Americans didn’t always have an appetite for squid.
美国人并不是从一开始就喜欢吃鱿鱼的。
As recently as 1970, U.S. fishermen caught squid mostly by mistake, and when they did, they either tossed it back or used it as bait. By 1990, however, the invertebrate — now masquerading as calamari — had become a restaurant staple, appearing in the appetizer lane of menus across America alongside Buffalo wings and loaded potato skins.
就在距今不远的1970年，美国渔民捕获鱿鱼大多是误捕，如果捉到了，要么把它扔回去，要么把它当作鱼饵。然而，到1990年，这种无脊椎动物——现在成了炸鱿鱼圈——已经成为餐馆的菜肴，与布法罗鸡翅和填馅土豆皮一起，出现在美国各地菜单的开胃菜栏。
This sea change in the appetizer universe can be traced back to a few key catalysts: the magic of marketing, the unintended consequences of a federal conservation campaign and the rise of China as the world’s unrivaled seafood superpower.
开胃菜领域的这一巨变可以追溯到几个关键的催化剂：营销的魔力、联邦保护运动的意外后果，以及中国作为世界上无与伦比的海鲜超级大国的崛起。
In the early 1970s, American stocks of traditionally targeted fish like cod and menhaden were plummeting. Alarmed by the looming crisis, politicians, universities and conservationists decided that one way to address the problem would be to encourage Americans to eat more squid, of which there was plenty. Collectively, they began a rebranding campaign designed to persuade Americans to eat more of the ubiquitous, eight-armed mollusk — no small task, given that most people considered the creature to be slimy and generally off-putting.
在20世纪70年代早期，鳕鱼和鲱鱼等美国传统的目标鱼类的数量急剧下降。由于对迫在眉睫的危机感到震惊，政治人士、大学和环保人士认为，解决这个问题的一种办法是鼓励美国人多吃鱿鱼，因为美国有很多鱿鱼。他们共同发起了一场重塑品牌的运动，旨在说服美国人多吃这种无处不在的八肢软体动物——这可不是一项小任务，因为大多数人认为这种生物黏糊糊的，往往令人讨厌。
That all changed in 1974, when a business school student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Paul Kalikstein came up with an idea. American consumers would probably get over squid’s texture if, as with onion rings, chefs breaded and fried it. Other experts also argued that restaurateurs should start referring to squid as calamari, from words for the animal in several Romance languages, which sounded more exotic. Restaurants tried it, and it worked: Americans started to order calamari.
1974年，麻省理工学院商学院学生保罗·卡利克斯坦提出了一个想法，从而改变了一切。如果厨师能像制作洋葱圈一样，给鱿鱼裹上面包屑油炸，美国消费者可能就会接受鱿鱼的口感了。其他专家还认为，餐馆老板应该用“calamari”（炸鱿鱼圈）来称呼鱿鱼，这个词来自几种罗曼语，听起来更有异国情调。餐馆尝试了这种做法，效果很好：美国人开始点鱿鱼了。
Around 1980, the dish had become so popular that a restaurant in Santa Cruz, Calif., started the annual International Calamari Festival, drawing some 600 attendees. The festival grew more extravagant in the years that followed, with attendance ballooning to thousands of people. A 30-foot model squid was constructed for the event. Children dressed up in tentacles. Thespians staged a squid-themed play about morality.
1980年前后，这道菜变得大受欢迎，以至于加利福尼亚州圣克鲁斯的一家餐馆开始举办一年一度的国际鱿鱼节，吸引了大约600名参与者。在接下来的几年里，这个节日变得更加奢侈，参加人数激增至数千人。人们为活动制作了一个90米长的鱿鱼模型。孩子们戴上触手。演员们上演了一出以鱿鱼为主题的道德剧。
The appetizer’s meteoric rise in popularity eventually led The New York Times to create the Fried Calamari Index in 2014, a tool for tracking the historical emergence of trendy foods. Americans imported or caught at least 85,000 metric tons of squid in 2022.
这道开胃菜的人气迅速上升，最终促使《纽约时报》在2014年创建了“炸鱿鱼圈指数”，这是一个追踪潮流食品历史兴衰的工具。美国人在2022年进口或捕捞了至少8.5万吨鱿鱼。
It makes sense for humans to eat squid. Environmentally minded chefs like it because it is one of the lowest carbon-emitting sources of animal protein on the planet. Squid are also surprisingly equipped to handle climate change: Ocean acidification doesn’t seem to bother the animal, and rising ocean temperatures can cause it to reproduce more quickly. “Squid is truly the food of the future,” says Paul Greenberg, the best-selling author of “Four Fish and American Catch.”
人类吃鱿鱼是有道理的。有环保意识的厨师喜欢它，因为它是地球上碳排放最低的动物蛋白来源之一。鱿鱼在应对气候变化方面的能力也令人惊讶：海洋酸化似乎不会影响这种动物，海洋温度上升会使其繁殖得更快。“鱿鱼确实是未来的食物，”畅销书《四种鱼和美国渔获》(Four Fish and American Catch)的作者保罗·格林伯格说。
But squid is time-consuming to prepare, particularly on a large scale. That initially made many restaurants reluctant to embrace it as an offering. Then China stepped in, providing cheap labor as a solution to the problem. By the late 1990s, more and more of the world’s squid was being processed in China, which was also catching more and more of the creature.
但是鱿鱼的加工是很耗时的，尤其是大规模加工。起初，这让许多餐馆不愿将其作为主打餐品。然后中国介入，提供廉价劳动力作为解决问题的办法。到20世纪90年代末，世界上越来越多的鱿鱼在中国加工，中国也捕获了越来越多的鱿鱼。
That shift not only cemented calamari as a mainstay on America’s restaurant tables; it helped establish China’s pre-eminence over seafood. Much of the squid that ends up on American plates today is caught in the high seas off South America by industrial Chinese fleets. With as many as 6,500 ships, the Chinese distant-water fishing fleet is more than double the size of its biggest competitors’, which include South Korea’s and Taiwan’s. Cuttlefish and squid account for roughly 70 percent of the landings from China’s distant-water fleet.
这种转变不仅巩固了鱿鱼在美国餐馆餐桌上的支柱地位；还帮助中国确立了在海产品领域的卓越地位。如今，出现在美国人盘子里的大部分鱿鱼都是中国工业化船队在南美公海上捕获的。中国远洋渔船数量多达6500艘，是其最大竞争对手（包括韩国和台湾）的两倍多。墨鱼和鱿鱼约占中国远洋船队捕鱼量的70%。
China’s domination in seafood has raised deep concerns among American fishermen, policymakers and human rights activists. They warn that China is expanding its maritime reach in ways that are putting domestic fishermen around the world at a competitive disadvantage, eroding international law governing sea borders and undermining food security, especially in poorer countries that rely heavily on fish for protein. In some parts of the world, frequent illegal incursions by Chinese ships into other nations’ waters are heightening military tensions. American lawmakers are concerned because the United States, locked in a trade war with China, is the world’s largest importer of seafood.
中国在海产品领域的主导地位引起了美国渔民、政策制定者和人权活动人士的深切担忧。他们警告，中国正在以某种方式扩大其海洋覆盖范围，使世界各地的渔民处于竞争劣势，侵蚀了管理海洋边界的国际法，破坏了食品安全，尤其是在严重依赖鱼类获取蛋白质的较贫穷国家。在世界上的一些地区，中国船只频繁非法进入其他国家的水域，加剧了军事紧张局势。美国议员对此感到担忧，因为与中国陷入贸易战的美国是世界上最大的海产品进口国。
A recent investigation that my team and I conducted revealed a worrying range of human rights and environmental crimes tied to Chinese ships and processing plants. China’s distant-water fishing fleet has been tied to myriad crimes, including cases of raiding Argentine waters and, in violation of Chinese law, turning off transponders, which are designed to transmit their locations publicly. Chinese ships have also fished in North Korean waters, breaking U.N. sanctions, and engaged in violence, wage theft, forced labor, severe neglect of deckhands and human trafficking. Because most of the world’s fishing takes place far out at sea, out of sight, the abuses are hard to stop — which means, despite what seafood companies might claim, most buyers have no way of knowing whether their dinner was a product of this system.
我和我的团队最近的一项调查显示，与中国船只及加工厂有关的一系列人权和环境犯罪令人担忧。中国远洋渔船队与无数犯罪活动有关，包括袭击阿根廷水域，以及违反中国法律关闭用于公开发送渔船位置的应答器。中国船只还违反联合国制裁规定，在朝鲜海域捕鱼，从事暴力、无薪加班、强迫劳动、严重忽视船员和贩卖人口等活动。因为世界上大部分的捕鱼活动都发生在遥远的海上，在人们的视线之外，这种虐待行为很难制止——这意味着，不管海鲜公司怎么说，大多数买家都无法知道他们的晚餐是否出自这个系统。
Like the boats that supply them, Chinese processing plants rely on forced labor, from North Korea and from Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in China. Despite strict U.S. laws forbidding the import of goods produced with North Korean or Uyghur labor, we found that Chinese companies using these workers exported at least 47,000 tons of seafood since 2018 — including more than 17 percent of squid imported in the U.S. — to dozens of American importers, some of which supply U.S. military bases and public-school cafeterias.
就像为他们供货的船只一样，中国的加工厂也依靠来自朝鲜、维吾尔和中国其他穆斯林少数民族的强迫劳工。尽管美国严格的法律禁止进口用朝鲜或维吾尔劳工生产的商品，但我们发现，自2018年以来，使用这些工人的中国公司向数十家美国进口商出口了至少4.7万吨海鲜，其中包括超过17%的美国进口鱿鱼，其中一些供应给美国军事基地和公立学校食堂。
Companies importing seafood linked to Uyghur labor also have supply relationships with major food service, wholesale and retail brands, including Sysco, Walmart and Ruggiero Seafood, one of the country’s largest squid distributors. I reached out to these companies and asked them about various concerns tied to forced labor on fishing vessels or in processing plants connected to their seafood. Some companies, such as Walmart, said in response to questions that they condemn human rights abuses and expect their partners to comply with corporate standards. A few others, like Sysco, said they would look into our findings. Many, like Ruggiero Seafood, did not respond to questions.
与维吾尔劳工有关的海鲜进口公司还与主要的食品服务、批发和零售品牌建立了供应关系，包括Sysco、沃尔玛和鲁杰罗海鲜，后者是美国最大的鱿鱼分销商之一。我联系了这些公司，询问了他们对渔船或与海产品相关的加工厂强迫劳动的各种担忧。沃尔玛等一些公司在回答问题时表示，它们谴责侵犯人权的行为，并希望其合作伙伴遵守企业标准。Sysco等其他几家公司表示，他们会研究我们的发现。鲁杰罗海鲜公司等许多公司则没有做出回应。
Most economists agree that globalization has made modern commerce more efficient and products cheaper. But it has also stretched the distance between producers, movers and consumers, making it harder to know whether what you’re consuming is tainted by forced labor or environmental crimes. With ships so far from shore, constantly in transit, crossing countless national jurisdictions, seafood supply chains are especially tough to track because they consist of so many links — fishing boats, refrigeration vessels, cold-storage warehouses, processing plants, packagers, exporters, importers, wholesalers, grocery chains, restaurants and, finally, customers.
大多数经济学家都认为，全球化使现代商业更有效率，产品更便宜。但它也拉大了生产者、搬运工和消费者之间的距离，让你更难知道自己所消费的东西是否受到强迫劳动或环境犯罪的污染。海产品供应链的船舶离海岸很远，不断在运输途中，跨越无数个国家的司法管辖区，尤其难以追踪，因为它们由许多环节组成——渔船、冷藏船、冷库、加工厂、包装商、出口商、进口商、批发商、杂货连锁店、餐馆，最后才是消费者。
Supply-chain laws intended to prevent the U.S. import of products tainted by illegal labor practices, such as sweatshop garments and conflict diamonds, are less effective in regulating seafood. Many countries, including China, simply refuse to comply and provide details about their ships and processing plants. Lawmakers and federal agencies in the United States lack the political will to apply existing antislavery and product-tracking laws that could help. When it comes to seafood violations, investigations are slow, and they complicate international trade deals.
供应链法律旨在防止美国进口受非法劳工行为污染的产品，如血汗工厂服装和冲突钻石，但在监管海产品方面效果较差。包括中国在内的许多国家直接拒绝遵守，拒绝提供有关其船只和加工厂的详细信息。美国的立法者和联邦机构缺乏政治意愿，来运用现有的反奴隶制法律和产品追踪法律，而这些法律本可能有所帮助。当涉及海产品违规时，调查进展缓慢，而且会使国际贸易协议复杂化。
Ocean researchers warn that the popularity and unregulated harvesting of squid are now driving its demise. A study published this year in Science Advances found that squid stocks are fast declining. Researchers also say that the collapse of squid stocks could have repercussions for the ocean’s broader biodiversity because the creature holds an important position in the marine food pyramid.
海洋研究人员警告，鱿鱼的流行和无序捕捞正在导致它的消亡。今年发表在《科学进展》(Science Advances)上的一项研究发现，鱿鱼的数量正在迅速下降。研究人员还表示，鱿鱼种群的减少可能会对海洋更广泛的生物多样性产生影响，因为这种生物在海洋食物金字塔中占有重要地位。
That’s everyone’s problem. In all likelihood, if you buy squid at a supermarket or what’s advertised as locally caught calamari in a restaurant, that food is part of this complicated story. It is worth thinking hard about how those rings were caught and at what cost.
这是每个人的问题。很有可能，如果你在超市买到鱿鱼，或者在餐馆里购买被标榜为本地捕捞的炸鱿鱼圈，这些食物都是这个复杂故事的一部分。值得认真思考的是，它们是如何被捕获的，中间又付出了怎样的代价。
本文是与华盛顿特区的非营利新闻组织“法外海洋项目”(Outlaw Ocean Project)合作撰写的。Austin Brush、Joe Galvin、Daniel Murphy、Maya Martin、Susan Ryan 和 Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff参与了报道。
Ian Urbina是“法外海洋项目”的主管。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
