Dinner Buried at Dawn

Near a small lake ringed with steam, Polly found a row of large pots standing beside deep holes cut into the bare, blackened ground. A cook in a heavy apron worked down the line, lowering a sealed pot into each hole with a rope, and Polly settled on a nearby rail to watch, curious what could possibly be worth cooking in a hole in the ground.

Pri malom jazere obopnutom parou našla Polly rad veľkých hrncov stojacich pri hlbokých jamách vykopaných do holej, sčernetej zeme. Kuchár v ťažkej zástere postupoval po rade a na lane spúšťal do každej jamy zapečatený hrniec. Polly si sadla na neďaleké zábradlie a sledovala ho, zvedavá, čo môže byť také dobré, aby sa to oplatilo variť v diere v zemi.

Each pot held layers of meat, sausage, cabbage, and root vegetables, sealed tight and lowered into earth heated from below to roughly the temperature of boiling water. No flame touches any of it. The heat comes entirely from the volcano beneath the whole valley, rising up through cracks that were dug out and marked with stone rings generations ago, long before anyone measured the temperature scientifically.

V každom hrnci boli vrstvy mäsa, klobásy, kapusty a koreňovej zeleniny, pevne uzavreté a spustené do zeme rozohriatej zdola približne na teplotu vriacej vody. Nič z toho sa nedotkne plameň. Teplo prichádza výhradne zo sopky pod celým údolím a stúpa cez pukliny, ktoré tu ľudia vykopali a označili kamennými kruhmi pred generáciami, dávno predtým, než niekto teplotu zmeral vedecky.

The cook explained, more with gestures than words, that the pots go in early and stay buried for six or seven hours while everyone goes off to visit the lake, the gardens, or the town, coming back only when it is time to dig dinner up again. It is, he seemed to say, the easiest meal on the island to start and by far the strangest kitchen to cook it in.

Kuchár vysvetlil, viac gestami než slovami, že hrnce idú dnu zavčasu a zostanú zakopané šesť alebo sedem hodín, kým sa všetci vyberú pozrieť si jazero, záhrady alebo mestečko a vrátia sa až vtedy, keď je čas večeru znovu vykopať. Zdalo sa, akoby hovoril, že je to najľahšie jedlo na ostrove, aké sa dá pripraviť, a zďaleka najčudnejšia kuchyňa, v akej sa dá variť.

When the first pot came up, steam poured out of it in a thick cloud, and the smell of slow-cooked meat and cabbage drifted across the whole clearing. Polly did not stay for the meal itself, but she watched the cook carry it away proudly, as if he, and not the mountain, had done all the work.

Keď vytiahli prvý hrniec, vyvalil sa z neho hustý oblak pary a vôňa pomaly pečeného mäsa a kapusty sa rozliala po celej čistinke. Polly na samotné jedlo nezostala, ale sledovala, ako ho kuchár hrdo odnáša, akoby všetku prácu urobil on, a nie tá hora.