成都重庆火锅之争【经济学人精讲】第253期
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本文选自《经济学人》2019年4月13日文章。火锅在近几十年来不仅征服了中国人的味蕾，还名扬海外，海底捞于去年把自己的生意扩大到加拿大，今年还要在伦敦开设分店。而针对哪一派火锅最正宗，成都与重庆互不相让，争夺已久。这篇轻松的小品文带领大家认识中国两大火锅宗派。
The gripes of broth 火锅之争
gripe:
抱怨、发牢骚; broth: 肉汤，这里指“火锅汤”，meat broth：肉羹；nutrient broth：营养肉汤、营养液体培养基
Two cities tussle over who makes the tastiest Sichuan hotpot
两个城市在谁做的四川火锅最好吃的问题上争论不休
tussle over sth:
关于某事的斗争；tussle with sb: 与某人斗争; tussle for sth: 为争夺某事斗争；外刊中，该词经常用作名词“斗争”的意思，例如：
[经济学人浓咖啡例句]：After months of threats, the tit-for-tat tariff tussle between the world’s two biggest economies got real today. 在几个月的相互威胁之后，世界最大的两个经济体之间针锋相对的关税斗争终于在今天成为现实。
A fiery dish takes China by storm, irking snooty food critics
一种火辣辣的美食席卷中国，让傲慢的美食家厌烦
Apr 13th 2019 | BEIJING
CHENGDU, THE capital of Sichuan province, has an ancient rivalry with Chongqing, a city to its south-east. Residents of Chongqing accuse their Chengdu cousins of being pompous. The people of Chongqing are hotheads, Chengdu dwellers shoot back. Both cities share a love of spice-laden Sichuan cuisine, which in recent decades has conquered Chinese palates. But they are at war over which has the best Sichuan hotpot—a type of DIY-cooking that involves boiling vegetables and slices of meat in a communal broth with chillies and numbing peppercorns.
ancient rivalry: 宿敌
cousin:
原意指“堂兄弟姊妹；表兄弟姊妹”，这里是指与前面出现的人或物相对应的人或物，以避免重复（sb or sth that is similar to previous），与equivalent、counterpart类似。例如：Beijing residents and their Shanghai cousins: 北京人和上海人。
pompous:
自大的、傲慢的，类似的词还有：self-important, imperious, arrogant, conceited等
hothead: 字面意思是头脑发热，即性急鲁莽的
shoot back: 开枪还击，这里指回击。
spice-laden:
火辣辣的、满是香料的。laden是由“load”(装载)变化而来，“-laden”是非常常见的构词法，托福和雅思考试中也经常出现，表示“满载的、充满的”，例如，《AP News Minute》中出现过一句话：Two explosions said to be caused by explosive-laden vehicles were seen in the Syrian city of Aleppo. 在叙利亚城市阿勒颇，两起爆炸据称是由满载炸药的车辆引起的。
Sichuan cuisine: 川菜；Guangdong/Cantonese cuisine: 粤菜；Huaiyang cuisine：淮扬菜
conquer Chinese palates: 征服了中国人的味蕾，相比于delicious/ tasty/ appetizing(有食欲的)/ mouth-watering（直流口水的）/ finger-licking（回味无穷的），这种表达更文雅。
be at war over: 与…交战/ 争吵
chilli: 红辣椒
numbing peppercorns:
满嘴发麻的胡椒，numbing: adj. 使麻木的；使失去感觉的; peppercorn: 胡椒
四川省会成都与其东南部城市重庆是一直是宿敌。重庆人指责成都人自大，成都人则回击说重庆人性急鲁莽。这两个城市都热爱辛辣的川菜，川菜也在近几十年来征服了中国人的味蕾。但是他们为谁的四川火锅最好吃一直争论不休，四川火锅是一种自制烹饪，有一个放有辣椒和花椒的公共底料，将蔬菜和肉片放入其中煮。
A private museum in Chongqing, opened several years ago, makes the case for Chongqing-style hotpot. It describes how it developed from a method used to make cheap offcuts of meat taste delicious. But Chengdu is playing catch-up. In January the city sold a plot of land on condition that the developer build a hotpot museum on part of it. Such presumptuous behaviour will test the famous fiery tempers of Chongqing-ites. Chengdu may be the capital of Sichuan cuisine’s eponymous province, but Chongqing was part of Sichuan for long periods of history until 1997. It is now the capital of its own province-sized region, which is also called Chongqing.
play catch-up: 扭转败局、颓势
presumptuous: adj. 专横的；放肆的；冒昧的
eponymous: 同名的
几年前，重庆的一家私人博物馆对外开放，其展示了重庆火锅的特色。这家博物馆描述火锅是如何通过让廉价的肉末变得美味的这一方法发展起来的。但成都正在迎头赶上。今年1月，该市出售了一块土地，条件是开发商要在这块地上修建一座火锅博物馆。这种狂妄的行为会考验重庆人的火爆脾气。成都可能是四川省的省会，川菜的名字就是来源于四川，但重庆在1997年以前一直是四川的一部分。现在，它是自己直辖市的首府，也被称为重庆。