天亮就埋下的晚餐

在一座冒着蒸汽的小湖旁边,波莉看见一排大锅立在几个挖进焦黑裸土里的深坑边上。一位系着厚围裙的厨师沿着这排坑忙活,用绳子把封好的锅一只只放进坑里;波莉落在旁边的栏杆上看着,好奇究竟什么东西值得埋进地里去煮。

Near a small lake ringed with steam, Polly found a row of large pots standing beside deep holes cut into the bare, blackened ground. A cook in a heavy apron worked down the line, lowering a sealed pot into each hole with a rope, and Polly settled on a nearby rail to watch, curious what could possibly be worth cooking in a hole in the ground.

每口锅里都层层码着肉、香肠、卷心菜和根茎类蔬菜,封得严严实实,然后放进从底下被加热到接近沸水温度的泥土中。没有一点明火碰到它们。热量全部来自整座山谷底下的火山,顺着裂缝往上冒;那些裂缝在好几代人以前就被挖开,用石圈标了出来,远早于有人用仪器去量它的温度。

Each pot held layers of meat, sausage, cabbage, and root vegetables, sealed tight and lowered into earth heated from below to roughly the temperature of boiling water. No flame touches any of it. The heat comes entirely from the volcano beneath the whole valley, rising up through cracks that were dug out and marked with stone rings generations ago, long before anyone measured the temperature scientifically.

厨师连比带划地解释说,锅一大早就下去,埋上六七个小时,这段时间大家就去看湖、逛花园或者进城,等到该把晚饭挖出来的时候再回来。他的意思大概是:这是岛上最省事的一顿饭,也是最古怪的一间厨房。

The cook explained, more with gestures than words, that the pots go in early and stay buried for six or seven hours while everyone goes off to visit the lake, the gardens, or the town, coming back only when it is time to dig dinner up again. It is, he seemed to say, the easiest meal on the island to start and by far the strangest kitchen to cook it in.

第一口锅被吊上来的时候,蒸汽像一团厚云一样涌出来,慢炖的肉和卷心菜的香味飘满了整片空地。波莉没有留下来吃,但她看着厨师得意地把锅端走,好像所有的活儿都是他干的,而不是那座山。

When the first pot came up, steam poured out of it in a thick cloud, and the smell of slow-cooked meat and cabbage drifted across the whole clearing. Polly did not stay for the meal itself, but she watched the cook carry it away proudly, as if he, and not the mountain, had done all the work.