一锅炖了60天的炖菜，你会吃吗？那一盆煲了49年、仍在不断加入新原料的老汤呢？这类经过持续炖制、永不离火、锅不见底的菜品被人们称作 “永久炖菜”。有些人担心它不卫生，而有一些人则认为菜品经炖制后使病原体无法存活，因此可以放心食用。本文介绍 “永久炖菜” 的前世今生。

　　词汇：cooking烹饪

　　What's the oldest meal you've eaten? Maybe you've had leftovers² from a few days ago. They probably still tasted good. But what if it wasn't a few days ago, what if you ate a 60-day old stew? Or a 49-year-old beef noodle soup?

　　Perpetual stew is a dish that is never taken off the heat; it's never finished. As portions are served, new ingredients are put in the pot to replace them. One day's stew becomes the basis of the following days' meals. There have been some famous examples. This year, Annie Rauwerda's 60-day stew became a social media sensation. One Bangkok restaurant claims to have been cooking its beef noodle soup since the 1970s. It has been suggested that perpetual stew was a tradition in Medieval Europe when the effort required to start a fire meant that they were left to burn all day, and a pot of stew was always simmering away on top of it. One New York Times article tells us about a stew in Normandy that was kept cooking for 300 years.

　　This tradition may date back to the Middle Ages, but thankfully, our understanding of food hygiene³ has developed since then. In a world where food is often thrown away once it reaches its use-by date, many people have asked how safe perpetual stew can actually be. Experts are divided, some maintain that as long as the stew is kept bubbling away at a temperature too high for pathogens to survive, it should be safe. Others suggest that meat can become dangerous if it's left in the stew for too long. Concerns have also been raised that some vegetables, such as potatoes, or those containing nitrates, could become more toxic⁴ the more they are reheated.

　　Advocates of slow cooking believe that the best food takes time, but even they may be surprised by a months or years-old perpetual stew.

　　词汇表

　　leftovers 剩饭，剩菜

　　stew 炖菜

　　beef noodle soup 牛肉汤面

　　dish （一道）菜

　　take off the heat 将…从灶上挪开，离火

　　portion （食物的）一份

　　ingredient 食材，原料

　　pot 锅

　　simmer 炖，煨

　　food hygiene 食品卫生

　　use-by date 保质期

　　bubble 沸腾，咕嘟冒泡

　　pathogen 病原体

　　nitrate 硝酸盐

　　toxic 有毒的

　　reheat 重新加热（食物）

　　slow cooking 慢炖

 

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