒。哥伦比亚就没有咖啡。瑞士就没有巧克力。法国就没有香烟。如果是这样就太可怕了！

Tomatoes didn’t initially take off on the continent, partly because they resembled their deadly cousin the nightshade, and partly due to an early example of fake news, which circulated after some upper-class Europeans died after eating them (it was actually a result of lead poisoning from their pewter dinnerware).

西红柿最初并没有在欧洲大陆流行起来，部分原因是西红柿与其致命的表亲--茄科植物相似，还有一部分原因是早期的一则假新闻，即一些上层欧洲人在食用西红柿后死亡（实际上是他们的锡制餐具导致铅中毒）。

The earliest traces of pizza can be found with the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, as flatbreads, which first emerged in Italy in Naples in the 18th century. To cater to a surging population, street vendors in the city started selling flatbreads with simple toppings like lard, garlic, salt, basil and, only occasionally, cheese and fresh tomatoes. Margherita pizza was born when Queen Margherita invited a man called Raffaele Esposito to cook the dish that had become so popular among her people. Her favourite was the one with slices of tomato, basil and mozzarella: the colours of the Italian flag.

披萨最早的雏形是埃及人、希腊人和罗马人制作的扁面包，18 世纪在意大利那不勒斯首次出现。为了迎合激增的人口，城市里的街头小贩开始出售扁面包，配以猪油、大蒜、盐、罗勒等简单的配料，偶尔也会加入奶酪和新鲜番茄。玛格丽塔披萨诞生于玛格丽塔王后邀请一位名叫拉斐尔-埃斯波西托（Raffaele Esposito）的人烹制这道在她的子民中颇受欢迎的美食。她最喜欢的是用番茄片、罗勒和马苏里拉奶酪制成的披萨，这也是意大利国旗的颜色。

While fresh tomatoes were commonly used on pizza, Grandi suggests that “pizza rossa”, or pizza with a tomato base, came about when Italians emigrated to the States en masse in the 19th century, and took advantage of the ingredients they found there. It would make sense, as the canning industry was only just taking off as a means to preserve fresh ingredients and streamline cooking. Pizza became enormously popular in the US – it was cheap, easy to make and, obviously, tasted good. So much so, Grandi suggests, that by the Second World War, there were more pizzerias in America than Italy. “When American soldiers landed in Sicily, they discovered to their surprise that pizzerias barely existed,” he wrote. According to Grandi, this is also when spaghetti alla carbonara was invented, using the bacon, cheese and powdered eggs that the American troops brought with them.

虽然披萨通常使用新鲜番茄，但格兰迪认为，“罗萨披萨”（即以番茄为底的披萨）是 19 世纪意大利人大规模移民美国后，利用当地的食材制作而成的。这也是情理之中的事，因为当时罐头业刚刚起步，是保存新鲜食材和简化烹饪的一种手段。比萨在美国大受欢迎--它便宜、易做，而且显然味道不错。格兰迪认为，到第二次世界大战时，美国比萨店的数量已经超过了意大利。“他写道：”当美国士兵在西西里登陆时，他们惊讶地发现比萨店几乎没有。根据格兰迪的说法，意大利面也是在那个时候利用美军带来的熏肉、奶酪和鸡蛋粉发明的。

While America’s influence on the cuisine cannot be overstated, Italians aren’t too happy with their food identity being called into question yet again.

虽然美国对意大利美食的影响无论如何强调都不为过，但意大利人对自己的饮食身份再次受到质疑并不太高兴。

Michele Pascarella, owner of Chiswick restaurant Napoli on the Road – who has won countless awards for his pizza (eighth best in Europe) including being declared best pizzaiolo in the world last year – says it’s not about who does it first, but who does it best. “Italy is a country with an enormous food culture, passed down through generations, that doesn’t need to win any contest for who did it first in the world,” he tells me. “Our cuisine is envied all over the world and we even continue to make a difference today. Alberto Grandi is the flat-earther of gastronomy.”

Chiswick 餐馆 Napoli on the Road 的店主 Michele Pascarella 因其披萨（欧洲第八佳）赢得了无数奖项，包括去年被评为世界最佳披萨师。“他告诉我：”意大利是一个拥有世代相传的巨大饮食文化的国家，它不需要赢得任何关于谁是世界第一的比赛。他告诉我："我们的美食令全世界羡慕不已，我们今天甚至仍在继续创造不同。阿尔贝托-格兰迪是美食界的平头哥”。

This kind of culinary classicism exists in other cuisines, though rarely is it expressed so vehemently. It’s always struck me as odd, as so many of the foods we consider to be symbolic of a particular country are not actually from there.

这种烹饪经典主义在其他菜系中也存在，不过很少表现得如此强烈。我一直觉得这很奇怪，因为许多我们认为是某个国家象征的食物实际上并不来自这个国家。

Take croissants, for example. They’re not French; they were invented in Vienna, Austria, where moon-shaped breads date back centuries. Their history is about as indeterminate as pizza. Some say they were presented to Duke Leopold in 1227 as a Christmas treat; others that crescent-shaped pastries mimicking the moon on the Turkish flag were prepared to celebrate the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the 1600s. Elsewhere, Parisians adapted the recipe after the first Viennese bakery closed in 1838. The most famous story is that Vienna-born Queen Marie Antoinette missed the Austrian pastry so much that she had her French bakers make them for her.

以羊角面包为例。羊角面包不是法国食品，而是在奥地利维也纳发明的，那里的月亮形面包可以追溯到几个世纪以前。羊角面包的历史就像披萨一样难以确定。有人说它们是 1227 年它作为圣诞礼物送给利奥波德公爵的；还有人说，模仿土耳其国旗上月亮的月牙形糕点是为了庆祝奥斯曼帝国在 1600 年代战败而准备的。在其他地方，1838 年第一家维也纳面包店倒闭后，巴黎人对配方进行了改良。最有名的故事是，出生于维也纳的玛丽-安托瓦内特王后非常想念奥地利糕点，于是让法国面包师为她制作。
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Whatever the truth, you don’t hear much whining from the French about the debated provenance of their most iconic food item.

无论真相如何，你都不会听到法国人对他们最具标志性的食品的来源争论不休。

Nor do you hear protestations from the Japanese about tempura or the Indians about vindaloo. Both have Portuguese origins. Catholic missionaries brought the Western-style cooking method of deep frying to Japan in the 16th century, while vindaloo is derived from the Portuguese “vinha de alhos”, referring to the dish’s two main ingredients, wine and garlic. The latter was originally a means for Portuguese sailors to preserve fresh ingredients, but they adapted it with spices and chillies when they got to Goa, transforming it into one of the most popular – and hottest – curries in the world.

你也不会听到日本人对天妇罗或印度人对 vindaloo 的抗议。两者都源自葡萄牙。天主教传教士在 16 世纪将西式油炸烹饪法带到了日本，而 vindaloo 则源自葡萄牙语 “vinha de alhos”，指的是这道菜的两种主要配料--酒和大蒜。后者原本是葡萄牙水手保存新鲜食材的一种方法，但他们到果阿后将其与香料和辣椒进行了改良，将其变成了世界上最受欢迎、也是最辣的咖喱之一。

Portugal can’t even claim its own famous piri piri seasoning, a la Nando’s, as its own. Much like tomatoes to Italy, the bird’s eye chilli used in the flavouring isn’t native to Portugal. It was discovered in the Americas in the 15th century during Portugal’s mercantile – cough, empirical – era and brought back to the colonies in Africa to cultivate before selling it on to Asia and Europe. And so the global spice trade was born. It didn’t make its way into Portugal until the late Sixties.

葡萄牙甚至无法将其著名的辣椒酱（如Nando's）归为自己的产品。就像番茄对意大利一样，用于调味的鸟眼辣椒并不是葡萄牙的本土产物。这种辣椒在15世纪被发现于美洲，正值葡萄牙的商业时代，并被带回非洲殖民地进行种植，然后再销往亚洲和欧洲。于是，全球香料贸易诞生了。直到六十年代末，它才进入葡萄牙。

Marco Mendes, co-founder of MJMK Restaurants, which runs the Portuguese piri piri chicken franchise Casa do Frango, has no problem acknowledging that his country’s cuisine would be nothing without the controversial history that brought so many ingredients to Portugal. “It’s definitely to do with Portuguese mercantile history in some form or another,” he tells me. “But I believe in turn we received a ton back from the countries and the people that formed part of that mercantile exploration.”

马可·门德斯（Marco Mendes）是MJMK餐厅的联合创始人，该餐厅经营着葡萄牙辣椒鸡连锁品牌Casa do Frango。他毫无避讳的承认，“他的国家美食如果没有那段充满争议的历史所获得的食材，葡萄牙的美食将一无是处。 ” 他告诉我：“这肯定与葡萄牙或多或少的重商历史有关。但我相信，反过来，我们也从那些参与商业探索的国家先辈们那里得到了巨大的好处。

With all that in mind, I have to wonder: does it really matter who invented tomato sauce on pizza? Or where your croissant is from? To acknowledge that one country might have had an impact on the food of another isn’t to be complicit in cultural appropriation. Point to any dish on a menu and you’ll have a hard time finding one that hasn’t got war, politics, economics, emigration or poverty to thank for its place there.

想到这些，我不禁要问：披萨上的番茄酱是谁发明的真的重要吗？或者你的羊角面包来自哪里？承认一个国家可能对另一个国家的食物产生过影响，并不意味着要默许文化挪用。看看菜单上的任何一道菜，你会很难找到一道菜没有受到过战争、政治、经济、移民或贫困的影响。

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