作者：美国迪士尼公司
出版社：华东理工大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
迪士尼英文原版·美食总动员 Ratatouille试读：
Prologue
Although each of the world’s countries would like to dispute this fact, the French know the truth: the best food in the world is made in France. The best food in France is made in Paris, and the best food in Paris, some say, was made by Chef Auguste Gusteau. Gusteau’s restaurant was the toast of Paris, booked f ive months in advance, and his dazzling ascent to the top of f ine French cuisine made his competitors envious. He was the youngest chef ever to achieve a f ive-star rating.
As Gusteau himself once said, “Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell. There is excellence all around you; you need only to be aware to stop and savor it.”
Chef Gusteau’s cookbook, Anyone Can Cook!, climbed to the top of the bestseller list. But not everyone celebrated its success.
Anton Ego, noted food critic, was one of the naysayers. “Amusing title, Anyone Can Cook!,” he once said with a sneer. “What’s even more amusing is that Gusteau actually seems to believe it. I, on the other hand, take cooking seriously, and no, I don’t think ‘anyone’ can do it.”
But who was right? Was it true that anyone — regardless of upbringing, training, or type of kitchen — could cook a meal f ine enough to satisfy even a notoriously impossible-to-please man like Anton Ego?
Turn the page, and we will try to get to the bottom of this culinary quandary....
Chapter 1
Remy had a lot going for him. He was young and talented. He lived in an old farmhouse in the rolling green hills of the French countryside. And he had a rare and remarkable skill.
So why was Remy so unhappy?
It all came down to one thing: Remy was a rat. And life for a rat, even in the French countryside, was very hard. There was a lot of sneaking around. A lot of stealing. And a lot of eating — mostly garbage. It made Remy sick to his stomach.
You see, Remy had a special gift — highly developed senses of taste and smell. There was nothing he liked better than f inding special ingredients, dreaming up recipes, and creating new f lavor combinations.
Here’s how talented Remy was: When a regular rat spotted a half-eaten napoleon — a decadent layered puff pastry — he thought, Food! Eat it now! (To put that into perspective, when a regular rat saw a rotten banana peel, he also thought, Food! Eat it now!) But when Remy spotted a half-eaten napoleon, he paused. He closed his eyes, took a great sniff of the delicate pastry, and relished the concerto of delectable tastes. Almost as if in a dream, he began to identify the many ingredients. “Hmm ... f lour, eggs, sugar, vanilla bean ...” Then he would pause for a moment and add, “Oh, small twist of lemon.”
Remy’s big brother Emile might not have been quite as discerning, but he knew talent when he saw it, and he was in awe of Remy. But their father, Django, the leader of their rat clan, had two words to say about Remy’s talent:“so” and “what.”
That is, he did until Remy sniffed just as Django was about to take a big bite out of an apple core. Remy smelled something funny — very funny. So he lunged at his father, knocking the apple out of his hands.
“Whoa!” cried Remy. “Don’t eat that!”
“Wh-what’s going on here?” shouted Django.
Remy sniffed the air, caught the scent, and followed it to a tarp in the corner of the yard. He lifted the tarp. Underneath was a can of rat poison!
Suddenly, Django didn’t think Remy’s talent was so useless. And Remy was f inally feeling good about his gift — until he found out what his dad had in store for him.
Remy’s new job was to smell food all day. And not just any food — rotten food. Day in and day out, a seemingly endless line of rats f iled past him, holding up rank scraps of food for him to smell. That’s right. He was Chief Poison Checker for his clan.
Remy sniffed. A moldy crust of bread. A slimy bit of plum. A bite of beef with a slight green tinge to it. “Clean ... clean ... clean ...”
The rats moved on. Their scraps would be added to the food pile, to be served later that night at dinner.
Remy sniffed again. A def lated grape. Some curdled milk. A wilted piece of lettuce. “Clean-errif ic ... clean-erino ... close to godliness ...” Remy was bored to tears.
Django watched his son proudly. “Now don’t you feel better, Remy?” he asked. “You’ve helped a noble cause.”
Remy stared at his father in disbelief. “Noble?” he spluttered. “We’re thieves, Dad. And what we’re stealing is — let’s face it — garbage.”
“It isn’t stealing if no one wants it,” Django said with a shrug.
Remy rolled his eyes. “If no one wants it, why are we stealing it?”
Django turned and walked away. “We are not having this argument again!” he called over his shoulder.
Later that night, in the farmhouse attic, the rats were all contentedly munching on garbage ... er, their dinner. All except Remy, of course. He had a motto:“If you are what you eat, then only eat the good stuff.”
But Django thought differently. He had a motto, too, and he turned to Remy and shared it with him. “Food is fuel. You get picky about what you put in the tank, your engine is gonna die. Now, shut up and eat your garbage.”
Remy was not convinced. “If we’re going to be thieves,” he argued, “why not steal the good stuff in the kitchen — where nothing is poisoned?”
That made Django angry. “First of all, we are not thieves. Secondly, stay out of the kitchen and away from the humans. It’s dangerous.”
Well, thought Remy, what my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Chapter 2
The next day, Remy slowly and silently sneaked into the farmhouse kitchen. The television was on, tuned to a cooking channel. On-screen, Gusteau, the portly, famous chef, was busy cooking another masterpiece. The old woman who lived in the house was fast asleep in the television’s glow.
Remy stared at the TV with glee. As a rat, he knew he was supposed to hate humans. But there was something about them. They didn’t just survive; they discovered, they created. And just look what they did with food!
From his perch on the counter, Remy noticed a well-worn copy of Gusteau’s cookbook, Anyone Can Cook!, propped up next to the stove. And to his delight, right next to it was a plate of leftover fruits and cheeses. Bingo! thought Remy.
“Good food is like music you can taste, color you can smell,” the great chef said from the TV. “There is excellence all around you. You need only be aware to stop and savor it.”
Remy reached over to the cheese plate and picked up a small slice. He closed his eyes and took a bite. Oh, yeah — delicious. Gusteau was right!
The cheese still in his mouth, Remy reached over and picked up an apple slice. He took a bite and nearly wept with pleasure. Each f lavor was totally unique. But combine one f lavor with another ... and something new was created.
Remy was unceremoniously brought back to reality when the old woman reached over and turned on her lamp. She was awake!
Remy gasped. Quick as a f lash, he ran to the window and jumped outside.
But he couldn’t help turning back for one last look. He had conquered the kitchen. And now he had a secret life.
The only one who knew Remy’s secret was his brother Emile. One late afternoon, as Remy was hurrying through the f ield behind the farmhouse, he ran into Emile rummaging through some garbage. “Psst! Hey, Emile!” Remy called.
Emile stopped and held up the remnants of someone’s brown-bag lunch. “I found a mushroom!” Remy exclaimed. “Come on,” he told his brother. “You’re good at hiding food. Help me f ind a good place to put this!”
Emile dragged the greasy paper bag while Remy walked upright, cradling his mushroom.
All of a sudden, a rich and enticing scent caught Remy’s attention. Could it possibly be coming from the bag his brother was carrying? “What have you got there?” he asked Emile. Then he disappeared inside the bag.
“Oh!” He chuckled delightedly. “Cheese? You found cheese? And not just any cheese — Tomme de Chèvre de Pays! That would go beautifully with my mushroom! And ... and ...!”
Remy spotted exactly what he needed — rosemary and sweetgrass. He grabbed a pawful of each.
Emile wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. “Well, throw it on the pile, I guess,” he said. “And then we’ll, you know ...”
Remy stared at his brother in disbelief. “But we don’t want to throw this in with the garbage! This is special!”
Emile was f labbergasted. Remy knew the rules as well as any other rat in their clan. “But we’re supposed to return to the colony before sundown,” said Emile. “Or Dad’s gonna ...”
“Emile!” Remy shouted. Then he took a deep breath and regained his composure. “There are possibilities unexplored here. We’ve got to cook this. Now, exactly how we cook this is the real question.”
That was when Remy looked at the farmhouse and noticed the smoking chimney. He grinned. “Yeah. Come on!”
Moments later the two brothers sat on the farmhouse roof. Emile stared at Remy, not knowing what to make of this situation. Remy had skewered the mushroom and the cheese onto a bent metal rod, which he held over the smoking chimney.
Just then, lightning f lickered in the distance. Shortly thereafter came a boom of thunder.
“That storm is getting closer,” Emile said nervously. “Hey, Remy, you think that maybe we shouldn’t be so close to — ”
But his warning came too late. Crack! A bolt of lightning hit the TV antenna on the roof and the metal rod in Remy’s hand, its force knocking both rats off the rooftop and down into a puddle.
They lay there, soaking and dazed, their electrif ied fur smoking and sticking straight up. Emile was not terribly surprised to see that Remy had kept the rod aloft so that his precious mushroom would be kept dry. The mushroom had been transformed into a curious puffed-out shape.
“Whoa, ohhh,” Remy moaned. Then he took a bite of his mushroom. “Ohhhh, you gotta taste this!” He smacked his lips in excitement. “It’s got this kind of taste, don’t you think? What would you call that f lavor?” Remy asked his brother.
“Lightningy?” Emile suggested.
“Yeah, it’s lightningy!” Remy exclaimed. His mind was racing. He took another bite of the mushroom. “I know what this needs! Saffron! A little saffron would make this!”
“Why do I get the feeling ... ,” said Emile.
The two rats f inished his sentence together: “... it’s in the kitchen.”
Emile did not like the sound of that one bit.
“Relax,” said Remy. “It’s just after sundown. The old lady is napping in front of the TV this time of day. Come on!”
Supportive older brother that he was, Emile followed Remy into the farmhouse. But in his heart he knew that this was a bad idea.
Chapter 3
In the kitchen, Remy happily rummaged through the spices while Emile stared nervously at the old lady, who was fast asleep in front of the TV. As usual, it was tuned to the cooking channel.
Saffron ... saffron ... where is the saffron? Remy located tarragon, allspice, sage, basil and dill. But the saffron was nowhere to be found.
Emile was starting to panic. “Not good. Don’t like it. She’s gonna wake up.”
“I’ve been down here a million times,” said Remy. “She turns on the cooking channel, and boom. Never wakes up.”
“You’ve been here a million times?”
Remy ignored his brother. “I’m telling you, saffron will be just the thing. Gusteau swears by it.”
Emile was lost. “Okay, who’s Gusteau?” he asked.
“Just the greatest chef in the world,” Remy replied. He pushed aside some cookbooks, revealing the old woman’s copy of Anyone Can Cook! “Gusteau wrote this cookbook.”
Emile stared at his brother. “Wait a minute. You read?”
Remy bit his lip. “Well, not excessively,” he said, embarrassed.
“Oh, man,” Emile groaned. “Does Dad know?”
Remy laughed. “You could f ill a book — a lot of books — with things Dad doesn’t know. And they have ... which is why I read. Which is also our secret.”
Emile was upset. “I don’t like secrets. All this cooking and reading and TV-watching while we read and cook. It’s like you’re involving me in a crime. And I let you. Why do I let you?”
Remy barely even heard his brother. That saffron had to be somewhere!
Meanwhile, above their heads, the rat colony streamed into the dark attic. It was dinnertime. Django watched as each rat carried food from the compost heap and tossed it into a pile in the center of the room. But he was distracted. What’s taking those kids so long? he wondered.
At last! Remy located a tiny tin of saffron and held it up as if it were a rare jewel. “Ah, Aquila saffron. Italian. Gusteau says it’s excellent. Good thing the old lady is a food lov — ”
Remy cut himself off in midsentence as he heard a familiar voice coming from the TV.
“This is about your cooking,” the voice began.
“Hey! That’s Gusteau!” Remy said excitedly to his brother. “Emile, look!”
The two brothers stared at the screen. “Great cooking is not for the faint of heart,” explained Gusteau. “You must be imaginative, strong-hearted. You must try things that may not work. And you must not let anyone ...”
Remy walked toward the TV, completely transf ixed.
“... def ine your limits because of where you come from. Your only limit is your soul. What I say is true: anyone can cook.” He looked at the camera sternly, then cracked a smile. “But only the fearless can be great.”
“Pure poetry,” Remy said in awe.
“But it was not to last,” said the narrator on TV. “Gusteau’s restaurant lost one of its f ive stars after a scathing review by France’s top food critic, Anton Ego. It was a severe blow to Gusteau, and the great chef died shortly afterward — some say of a broken heart.”
Remy was stunned. “Gusteau ... is dead,” he said in disbelief.
Suddenly, the TV clicked off. In the ref lection of the screen, Remy could see that the old woman was awake and staring right at him.
“Aah!” shouted Remy. He sprinted past Emile, who was sitting in a dirty pan on the stove, stuff ing his face with scraps.
The old woman reached into her umbrella stand and pulled out a shotgun. She aimed, and — pop! — an umbrella stuck in the end of the gun f lew open. She tossed it aside, aimed again, and f ired, narrowly missing the brothers.
“Run! Run! Aah!” yelled Remy.
Emile scrambled up the stovepipe as fast as his little legs could carry him. On autopilot, he ran toward the hole in the ceiling that led to the attic.
“No!” shouted Remy. “You’ll lead her to the colony!”
The old woman blasted huge holes in the ceiling, just behind the scrambling Emile. He leapt clear of a blast — and landed on the end of a hanging light f ixture. She leveled the gun barrel at the helplessly dangling Emile.
Remy hid his eyes. He couldn’t watch.
The old woman aimed and f ired. Click. The shotgun was empty. She raced off for more shells.
Emile struggled to pull his chubby body up into the light f ixture. Remy ran to help his brother.
The old woman found a fresh box of shotgun shells, spilling them in her excitement. Emile swung the lamp back and forth until he was f inally able to grab Remy’s paw. Yes! But then the lamp swung backward, pulling Remy onto it, too.
As the woman loaded a shell into the shotgun, Remy and Emile scrambled up the lamp to the hole in the ceiling. She f ired again. As the smoke cleared, she saw that she had missed both rats.
Crack! A chunk of ceiling broke free. Her last shot had completed a perfect circle of shotgun holes in the ceiling. All of a sudden, the attic f loor, some furniture, and hundreds of very surprised rats came crashing down.
Not believing her eyes, the old woman screeched and ran out of the room.
Django hit the f loor and started issuing orders. “Evacuate! Sound the alarm!” he shouted.
The rats quickly began to stream out of the farmhouse. They were so intent on their f light that they barely registered the return of the old woman, who was now wearing a gas mask and wielding a gas canister.
In the yard, Remy and Emile f led along with the escaping mob of rats. Suddenly, to Emile’s utter confusion, Remy stopped and turned back, battling upstream through the f lood of f leeing rats. “The book!” he cried.
Inside, the old woman was madly spraying gas everywhere. Holding his breath, Remy summoned all his strength and pushed the cookbook across the counter and out the kitchen window.
At the riverbank, Django directed the panic-stricken rats to makeshift boats. The boats pushed off just as Remy, clutching Gusteau’s cookbook, reached the shore. Using the book as a raft, Remy jumped on top of it and started paddling after the colony. “I’m coming!” he shouted.
“Hold on, Son!” called Django. He turned to the other rats. “Give him something to grab on to!”
The rats held out a spatula toward Remy. “Paddle, Son!” Django shouted desperately.
Soon enough, Remy was able to get one paw onto the spatula and pull himself closer.
Blam! A shotgun blast hit the water, sending Remy f lying off the book. Django looked up. The old woman was shooting from the footbridge directly above them.
“You can make it!” Django yelled hoarsely.
Remy struggled to get back onto the book and catch up with his family. As the old woman blasted away, the rat boats disappeared into a drainpipe. Remy climbed back onto the book and grabbed the spatula, using it as an oar. Before the old woman could reload and start f iring again, Remy paddled into the drainpipe.
He was safe — for now.
Chapter 4
Remy desperately tried to keep up with the other rats. But he was losing sight of them.
“Guys, wait! Stop!” he called.
“Paddle, Son!” shouted Django.
There was a sudden quiet, and then Remy heard a distant scream. What was going on?
“Dad?” he called. But the tunnel was silent.
Remy was alone. He hung his head and sighed. Then his eyes widened as he heard a deafening roar. He was headed toward an enormous waterfall! Remy started to paddle away from it as hard as he could, but the pull was too strong for the small rat. He screamed as he fell off the book and tumbled into the churning waters.
Finally, the waters calmed enough for him to climb back onto the cookbook. Remy was soaked to the bone, chilled, and exhausted.
After a while, he f loated to a stop. He realized he was in the sewer. It was dark, cold, and stinky, but at least it was quiet and safe.
As the sun rose, light spilled through the sewer grate. Remy f lipped through the pages of his beloved cookbook, trying to dry them. As he paused on a page of Gusteau showing off one of his creations, his stomach growled. Remy sighed.
And then, right before his unbelieving eyes, the photograph of the well-fed chef came to life!
“If you are hungry,” Gusteau said, “go up and look around, Remy. Why do you wait and mope?”
“I’ve just lost my family,” said Remy. “All my friends. Probably forever.”
“How do you know?” the French chef asked.
“Well, I ...” Remy stopped himself. “You are an illustration. Why am I talking to you?”
The chef shrugged. “You just lost your family. All your friends. You are lonely.”
“Yeah, well, you’re dead,” Remy retorted.
Gusteau smiled. “Ah ... but that is no match for wishful thinking. If you focus on what you’ve left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead. Now, go up and look around.”
Although Remy wasn’t quite sure why, he took Gusteau’s advice. He headed up the pipes and began to scurry through narrow spaces between the walls of buildings. He was terrifyingly close to the human world. Through a crack in the wall of one apartment, he spied a chunk of delicious-looking French bread. Nearly woozy with hunger, he grabbed it and prepared to take a bite.
“What are you doing?” Gusteau was back.
Remy was so startled he nearly dropped the bread. “I’m hungry. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know when I’ll f ind food again.”
Gusteau shook his head. “Remy, you are better than that. You are a cook! A cook makes. A thief takes. You are not a thief.”
Remy put the bread back. “But I am hungry,” he said.
Gusteau laughed. “Food will come, Remy. Food always comes to those who love to cook.” Then he vanished again.
Remy shook his head. What a strange hallucination! He traveled up a pipe on the side of a building. Just when he thought he could go no farther, he emerged on a rooftop.
And what an amazing view awaited him! He blinked in disbelief as he took in the Paris skyline.
“Paris?” Remy said when he f inally could speak. “All this time I’ve been underneath Paris? Wow! It’s beautiful!”
“The most beautiful,” said a voice. Remy spun around. Gusteau had returned.
Remy spotted the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, and then his eye lit on a landmark even more alluring — Gusteau’s restaurant, only blocks away.
“Gusteau’s?” said Remy in a reverent voice. “You’ve led me to your restaurant.”
“It seems as though I have,” replied Gusteau. “Yes. There it is! I have led you to it!”
“I gotta see this!” Remy cried, taking off toward the restaurant. Gusteau followed him.
In the kitchen of Gusteau’s, several of the cooks were preparing for the dinner rush. Horst, Lalo, Larousse, and Colette were busy making soups, salads, souff lés, and other tasty dishes.
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