《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 27 (55):神奇的披薩餅皮
Pizzeria da Michele is a small place with only two rooms and one nonstop oven. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the train station in the rain, don't even worry about it, just go. You need to get there fairly early in the day because sometimes they run out of dough, which will break your heart. By 1:00 PM, the streets outside the pizzeria have become jammed with Neapolitans trying to get into the place, shoving for access like they're trying to get space on a lifeboat. There's not a menu. They have only two varieties of pizza here—regular and extra cheese. None of this new age southern California olives-and-sun-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle. The dough, it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza dough I ever tried. It's soft and chewy and yielding, but incredibly thin. I always thought we only had two choices in our lives when it came to pizza crust—thin and crispy, or thick and doughy. How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and doughy? Holy of holies! Thin, doughy, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise. On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance, much the same way one shimmering movie star in the middle of a party brings a contact high of glamour to everyone around her. It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it.
米凱爾比薩店地方不大，僅兩個房間和一個烘烤不停的烤爐。在雨中從火車站走去，約十五分鐘的路程，根本連擔心也不用擔心，走就是了。你得及早到那兒，因爲有時他們用完麪皮，會使你傷心欲絕。午後一點，比薩店外頭的街道已擠滿想進店裏的那不勒斯人，推推搡搡，彷彿嘗試擠上救生船。店裏沒有菜單。這裏的比薩餅只有兩種——普通口味和雙份起司，沒有所謂新時代南加州的橄欖加番茄乾的夢幻比薩。進餐中途，我才琢磨出麪皮嚐起來不像我吃過的任何比薩麪皮，倒像是印度麪包（nan），柔軟耐嚼，卻特別薄。我一向認爲談到比薩餅皮，我們一生只有兩種選擇——薄而脆，或者厚而軟。怎知這世上有一種薄而軟的餅皮？神聖的上帝！薄、軟、韌、黏、好吃、耐嚼、鹹味的比薩天堂。最上面放的甜味番茄醬汁，讓新鮮起司溶解時溢出泡沫乳脂；中央的一枝羅勒葉，讓香草芬芳充滿整個比薩，就像閃閃發光的電影明星，在派對中給周圍每個人帶來迷人陶醉的感覺。就技術而言，吃這東西當然不可能。你試着咬一口軟黏的脆褶皮，熱起司排山倒海般地散開，把你和周圍的一切弄得一團糟，不過，就隨遇而安吧。
The guys who make this miracle happen are shoveling the pizzas in and out of the wood burning oven, looking for all the world like the boilermen in the belly of a great ship who shovel coal into the raging furnaces. Their sleeves are rolled up over their sweaty forearms, their faces red with exertion, one eye squinted against the heat of the fire and a cigarette dangling from the lips. Sofie and I each order another pie—another whole pizza each—and Sofie tries to pull herself together, but really, the pizza is so good we can barely cope.
創造這項奇蹟的人，把比薩餅從燃燒木頭的烤爐中鏟進剷出，酷似在船腹工作的鍋爐工，把煤炭鏟入熊熊燃燒的火爐裏。他們的袖子卷在流汗的前臂，臉部因費勁而發紅，嘴裏叼着香菸，眯着一隻眼抵擋爐子的高溫。蘇菲和我每人又點了一份餅——每個人又吃了一整個比薩——蘇菲嘗試控制自己，但比薩實在太棒，幾乎使我們無法應付。
A word about my body. I am gaining weight every day, of course. I am doing rude things to my body here in Italy, taking in such ghastly amounts of cheese and pasta and bread and wine and chocolate and pizza dough. (Elsewhere in Naples, I'd been told, you can actually get something called chocolate pizza. What kind of nonsense is that? I mean, later I did go find some, and it's delicious, but honestly—chocolate pizza?) I'm not exercising, I'm not eating enough fiber, I'm not taking any vitamins. In my real life, I have been known to eat organic goat's milk yoghurt sprinkled with wheat germ for breakfast. My real-life days are long gone. Back in America, my friend Susan is telling people I'm on a "No Carb Left Behind" tour. But my body is being such a good sport about all this. My body is turning a blind eye to my misdoings and my overindulgences, as if to say, "OK, kid, live it up, I recognize that this is just temporary. Let me know when your little experiment with pure pleasure is over, and I'll see what I can do about damage control."
順帶說說我的身體。我當然每天都在增加體重。在意大利，我粗魯地對待自己的身體，消耗數量驚人的起司、麪食、麪包、美酒、巧克力和比薩餅。（有人告訴我，在那不勒斯另一個地方，竟吃得到所謂“巧克力比薩餅”。無聊透頂！我是說，我之後確實找到、吃到，很美味，只不過說實話——巧克力比薩？）我沒運動，我沒吃足夠的纖維，我沒吃維他命。現實生活中，我早餐吃的是撒了小麥胚芽的有機羊乳優格，不過我的現實生活早已遠去。我在美國的朋友蘇珊告訴大家，我正在從事“完全攝取碳水化合物”之旅。但我的身體卻對這一切極富雅量。我的身體對於我的罪惡與放縱視而不見，彷彿在說：“沒事，孩子，盡情地享受生活吧，我看得出這只是暫時的。讓我知道你小純粹快樂的小小試驗何時結束，再看看如何採取防治損害措施。”
Still, when I look at myself in the mirror of the best pizzeria in Naples, I see a bright-eyed, clear-skinned, happy and healthy face. I haven't seen a face like that on me for a long time.
儘管如此，當我在那不勒斯最佳比薩店的鏡子裏睇見自己時，我看到一個眼神喜悅、氣色明亮、快樂健康的臉蛋。我有好長一段時間沒看見過這樣的臉蛋了。
"Thank you," I whisper. Then Sofie and I run out in the rain to look for , Pray, Love
“謝謝你。”我低聲說。而後蘇菲和我冒着雨跑出去找糕餅吃。
