半个世纪前，她将地道中餐带到美国
Cecilia Chiang, Who Brought Authentic Chinese Food to America, Dies at 100
WILLIAM GRIMES
2020年10月29日
Cecilia Chiang, whose San Francisco restaurant, the Mandarin, introduced American diners in the 1960s to the richness and variety of authentic Chinese cuisine, died on Wednesday at her home in San Francisco. She was 100.
江孙芸(Cecilia Chiang)于周三在旧金山家中去世，享年100岁。上世纪60年代，她在旧金山创办的福禄寿餐厅(Mandarin)向美国食客介绍了丰富多样的地道中餐。
Her granddaughter Siena Chiang confirmed the death.
她的孙女江希娜(Siena Chiang)确认了她的死讯。
Ms. Chiang came to the United States from China as a daughter of wealth who had fled the Japanese during World War II, traveling nearly 700 miles on foot. Once in San Francisco, she proceeded, largely by happenstance and almost single-handedly, to bring Chinese cuisine from the chop suey and chow mein era into the more refined one of today, enticing diners with the dishes she ate growing up in her family’s converted Ming-era palace in Beijing.
江孙芸从中国来到美国之前，是一位曾在“二战”期间徒步近700英里躲日本人的富家女。一到旧金山，她——很大程度在偶然和几乎是一己之力的情况下——把中餐从杂碎和炒面的时代，发展到如今更加精致的时代，用她从小在北京一处由明朝宫殿改建的家中吃到的菜肴来吸引食客。
The Mandarin, which opened in 1962 as a 65-seat restaurant on Polk Street in the Russian Hill section and later operated on Ghirardelli Square, near Fisherman’s Wharf, offered patrons unheard-of specialties at the time, like potstickers, Chongqing-style spicy dry-shredded beef, peppery Sichuan eggplant, moo shu pork, sizzling rice soup and glacéed bananas.
福禄寿餐厅于1962年开业，当时店里有65个座位，位于俄罗斯山街区的波尔克街，后来又搬到渔人码头附近的哥拉德利广场，它供应了当时人们闻所未闻的特色菜，比如锅贴、重庆风味的香辣牛肉干、四川辣茄子、木须肉、锅巴汤和拔丝香蕉。
This was traditional Mandarin cooking, a catchall term for the dining style of the well-to-do in Beijing, where family chefs prepared local dishes as well as regional specialties from Sichuan, Shanghai and Canton.
这就是典型的福禄寿式烹饪，是对北京富庶阶层用餐风格的总称，他们的家庭厨师会制作本地菜肴，以及来自四川、上海和广东的地方特色菜。
In a profile of Ms. Chiang in 2007, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that her restaurant “defined upscale Chinese dining, introducing customers to Sichuan dishes like kung pao chicken and twice-cooked pork, and to refined preparations like minced squab in lettuce cups; tea-smoked duck; and beggar’s chicken, a whole bird stuffed with dried mushrooms, water chestnuts and ham and baked in clay.”
在2007年对江孙芸所做的一篇人物特写中，《旧金山纪事报》称她的餐厅“定义了高档中餐，向顾客介绍了宫保鸡丁和回锅肉这样的川菜，还用生菜乳鸽松、樟茶鸭以及填满了冬菇、马蹄和火腿，裹着土烤熟的叫花鸡等菜肴重新定义了烹饪方法”。
The restaurant became a shrine for such food-world luminaries as James Beard, Marion Cunningham and Alice Waters, who said that Ms. Chiang had done for Chinese cuisine what Julia Child had done for the cooking of France.
这家餐厅成了包括詹姆斯·比尔德(James Beard)、玛丽昂·坎宁安(Marion Cunningham)和爱丽丝·沃特斯(Alice Waters)在内的美食界名人的胜地，他们说，江孙芸对中餐的贡献，就像朱丽叶·查尔德(Julia Child)对法式烹饪的贡献一样。
That sentiment was echoed by the food magazine Saveur in 2000, when it wrote that the Mandarin had “accomplished nothing less than introducing regional Chinese cooking to America.”
美食杂志《Saveur》在2000年也表达了类似的观点，称福禄寿“成功将中国的地方烹饪带到了美国”。
The food scholar Paul Freedman included the Mandarin in his historical survey “Ten Restaurants That Changed America” (2016).
美食学者保罗·弗里德曼(Paul Freedman)将福禄寿列入了他的历史考察作品《改变美国的十家餐厅（2016版）》中。
Like Mrs. Child, Ms. Chiang was not a chef, nor was she a likely candidate to run a restaurant. She was born Sun Yun near Shanghai in 1920 — the precise date is unclear — the seventh daughter in a family of nine girls and three boys. Her father, Sun Long Guang, was a French-educated railway engineer who retired at 50 to pursue reading and gardening. Her mother, Sun Shueh Yun Hui, came from a wealthy family that owned textile and flour mills. After her parents died, Sun Yun managed the businesses’ finances while still in her teens.
和查尔德（指茱莉亚·查尔德，她是一名美食家、作家与电视节目主持人——编注）一样，江孙芸并不是厨师，看上去也不像会经营餐厅的人。她于1920年——具体日期不详——在上海附近出生，名叫孙芸，是一个九女三子家庭的第七个女儿。她的父亲孙龙光是一名曾在法国接受教育的铁路工程师，在50岁退休后追求起阅读和做园艺的生活。她的母亲孙薛云慧(Sun Shueh Yun Hui)来自一个开纺织厂和面粉厂的富裕家庭。父母去世后，十几岁的孙芸就开始管理企业财务。
The Ming-era palace in which she grew up occupied an entire block in Beijing, where the Chiangs moved in the mid-1920s. Children were not allowed in the kitchen, but she paid close attention on trips to the food markets with her mother and listened carefully as detailed instructions were issued to the cooks.
她从小生活的明朝宫殿占据了北京整整一个街区，他们在20世纪20年代中期搬到了这里。孩子们是不允许进厨房的，但她和母亲去菜市场的时候都很注意，并认真听她交代厨师们的话。
After the Japanese occupied Beijing in 1939, the family’s fortunes became precarious. In early 1943, Cecilia, as she was called by her teachers at the Roman Catholic Fu Jen University, left to join relatives in Chongqing.
1939年，日本人占领北京之后，这家人的命运变得岌岌可危。1943年初，被罗马天主教辅仁大学的老师称为塞西莉亚(Cecilia)的孙芸离开了北京，投奔重庆的亲戚。
In her long journey, much of it by walking, she survived on a few gold coins sewed into her clothes, her only assets after Japanese soldiers had stolen her suitcase.
她漫长旅途的大部分时间都是步行，靠缝在衣服里的几块金元生存下来，日本兵偷走她的行李箱之后，这是她仅剩的财产。
In Chongqing she found part-time work as a teacher of Mandarin at the American and Soviet embassies. She also met and married Chiang Liang, whom she had known as an economics professor at Fu Jen University and who was by then a tobacco company executive.
在重庆，她找到了一份兼职工作，在美国和苏联的使馆教普通话。她还遇到了在辅仁大学认识的经济学教授江梁，并嫁给了他，当时江梁是一家烟草公司的高管。
The couple moved to Shanghai after the war. In 1949, when Communist forces were poised to take over China, Mr. Chiang was offered a diplomatic post in Tokyo at the Nationalist Chinese Mission.
战后，这对夫妇搬到了上海。1949年，当共产党军队准备接管中国时，国民党驻东京大使馆向江梁提供了一个外交职位。
Two years after arriving in Tokyo, Ms. Chiang opened a Chinese restaurant there, the Forbidden City, with a group of friends. It was an instant success, attracting Chinese expatriates and Japanese diners as well.
在东京居住两年后，江孙芸和一群朋友在当地开了家紫禁城餐厅(Forbidden City)。这家餐厅迅速获得成功，吸引了华侨和日本食客。
Ms. Chiang sailed to San Francisco in 1960 to help her sister Sun, whose husband had just died. There she met two Chinese acquaintances from Tokyo, women who had recently emigrated to the United States and who wanted to open a restaurant. Ms. Chiang agreed to put up $10,000 as a deposit on a store they had found, on Polk Street, far from the city’s Chinatown.
1960年，江孙芸乘船前往旧金山，帮助丈夫刚去世的姐姐。在那里，她遇到了两位从东京来的中国熟人，她们最近移民到美国，想开一家餐厅。江孙芸同意拿出1万美元，作为她们在波尔克街找到的一家商铺的定金，那里距离唐人街很远。
When the two women backed out, Ms. Chiang found to her horror that the deposit was not refundable. She took a deep breath and decided to open the restaurant herself rather than tell her husband that she had lost the money.
当那两位女性退出合伙后，江孙芸才惊慌地发现定金是不能退还的。她深吸了一口气，决定自己开餐厅，而不是告诉丈夫她把钱弄没了。
“I began to think that if I could create a restaurant with Western-style service and ambience and the dishes that I was most familiar with — the delicious food of northern China — maybe my little restaurant would succeed,” she wrote in the second of her two cookbook memoirs, “The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco” (2007, written with Lisa Weiss). The first was “The Mandarin Way” (1974, with Allan Carr).
“我开始想，如果能创建一个拥有西式服务和氛围，还有我最熟悉的菜肴——中国北方的美食——的餐厅，也许我的小餐馆会成功，”她在自己两本烹饪回忆录的第二部《七女：我从北京到旧金山的美食之旅》（“The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco”，2007年出版，与莉萨·韦斯[Lisa Weiss]合著）中写道。她的第一本书是《福禄寿之道》（“The Mandarin Way”，1974年出版，与阿兰·卡尔[Allan Carr]合著）。
Through a newspaper ad, Ms. Chiang found two talented chefs, a married couple from Shandong, and in no time the restaurant was up and running. The early days were difficult. Local suppliers, who all spoke Cantonese, refused to deliver to the Mandarin and would not extend credit. The menu, with 200 dishes, was unmanageable. Ms. Chiang, short on help, scrubbed the kitchen floors herself.
通过报刊广告，江孙芸找到了两位才华横溢的厨师，是一对来自山东的夫妇，餐厅很快就开起来了。初期的日子很艰难。当地的供应商都说粤语，他们拒绝为福禄寿送货，也不愿提供贷款。多达200道菜的菜单也很难处理。由于人手不足，江孙芸得自己擦洗厨房的地板。
But little by little, Chinese diners, and a few Americans, came regularly for hot and sour soup and pan-fried potstickers. One evening, Herb Caen, the popular columnist for The Chronicle, dined at the restaurant. In a subsequent column, he called it “a little hole-in-the wall” that was serving “some of the best Chinese food east of the Pacific.”
但渐渐地，中国食客和一些美国人开始定期来这里吃酸辣汤和煎锅贴。一天晚上，纪事报颇受欢迎的专栏作家赫伯·卡恩(Herb Caen)来到这家餐厅用餐。在随后的一篇专栏里，他称这家“小馆子”提供“太平洋东岸最美味的一些中餐”。
Overnight the tables filled. Lines formed outside the door. The Mandarin was on its way. In 1968, Ms. Chiang moved the restaurant to larger quarters on Ghirardelli Square, where she could accommodate 300 diners and offer cooking classes.
一夜之间，餐厅满座。门外排起了长队。福禄寿火了。1968年，江孙芸将餐厅搬到了哥拉德利广场一处更大的店面，可以容纳300位食客，还提供烹饪课程。
In 1975 she opened a second Mandarin, in Beverly Hills, Calif. She sold it to her son, Philip, in 1989. He later helped create the P.F. Chang’s restaurant chain. He survives her, as do her daughter, May Ongbhaibulya; three granddaughters; and three great-grandchildren.
1975年，她在加州贝弗利山开了第二家福禄寿餐厅。1989年，她把这家店卖给了儿子江一帆(Philip)。后来，他帮助创建了华馆(P.F. Chang)连锁餐厅。江一帆和江孙芸之女梅·昂贝布里亚(May Ongbhaibulya)仍然健在；江孙芸有三个孙女；以及三个曾孙辈。
Ms. Chiang sold the original Mandarin in 1991. It closed in 2006.
1991年，江孙芸卖掉了第一家福禄寿餐厅。它于2006年停业。
Ms. Chiang continued to work as a restaurant consultant into her 90s. The director Wayne Wang made a documentary about her, “Soul of a Banquet,” which was released in 2014, and in 2016 the San Diego PBS station KPBS broadcast a six-part series, “The Kitchen Wisdom of Cecilia Chiang.”
江孙芸90多岁时仍继续担任餐厅顾问。导演王颖拍摄了一部关于她的纪录片《筵席的艺术》(Soul of a Banquet)，于2014年上映。2016年，圣地亚哥PBS电视台KPBS播出了一部六集系列片，《江孙芸的的厨房智慧》(The Kitchen Wisdom of Cecilia Chiang)。
“I think I changed what average people know about Chinese food,” Mrs. Chiang told The Chronicle in 2007. “They didn’t know China was such a big country.”
“我想我改变了普通人对中餐的认知，”江孙芸在2007年对纪事报说。“他们都不知道中国是个那么大的国家。”
