比帝国还长寿的蜂蜜

二十世纪二十年代初,考古学家打开埃及法老图坦卡蒙的陵墓时,发现了珠宝、雕像,还有一排排密封的陶罐。其中几个罐子里装着蜂蜜,尽管已经过去了三千年,没有人碰过它,里面的蜂蜜依然完好无损。可以说,当场就能吃。

When archaeologists opened the tomb of the Egyptian king Tutankhamun in the early nineteen twenties, they uncovered jewellery, statues, and rows of sealed clay pots. Several of those pots held honey, and although three thousand years had passed since anyone had touched it, the honey inside was still perfectly good. It could, quite literally, have been eaten on the spot.

这绝不是个例外的奇闻。蜂蜜是极少数几乎永不变质的天然食物之一。更古老的蜂蜜罐也曾在别处出土:在格鲁吉亚,考古学家在一位贵族女性的墓中发现了蜂蜜,距今大约五千五百年,同样又甜又可以食用。

This is far from a one off curiosity. Honey is one of the very few natural foods that essentially never spoils. Even older jars have turned up elsewhere: in Georgia, archaeologists recovered honey buried alongside a noblewoman roughly five thousand five hundred years ago, and it, too, was still sweet and edible.

这背后的原因是化学,而不是魔法。细菌没有水就无法生长,而蜂蜜几乎不含水分。蜜蜂从花蜜开始酿蜜,花蜜起初含水量约为百分之八十,蜜蜂在蜂巢里用翅膀扇动花蜜,使其浓缩到约百分之十七,最后形成一种极其浓稠致密的液体,几乎没有任何东西能在里面存活。

The explanation lies in chemistry rather than magic. Bacteria cannot grow without water, and honey contains almost none. Bees begin with nectar, which starts out roughly eighty percent water, and fan it with their wings inside the hive until it has reduced to around seventeen percent, leaving a liquid so thick and dense that almost nothing can survive inside it.

蜂蜜还带有轻微的酸性,酸碱值大约为四,这个水平让大多数细菌都难以忍受。除此之外,蜜蜂还会加入一点酶,这种酶会慢慢生成过氧化氢,也就是任何药店都能买到的那种消毒剂。

Honey is also mildly acidic, with a pH of around four, a level most bacteria find thoroughly inhospitable. On top of that, bees add a trace of an enzyme that slowly generates hydrogen peroxide, the very disinfectant sold in any pharmacy.

这三重防护,几乎没有水分、较低的酸碱值,以及持续存在的微量过氧化氢,加在一起,意味着蜂蜜一旦被密封并保持干燥,就可以在架子上、洞穴里,或者在王室的陵墓中,静静存放几乎永远。

Taken together, these three defences, almost no water, a low pH, and a constant faint trace of peroxide, mean that honey, once sealed and kept dry, can sit undisturbed on a shelf, in a cave, or in a royal tomb for what amounts to forever.

所以,如果你自己家里的蜂蜜变得浑浊,在罐子里结晶了,不要急着扔掉它。把它放进一碗热水里轻轻加热,结晶就会重新化成糖浆。蜂蜜从一开始就没有变坏。事实证明,蜂蜜几乎从来不会真正变质。

So if your own honey ever turns cloudy and crystallises in the jar, resist the urge to throw it away. Warm it gently in a bowl of hot water and the crystals will dissolve back into syrup. The honey was never spoiled to begin with. Honey, it turns out, is almost never actually bad.