【精英翻譯】的部落格

An Egg-cellent Dessert蛋塔的起源

精英翻譯社轉自: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0058/341507/web/

—Casey Cole

What do 19th-century Portuguese monks and a 20th-century British pharmacist have in common? Both can be credited with inventing and popularizing a well-loved pastry—the egg tart. Their contributions to the rise of this dessert make for an interesting history and explain how it has spread from Portugal all the way to East Asia.

十九世紀的葡萄牙修道士們和二十世紀的一名英國藥劑師有什麼共同點呢？發明以及讓蛋塔這個備受喜愛的糕點普及都可歸功於他們。他們對這道甜點興起的貢獻成就了一段有趣的歷史，也解釋了它是如何從葡萄牙一路傳到了東亞。

The egg tart owes its origins to a monastery located in the Belém neighborhood of Lisbon, Portugal. There, monks once used egg white to starch their clothes. To avoid wasting all the yolks that were left over, they made pastries with them. Thus, the original egg tart was born.

蛋塔起源於葡萄牙里斯本貝倫區的一間修道院。那裡的修道士曾用蛋白來漿衣服。為了避免浪費剩下的蛋黃，他們就用蛋黃來製作糕點。因此，最早的蛋塔於焉而生。

These days, crowds flock to the world-famous Pastéis de Belém, a small pastry shop in Lisbon that has kept the monastery’s original egg tart recipe. The shop, which sells about 20,000 egg tarts a day, keeps the recipe a secret. In fact, only six people in the entire world have knowledge of it. Many shops throughout Portugal sell similar egg tarts, but none of them can compare with the ones made from the original recipe of the monks.

如今，人們蜂擁至舉世聞名的「貝倫區蛋塔創始店」（Pastéis de Belém），這是一家位於里斯本的小糕點店，保有修道院原本的蛋塔配方。這家店每天販售約兩萬個蛋塔，一直將此配方保密。事實上，全世界只有六個人知情。葡萄牙各地許多商店都有賣類似的蛋塔，但都比不上用那些修道士的原始配方製作出來的蛋塔。