祕魯大廚加斯頓•阿克瑞奧的社會抱負

When Gastón Acurio, the Peruvian chef who has been leading his country’s culinary boom, was invited to open the academic year at Lima’s top university in 2006, many academics grumbled. Why was a cook being asked to give a landmark lecture at a temple of knowledge?

祕魯美食行業蓬勃發展，身爲領軍人物的祕魯大廚加斯頓•阿克瑞奧(Gastón Acurio)曾在2006年受邀參加利馬一所頂級大學的開學典禮，當時很多學者對此頗有微詞。爲什麼要請一名廚師在一個知識的殿堂發表具有重要意義的演講呢？

The lecture, however, highlighted how food has become a trailblazer for national pride in Peru as well as an engine for tourism, the restaurant business, agriculture and fisheries.

然而，這次演講突顯出，食品已成爲祕魯民族自豪感的重要源泉，並且成了促進旅遊業、餐飲業、農業和漁業等多個行業發展的引擎。

According to Apega, Peru’s gastronomic society, the food industry has been growing at an average rate of 7-8 per cent in recent years, while the number of restaurants has more than doubled from 45,000 in 2005 to 100,000 in 2013. Some 5.5m Peruvians benefit directly or indirectly from the industry.

根據祕魯烹飪協會Apega的數據，最近幾年，祕魯食品行業平均以7%至8%的速度增長，餐館數量從2005年的4.5萬家增至2013年的10萬家，翻了一番還多。約550萬祕魯人直接或間接受益於食品行業。

When Mr Acurio and his peers began to stir things up a decade ago, there were few if any cooking schools in the country. Today, more than 80,000 Peruvian youngsters have swapped books for spoons and are studying cookery. Mr Acurio himself attended cookery school in secret when his father, a former minister, sent him to Madrid in the 1980s to study law.

10年前，當阿克瑞奧和他的同行們開始掀起這股美食熱潮時，祕魯只有寥寥幾家烹飪學校。如今，8萬多名祕魯年輕人把書本換成了湯勺，學習烹飪。上世紀80年代，阿克瑞奧的父親（曾擔任部長）把他送到馬德里學習法律，他自己卻偷偷進了一所烹飪學校。

However, in a country in which about a third of the population still lives in poverty, Mr Acurio’s goals go beyond cultivating foodies. He wants to democratise the food trade, bridging gaps between the city and the countryside, the poor peasant and the increasingly demanding client. Cooking is not just something playful and aesthetic, “as for decades the French made us believe”, he says, pushing back his unruly hair. “It is an agent of social change, a tool for wealth creation, peace and fraternity.”

然而，在這個大約三分之一人口仍生活在貧困之中的國家，阿克瑞奧的目標不僅僅是培養美食家。他希望在食品行業推動民主，彌合城鄉區別，拉近貧困農民與要求越來越高的顧客之間的差距。烹飪並不只是有趣和美觀，“就像幾十年來法國讓我們相信的那樣”，他把散亂的頭髮向後面攏了攏，說道，“它是社會變革的一個觸媒，是財富創造、和平與博愛的工具。”

Based on that idea, he co-founded the Pachacútec Institute of Cooking, located in one of the capital’s most deprived neighbourhoods. “As cooks, we have a role to accomplish, so we built the best cooking school in a place where there is a high density of youngsters, probably without opportunities,” he says.

懷着這種理念，他與人合作成立了Pachacútec烹飪學院(Pachacútec Institute of Cooking)，學校位於利馬最貧窮的社區之一。他表示：“作爲廚師，我們要發揮自己的作用，因此我們在這個年輕人衆多、但可能缺乏機會的地區，創建了這所最優秀的烹飪學校。”

Located in an isolated and nondescript red-brick building atop a misty and deserted hill, the cookery school – which is part of a broader vocational institution – has been training some 100 chefs a year for the past six years. Mr Acurio strongly believes Pachacútec is the hotbed for some of the world’s best future chefs.

Pachacútec烹飪學校隸屬於一所職業學院，建在一座薄霧籠罩的荒山頂上，設在一棟偏遠且毫無特色的紅磚樓裏。過去6年，這所學校每年培養出約100名廚師。阿克瑞奧堅信，Pachacútec烹飪學院將培育一批全球最優秀的廚師。

“Cooks from all over the world love this. They can’t believe the lucidity of these kids, who have a clear idea of the potential being a cook has these days, and the capacity they could have in influencing society,” says Mr Acurio.

阿克瑞奧表示：“全世界的廚師都會喜歡這裏。他們無法相信這些年輕人有着多麼清醒的頭腦，他們對於現在成爲一名廚師所需要具備的潛質以及他們本身可能具有的影響社會的能力，都有着清晰的認識。”

Aside from himself and other renowned Peruvian cooks, the school has boasted visiting professors such as Ferran Adrià, the superchef who used to run Catalonia’s elBulli restaurant. Mr Adrià taught twice at Pachacútec and was surprised by the willingness and good standard of the students. “Gastón has turned himself into an icon and what he has managed to do with Peru’s cuisine is admirable,” says Mr Adrià.

除了他自己以及祕魯其他知名廚師之外，這所學校還擁有曾經管理加州elBulli餐廳的超級廚師費蘭•阿德里亞(Ferran Adrià)等訪問教授。阿德里亞在Pachacútec烹飪學院教授過兩次課，他對學生們的學習意願和優秀素質感到吃驚。阿德里亞表示：“加斯頓已把自己變成了一個偶像，他在推廣祕魯美食方面取得的成功令人欽佩。”

As the night gets started and the kitchen busy in Astrid and Gastón, Mr Acurio’s flagship restaurant in Lima, Elba Velarde, one of Pachacútec’s leading former students, says she is determined to be one of the world’s best chefs. “I’ve got the building blocks from Gastón already, that in itself is just wonderful,” she says, scrubbing her hands on the white and red apron.

阿克瑞奧在利馬的旗艦餐廳叫做Astrid and Gastón，夜幕降臨時，廚房裏一片忙碌景象，Pachacútec烹飪學院前優秀學員艾爾巴•維拉德(Elba Velarde)表示，她決心成爲全球最優秀的廚師之一。“我從加斯頓那裏學到了基礎知識，這本身就很棒，”她表示，雙手在她那紅白相間的圍裙上抹了抹。

For Mr Acurio, Ms Velarde is a good example of how the cooking bug has already bitten the new generation of Peruvians who are eager to spread the Andean country’s rich and multicultural culinary culture throughout the world.

在阿克瑞奧眼裏，維拉德是一個很好的例子，表明烹飪已吸引新一代祕魯人，他們渴望將這個位於安第斯山脈的國家那融合了多元文化、豐富多彩的烹飪文化，傳播到全世界。

“What we are trying to do with the Peruvian food is what the French accomplished over 200 years, the Italians over 100 years, the Japanese over 50 years – and we will do it in 25 years,” he adds.

他說：“關於祕魯美食，我們希望取得像法國人、意大利人和日本人那樣的成就，他們分別用了200年、100年和50年，而我們將用25年達到目標。”