图片来源：Yanina Trekhleb, Unsplash

 

The Invention of Cereal 早餐麦片的问世

 

Before cereal represented our over-sugared, overprocessed relationship with food, Americans viewed cereal as a health food.

在早期，麦片还没有像现在这样添加过多的砂糖还有放其他杂七杂八的食品在里面。所以美国人会认为麦片是一种健康的食品。

 

Its origins lie in health sanitariums run in the mid to late 1800s by some familiar names—like Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. It was a reform period when doctors were still often called quacks: Germ theory was just gaining prominence, and Dr. Kellogg’s favorite medical tool was a bath. His malady cures resembled spa treatments; “hydrotherapy” was popular at the time.

 

麦片的发源地是在1800年代晚期的疗养院，当时麦片是由一些医生所研制而成的，其中一位医生的名字相信您们很常在超市里的麦片包装上见到过。没错，就是约翰哈维家乐氏医生。不过在那个时候医学还并不发达，所以当时大家都称这些医生为江湖郎中：那时候病菌学理论仍在起步当中，而家乐氏医生的医疗工具也只是一个澡盆而已。他治疗病人的方式就像是在做"spa”一样；而在19世纪，这样的"水疗"相当地常见。

 

在19世纪那个医学尚未发达的年代，大众只把医生视为是江湖郎中而已，图片来源：JESHOOTS.COM, Unsplash

 

Kellogg and his peers believed they could improve Americans’ health by changing their diets. They believed that too much meat and too many spices had negative effects, and they preferred whole grains to white breads. A dietary reformer named Sylvester Graham invented the graham cracker in 1827. James Caleb Jackson, who did not allow red meat at his sanitarium, invented a cereal that he named “granula” in 1863. And James Kellogg developed granola or corn flakes in the 1890s.

 

家乐氏与他同事深信，透过改变美国人的饮食方式，是可以改善他们的健康状况的。这是因为他们认为，摄取过多的肉品和过多调味料的食物对身体是有负面的影响，另外他们也主张全谷类(whole grains)比白面包来得健康。格雷厄姆(Sylvester Graham)，是一名饮食改革者，他于1827年研发了史上第一款全麦饼干；而詹姆士杰可森是一个不允许在他的疗养院里出现红肉的医生，也在1863年研制了一款名为"燕麦片(Granula)”的产品。而家乐氏医生则是在1890年代发明了麦片。

 

The original versions were spartan affairs. They were not sweet, and people had to soak Jackson’s granula in milk just to make it edible. Critics called granula “wheat rocks.” Kellogg’s versions weren’t much better.

 

这些原始版本的麦片在当时并没有像现在那样的好入口，是因为他们本身并不甜。而像是人们在吃杰克森研发的谷麦棒时，人们必须要加入牛奶才可以食用。甚至在当时，有些比较恶毒的评论家因此还会称这些麦片为"白色石头"。而家乐氏版本的麦片口感也并没有好到哪去。

 

一百多年前，人们在吃麦片的时候得加牛奶才可以吃，图片来源：Daria Nepriakhina, Unsplash

 

But people wanted them. "The first year that the product was available saw more than 50 tons manufactured and sold in spite of primitive production facilities,” a Kellogg biographer writes of his corn flakes. “Soon cereal manufacturing companies sprang up all over the country.” By 1903, there were 100 cereal companies in Kellogg’s town of Battle Creek alone.

 

但很意外的，当时这些产品竟然大受好评。在家乐氏传记里正好提到，"尽管当时生产设备相当地原始，但是家乐氏麦片在第一年发行的销量就超过了50吨" "过了不久，麦片生产商就遍及了美国全境" 在1903年以前，光是在巴特尔克里克(美国密西根州的一个城市)-这个家乐氏的发源地，就有多达100间专营麦片的公司。

 

It was a full on craze. Cereal was seen as a solution to the nation’s dyspepsia, author Abigail Carroll argues, and since it didn’t need to be cooked, it was a convenience food at a time when the Industrial Revolution meant people had less time and less access to a kitchen or farm.

 

麦片的问世让人们陷入了抢购的风潮。一般认为，这是因为当时人们认为，麦片是改善消化不良这种文明病的最佳良药。不过阿比果卡萝对这个现象做了不同的解释：麦片之所以在当时会畅销，是因为它是一种无须花费太多心力跟时间就能够食用的简便食品(convience food)。对于当时正处于工业革命的时代下，或许麦片正是能够解决家家户户进厨房时间变少的最好方式。

 

在工业革命的年代，人们的生活变得越来越繁忙，也因此像麦片这种能快速方便烹调的食品就越来越受欢迎。图片来源：
Carlos T, Unsplash

 

The most successful food trends tend to combine science and morality, and the invention of cereal was no exception.

历史上，许多的饮食风气都是结合当代流行的科学及当时人们的道德观念，而麦片的问世与后续的发展也并非例外。

 

Kellogg termed his lifestyle—more exercise, more baths, and simpler, blander foods—”biologic living”, and he gave lectures and wrote long tracts to promote it. He described the modern diet as unnatural and too diverse. “To eat biologically,” he wrote, “is simply to eat scientifically, to eat normally.” Like a paleo devotee, he promised a return to man’s natural diet. Except his answer was cereal.

 

家乐氏声称，"多运动、多洗澡、摄取简单且较无调味的食品"这样的生活方式为"原始生物般的生活"，此外家乐氏还开设课程并编写教材来宣传这种生活方式。他认为当代的饮食并非天然而且也太过于复杂了，于是他在教材里写道："要吃得像大自然的动物一样其实并不难，只要吃得合乎科学观念并吃得正常即可" 就像现在实行原始人饮食(paleo)一样，他认为要吃得健康，得多吃全食(whole food,未经处理的食物)。但有个食品例外，那就是麦片。

 

麦片是家乐氏认为是最健康的饮食法中，唯一一种可食用的加工食品。图片来源：THE 5TH, Unsplash

 

But Dr. Kellogg believed that eating biologically would solve much more than dyspepsia and indigestion. Like Dr. Graham with his graham cracker, Kellogg believed  Americans’ meat-centric diets led them to carnal sins. "Highly seasoned [meats], stimulating sauces... and dainty tidbits in endless variety,” wrote Kellogg, a vegetarian, “irritate [the] nerves and… react upon the sexual organs.”

 

家乐氏深信他推荐的饮食法所能改善的疾病，并不只有消花不良而已。跟格雷厄姆会研制全麦饼干的原因相似，同样地家乐氏也对美国常见的多肉饮食方式有著负面评价，他认为这种饮食法会增加人们的性欲(家乐氏的圣人模式又来了~~)。而在家乐氏的传记也有写道："调味过多的肉品、刺激性的调味料...跟那些花边新闻一样都会刺激神经且反映在生殖器官上"

 

In his mind, masturbation was a shameful act linked to bad health; and over-stimulating diets, diseases, and sexual acts formed an insidious cycle. Eating cereal would keep Americans from masturbating and desiring sex. "How many mothers, while teaching their children the principles of virtue in the nursery,” he wrote, “unwittingly stimulate their passions at the dinner table until vice becomes a physical necessity!" (He also recommended circumcision and tying children’s hands with rope to prevent masturbation and sexual urges.)

 

他认为手淫是一件与健康状况不佳有关的羞耻行为，而且会与过度刺激性的饮食、疾病跟性行为有关，都会形成一种不好的循环。而在吃麦片后，是可以让美国人减少对性方面的欲望。"不知道有多少的母亲早在小朋友在幼稚园就读的时候，就对他们耳提面命许多道德的观念""不过也不知不觉地累积了一些有关性方面的邪念，让这些邪恶的念头变成了自己的生理需求"(他另外也建议小朋友应该要行割礼(切包皮)，然后家长要绑住小朋友的双手，来防止他们手淫跟抑制性冲动)(编按：哎呦别闹了~~客倌)

 

家乐氏医生认为麦片可以抑制人们的性欲，防止他们做些坏坏的事情，图片来源：
Markus Spiske, Unspalsh

 

John Harvey Kellogg was a true believer. During his lectures, he explained how people could make their own cereal at home. "You may say I am destroying the health food business here by giving these recipes,” he said at one talk. “But I am not after the business; I am after the reform."

 

家乐氏医生简直就是一位疯狂的信众。在他开设的课程里，他教导人们如何在家自制麦片。他在一次上课的时候表示："您可能会觉得我这么做是在破坏健康食品产业的发展，但本来我研发麦片的目的就不是要促进产业的发展，而是要改革整体的食品业生态"

 

但是到后来，事情的发展超出了家乐氏医生所能想像的。

 

原文出处：How Breakfast Became a Thing
原文作者：Alex Mayyasi
撰文日期：2016.5.9