评论
打印
The new factory farm grows chicken cells in giant steel vats called bioreactors, swilling with amino acids, vitamins and sugars, all the things cells need to grow.
新型工厂化农场在巨大的钢桶中培养鸡细胞，这些钢桶被称为生物反应器，里面充满了氨基酸、维生素和糖，这些都是细胞生长所需的物质。
The time it takes for the cells to multiply enough to make solid pieces of chicken tissue: roughly two weeks.
细胞增殖到足以形成坚实的鸡肉组织所需的时间：大约两周。
Little wonder that the world’s food giants, including ADM, Cargill and Tyson Foods, have invested in the new meat upstarts, albeit nominally compared to what they pour into legacy meat operations.
这也就难怪包括阿彻丹尼尔斯米德兰食品公司、嘉吉和泰森在内的世界食品巨头都对新型肉类初创企业进行了投资，尽管与其投入传统肉类业务的资金相比，这种投资微不足道。
This new industry is still, well, embryonic.
这个新行业仍处于，怎么说，胚胎阶段。
It’s tough to scale up production in bioreactors.
在生物反应器中扩大生产规模是很困难的。
A handful of countries, concerned about ensuring their future food supply, are promoting meat alternatives, including cellular meats.
少数几个国家出于对未来食品供应保障的担忧，正在推广肉类替代品，其中包括细胞肉。
They include Israel, Singapore and South Korea as well as China, which has identified cultivated-meat research as a priority in its latest five-year plan for agriculture.
这些国家包括以色列、新加坡和韩国，以及中国，中国已在最新的“十四五”农业规划中，将细胞培养肉研究确定为优先事项之一。
On a blazing Thursday evening, I got a taste of future chicken in the unlikeliest of places, a rooftop party in Miami.
在一个炎热的周四晚上，我在一个最不可能的地方——迈阿密的一个屋顶派对上——尝到了未来鸡肉的味道。
The whole thing was for show.
整个活动都是为了作秀。
Florida would ban the sale of cultivated meat in three days’ time.
佛罗里达州将在三天后禁止销售细胞培育肉。
And anyway, cultivated meat wasn’t yet available in Florida or anywhere else in the country.
而且无论如何，细胞培育肉在佛罗里达州或全国其他任何地方都还买不到。
Upside Foods, the cellular-meat startup hosting the party, passed out stickers.
细胞肉初创公司“上方食品公司”举办了这场派对，并分发了贴纸。
“Chicken so delicious it’s illegal,” they read.
贴纸上写着“好吃到犯法的鸡肉”。
A crowd gathered around the chef, Mika Leon, as she laid chicken strips onto a pan, rubbed with Cuban spices.
当时一群人围着厨师米卡·莱昂，她将鸡肉条放在一个用古巴香料擦过的平底锅上。
The oil sizzled as she flipped the strips over, showing how the tissue charred.
她翻动着肉条，热油发出咝咝声，向人们展示鸡肉组织是如何变焦的。
She laid the strips on a crisp fried tortilla, with a dollop of mashed avocado and some lime.
然后她把鸡肉条放在酥脆的炸玉米饼上，再加上一坨牛油果泥和一些青柠汁。
When I took a bite, it was more or less standard supermarket chicken — chewy, fleshy, somewhat bland.
我吃了一口，口感差不多就是超市卖的标准鸡肉——耐嚼、肉质肥厚、肉味有点淡。
It worked well with all the fixings, and it would be just fine in a nugget or a breakfast sausage, which I’m not a fan of.
它和各种各样的配料都很搭，做成鸡块或早餐香肠也会很不错（不过我不太喜欢）。
It tasted nothing like the gamy, rich country chicken I’ve eaten in home-cooked stew in the Himalayan foothills.
尝起来一点也不像我在喜马拉雅山脚下的家常炖肉中吃过的那种有腥味、味道浓郁的农村土鸡。
The Meaning of Meat
肉的意义
I understand the meaning of meat. I grew up eating it.
我理解肉的意义。我从小就吃肉。
My father prepared giant vats of goat curry for Durga Puja, the most auspicious holiday in the Bengali Hindu calendar.
我父亲会为杜尔迦节做一大锅羊肉咖喱，这是孟加拉印度教日历上最喜庆的节日。
For family birthdays, we ordered shredded pork at our favorite Sichuan restaurant.
为了庆祝家人的生日，我们会在最喜欢的四川餐馆点炒肉丝。
When we could splurge, we got dressed up for steak.
当我们可以奢侈享受一下时，我们会打扮得漂漂亮亮去吃牛排。
My greatest pleasure on a cold winter’s night is still a burger, medium rare, with a whiskey, neat.
我在寒冷冬夜的最大乐趣仍然是一个五分熟汉堡，配上一杯纯威士忌。
For many of us, meat carries memories.
对于我们许多人来说，肉承载着记忆。
But we are now confronting nature’s limits.
但是现在我们正面临着大自然的极限。
There simply isn’t enough land or water on Earth for the world’s 8 billion people to eat meat like Americans.
地球上根本没有足够的土地或水，能让全球80亿人都像美国人那样吃肉。
That reality is crashing against our love of flesh, and it’s going to force us to reconsider our relationship to it once again.
这种现实正在冲击我们对肉的热爱，并将迫使我们重新思考我们与肉的关系。
Meat could go one of two ways: Cultivated meat could sputter out.
肉可能会有两种发展方向：细胞培养肉可能会最终失败。
Livestock’s effects on our health and the environment could drive up its costs.
而牲畜对人类健康和环境的影响可能会推高肉的生产成本。
We in the rich world could have to return to a time when we ate meat for special occasions, as millions of others still do, because they can only rarely afford it.
于是我们这些生活在富裕世界的人可能不得不回到过去，像其他国家的买不起肉的数百万人一样，只在特殊场合才能吃肉。
Or the new factory-farmed meat could take off.
或者，新型工厂化养殖肉可能会流行起来。
In this future, our supermarket meat counters could offer bioreactor beef alongside a grass-fed option.
在这个未来，生物反应器培养的牛肉和草饲牛肉可能会一起放在超市肉类柜台上，供人选择。
And in that future, we would have to confront some new meaty questions.
在这个未来，我们将不得不面对一些新的重要问题。
Will we still sacrifice a goat to praise our gods?
我们还会牺牲一只山羊来赞美神吗？
Is a Sunday roast still special if there’s no skin and bone?
如果肉里没有皮和骨头，周日烤肉还算特别活动吗？
Who will get to bite into what kind of meat?
哪些人能吃到哪种肉？
How will we make sense of the flesh on our plates?
我们又该如何理解盘中的肉？
