想想上次更新的日期，就知道此标题多么有概括力了，翻译比较仓促，很多字句有待斟酌，欢迎丢砖。

原文地址：http://www.economist.com/node/17733514?story_id=17733514


旬味之争
当新老传统在圣诞相遇

BRITONS bought more than 7m cookbooks in 2009. They watch thousands of hours of cookery shows on television. In the run-up to Christmas in 2010, the latest tome by Jamie Oliver, a cheerful television chef, became the fastest-selling non-fiction work in British publishing history.
2009年，英国人购买了700多万本的食谱，观看了数千万小时的电视烹饪节目。2010年，圣诞将近之际，知名电视厨师杰米·奥利佛的新书又成了英国历史上销售速度最快的非文学类作品。


It is hard to know how much actual cooking follows. In 2009 the British also spent some £8.7 billion ($13.6 billion) on chilled ready meals. The figures conjure up sad visions of a nation slumped collectively on the sofa, watching cookery shows while forking supermarket curry mouthwards from a microwave tray.
但鬼才知道有多少英国人真的照做了。还是在2009年，这个国家在冷藏类速食品的消费额达到了87亿英镑。此数据也揭示出一个悲哀的现实：英国人民一边热切地坐在沙发上观看电视烹饪节目，一边去超市买速食咖喱，放到盘子里，丢到微波炉中。
（注：curry mouthward怎么说比较好，求解）

But there are seasonal signs that British cooking might be hurried rather than wholly outsourced. Mr Oliver’s bestseller aims low, to increase the chances that buyers might put their mouths where their money went: its title promises “30 Minute Meals”. Another festive hit is a Christmas cake-in-a-bag from a revered British cookery writer, Delia Smith. Sold via Waitrose, a posh supermarket, the “prepared ingredients pack” contains precisely measured quantities of flour, brown sugar, black treacle, spices and dried fruit (pre-soaked in alcohol), plus a simplified recipe for nervous or novice bakers. Waitrose says that one cake-in-a-bag was selling every seven seconds in the period around “stir-up Sunday”—the late November day when British families supposedly prepare Christmas cakes to time-hallowed family recipes, making wishes as they stir.
当然，最近一些季节性的现象表明，英国人民现在更喜欢让烹饪时间缩短，而不是全部叫外卖。奥利佛先生的这本畅销书的目标很简单，就是从消费者的口中节省一些不必要的花费，该书的标题也做出了这样的承诺：30分钟烹饪。还有一个冲击则来自知名美食作家迪莉娅史密斯的袋装圣诞蛋糕。这种产品在高端超市Waitrose出售，它为您精确地打包和调配好了制作圣诞蛋糕所需要的所有原料——面粉、红糖、黑糖蜜、香料、干果（已经用酒浸泡过），以及一张为那些慌张的厨师或新手而备的说明书。Waitrose超市表示，这种袋装圣诞蛋糕在“搅拌星期日”尤其畅销，每七秒就售出一个。“搅拌星期日”是十一月的最后一个星期日，每个英国家庭都会按照家庭传统制作圣诞蛋糕，在这一天，所有家庭成员要轮流搅拌蛋糕，并许下愿望。

Some have complained that the old ways are being smothered: “Delia put my Christmas in a bag!” sorrowed a cookery writer in the Daily Telegraph, a crusty newspaper. But actually Ms Smith—a household name for nearly four decades, so famous she is generally known by her first name alone—is doing something thoroughly British. Britons yearn for tradition, but these days live busy, rather atomised, lives. Their tiny, expensive homes lack larders for storing unused baking ingredients from year to year. Ms Smith is flogging a familiar idea of Christmas in an efficient, unthreatening form.
有些人抱怨，这种方式让一些老式的传统在消逝。“迪莉娅把我的圣诞节都打包了，”一名美食作家在英国《每日电讯报》这家爱发牢骚的报纸上叹息道。不过，你要知道，过去40年间史密斯女士在英国都是一个家喻户晓的人物，以至于人们总将她的教名单独提及。英国人渴望传统，但如今却懒得打理，不想为此而扰乱生活。他们贵而小的家容不下食物橱，也装不了那些平时用不上的烘烤原料。史密斯女士只是将这种习以为常的观念加以重新包装。这种方式有效，但并不激进。

Old and more recent rituals merge in the advertising campaign for her cake. Using a television-within-a-television device, this shows a string of wholesome modern Britons (a young couple at home, a father and daughter in the kitchen, a pair of twenty-something women on a bus with a mobile video gadget, a lone Christmas-tree seller with a battered portable set) all watching a small-screen Delia extolling the excitement of “home-baked Christmas cake”, which is nonetheless “the easiest thing ever”. The sales technique is itself the real message: in modern Britain, the cosy glow of tradition now surrounds the experience of watching someone famous cook.
在她蛋糕的电视广告里，新老的节日传统融合起来。通过在电视节目中播放电节目视这种方式，这则广告展示了一系列的英国现代家庭不同场景（一对在家的年轻夫妇，一个父亲和一个女儿在厨房，两个20几岁的年轻女性手持手机在公交车里，一个孤单的圣诞树销售员和一台破烂的电视），他们都在看小屏幕里Delia在吹捧家庭制的圣诞蛋糕是“如此简便易学”。从某种程度上，这则广告的销售技巧本身也传递了这样一则信息：昔日传统的荣光如今只被那些热衷围观大厨的目光所环绕。