【食物文學課】幫肉桂剝皮後


「金星是肉桂，肉桂也像女人，甜蜜中帶著苦澀。」外公說。


前陣子食物課電影院播放了《香料共和國》後，小助教就一直好想吃加了肉桂的希臘肉丸子Keftethes。不過肉丸子這種東西就像滷肉，家家戶戶都有自己的配方，講食譜沒什麼意思，說說肉桂好了。


在電影中，男主角的外公建議女孩加肉桂在丸子裡，那是說著「我願意」、點燃愛與熱情的秘方。
肉桂就是桂皮，也就是肉桂樹的外皮，或許是那辛辣濃厚的香氣，自古以來它就是愛情炙熱的表現，羅馬皇帝尼祿就曾燃燒了一整年的肉桂紀念妻子（儘管是他踹死的），《箴言》中，婦人引誘男子時也提到：「我已經用繡花毯子和埃及線織的花紋布鋪了我的床， 我又用沒藥、沉香、桂皮薰了我的榻。你來，我們可以飽享愛情直到早晨，我們可以彼此親愛歡樂。」


啊⋯⋯其實從前也蠻不含蓄的呀。


但最露骨的或許是加拿大作家Michael Ondaatje的詩《Cinnamon Peeler》

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to you hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
Peeler's wife. Smell me.

哎，赤裸裸又香噴噴的獨佔與慾望呀。


搭配BGM：宇多田光《Apple and cinnamon》
https://youtu.be/LVUn2jXhCAs

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