或许“中国菜”并不存在 Perhaps Chinese cuisine doesn't exist

Does Chinese cuisine exist?

中国菜真的存在吗？

I’m not merely being provocative when I suggest … sort of.

当我提出这个问题，可能稍有挑衅，而我本无此意。

Chinese food, as it’s perhaps better thought of, certainly exists.

稍加思索之后，问题答案是中国菜当然存在。

But its diversity is as great as a continent’s, in that it’s actually hundreds if not thousands of cuisines.

如同大陆面积之广，中国菜也各种各样。实际上，中国菜肴即使没有成千上万，也已成百上千。

Arguably, it’s tough to place ethnic Kazak cuisine — think butter and horse intestines as staples — from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in the same category as the saccharine fish of Jiangsu province’s Wuxi.

可以说，我们很难把新疆维吾尔自治区哈萨克族的黄油和马肠子等特色菜肴和江苏省无锡市的糖醋鱼相提并论，并将其归为一类。

They’re at least as different as Swedish versus Italian cuisines — or either are compared with, say, Ecuadorian food.

上述两个菜系的区别至少应该像瑞典菜与意大利菜一样，是不同菜系。或者说，就像瑞典菜、意大利菜和厄瓜多尔菜相比一样，三者都属于不同菜系。

To be fair, that’s contrasting fare from the country’s northwestern grasslands and its southeastern river delta.

平心而论，这是中国西北大草原和东南三角洲地貌对比衍生的结果。

But within Jiangsu alone, Wuxi’s and Nanjing’s respective cuisines, for example, actually share little resemblance despite both being categorized assucai under the widely used “eight-cuisines” model.

以江苏省为例，虽然无锡菜和南京菜都属于“八大菜系”中的苏菜，但事实上，二者大相径庭。

Wuxi’s fare is characterized by copious sugar and such aquaculture staples as blowfish and the “three whites” — white fish, white bait and white shrimp. Not even 200 kilometers away, salted duck and duck-blood soup are mainstays of Jiangsu’s capital.

无锡菜口味偏甜，擅长河豚、（太湖）“三白”（白鱼、银鱼和白虾）等各类水产。而仅在距离无锡不到200公里的南京，盐水鸭和鸭血粉丝汤却是其特色菜肴。

As a friend from Nanjing recently put it: “They’re totally different.”

正如南京的一位朋友最近所说的那样:“无锡菜和南京菜截然不同。”

Another friend, from Wuxi, agreed.

另一位无锡的朋友对此表示赞同。

That’s not to say the “eight-cuisines” classification is wrong.

这并不代表“八大菜系”分类有误。

But it’s far from sufficient to describe the enormous and diverse country’s vast gastronomic landscape.

然而，要想以此来描述幅员辽阔的中国菜系，这恐怕还远远不够。

I’ve discovered while traveling through every province, municipality and autonomous region in China that the “eight cuisines” are far too broad to describe what people actually eat in different places.

当我踏遍中国的每个省份，每个直辖市，每个自治区后，我发现“八大菜系”这一分类过于宽泛，难以将人们在不同地方真正吃到的菜系囊括其中。

For reasons experts debate, certain cuisines account for a disproportionate share of restaurant representation nationwide.

因为专家持续争论，某些菜系在全国菜系中所占比例失调。

You’ll rarely need to go more than a few blocks to find a Sichuan, Hunan and Cantonese restaurant in any big Chinese city.

在中国任何一座大城市，你可以毫不费力找到川菜馆、湘菜馆和粤菜馆。

But you’d have to search a bit to find meals from Jiangxi, Qinghai or Hainan provinces.

但是，要想找到江西菜、青海菜或者海南菜，你都得下足功夫。

Yet these places have produced distinctive cuisines that are just as sophisticated — and delicious — as those that have become icons of the national culinary scene.

然而，这些地方菜系也有其独特之处，和享誉全国的“八大菜系”一样精致，美味。

One of my favorite things about visiting Hubei’s provincial capital, Wuhan, for instance, is the food.

以自身为例，我在湖北省省会武汉游玩时，最享受武汉的美食。

Hubei’s cuisine is often placed under the broadxiangcai category associated with Hunan province’s cuisine.

人们通常把湖北菜和湖南菜联系在一块，并将湖北菜纳入湘菜。

But Hubei’s gastronomy is unique from Hunan’s. It’s generally saltier and less spicy, and more likely to be sour or deep-fried.

然而，湖北菜和湖南菜的烹饪方式各不相同。湖北菜通常以咸鲜、稍辣为主，更加偏酸，偏油炸。

Again, while Hunanese restaurants abound around the country, you’d have to hunt for a Hubei restaurant, even if both are technicallyxiangcai.

同样，虽然湖南菜和湖北菜都在湘菜之中，但是湖南餐馆遍布全国，湖北餐馆却并不常见。

I was delighted when a Guizhou restaurant opened near my home years ago.

数年前，我家附近开了一家贵州特色餐馆，我很开心。

The province is one of my favorite places to eat. But its dishes aren’t nearly as popular as those of neighboring Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

贵州省的食物是我最爱的食物之一。（虽然贵州省邻近云南省和四川省，）但贵州菜远没有云南菜和四川菜受欢迎。

The joint was typically pretty empty — perhaps because of a lack of brand recognition of Guizhou cuisine — and eventually shut down.

可能因为大家缺乏对贵州菜的品牌认知，所以这家店门可罗雀，最终关门大吉。

The bookChinese Cuisine Products 34-4 System released last month attempts to more-precisely classify China’s cuisines.

上个月出版的《中国菜34-4体系》一书试图更准确划分中国菜系。

The author, Liu Guangwei, addresses the complexity of Chinese food using a categorization system that accounts for various dimensions. Liu developed a taxonomy in which every dish can be rendered as a 19-digit code, like a barcode.

作者刘广伟采用分类系统方法，从不同维度阐释了中国菜的复杂性。刘广伟还制定了19位数字编码的产品编码，这样每道菜都有自身如同条形码的编码。

For instance, the first two digits represent the province. The last digit represents the season. Codifications in between indicate such dimensions as ingredients, cooking techniques and ethnicity.

例如，前两位数字代表省份，最后一位数字代表季节。中间数字代表主料、技法和民族等维度。

This approach is useful at an academic level in how it — perhaps imperfectly — explores the question: “What is Chinese food?”

从学术角度来说，这种分类方法或许并未至善至美，但非常有用，因为它回答了一个问题:“什么是中国菜?”

But, practically speaking, it doesn’t necessarily mean that, say, more of us outside of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region will be more likely to sample “beer fish”, let alone understand the dish’s position in the greater concept of “Chinese cuisine” — to whatever extent that exists.

但是，实际而言，这种分类方法并不是说我们这些广西壮族自治区以外的人更有可能品尝“啤酒鱼”。更别说，我们会更可能了解这道菜在“中国菜”这个大范畴下的存在地位和重要程度了。