作為一名移民女大廚，珍妮·高正默默地朝著其夢想努力：通過有益健康、高品質的包裝食品，引發人們對自己故鄉四川的味道的關注。

珍妮的Fly by Jing品牌由四川辣椒脆（Sichuan Chili Crisp）、鐘水餃醬（Zhong Dumpling Sauce）和麻辣混合香料（Mala Spice Mix）三款產品組成，是眾籌網站Kickstarter籌資金額最高的手工制作食品項目，其預售額已經超過了20萬美元，而且自從今年2月推出以來，每個月的直銷額都在不斷增長。憑借珍妮在消費包裝產品方面的扎實背景、中國烹飪方面的專長以及遠大的志向，Fly by Jing似乎注定要成為美國家喻戶曉的廚房調料品牌。

As an immigrant woman chef, Gao is forging her own quiet path toward her dream: creating a conversation about the flavors of her native Sichuan through healthful, high-quality packaged foods.

Gao’s Fly by Jing brand—which currently makes Sichuan Chili Crisp, Zhong Dumpling Sauce, and Mala Spice Mix—was Kickstarter’s highest-funded craft-food project, has sold over $200,000 in preorders, and has increased direct-to-consumer sales each month since launching in February. With Gao’s solid background in consumer packaged goods, expertise in Chinese cooking, and big-thinking ambition, Fly by Jing seems destined to soar into kitchens across the country.

該品牌的旗艦產品四川辣椒脆是一款多重口感的辣醬，需要用勺子去舀才能夠嘗到貢椒（基本上屬于中國獨有）那種濃郁香脆的風味。這種辣椒脆可以蘸食、做調料或者鹵水原料，怎么吃都行。它的用途廣泛：可以作為雞蛋或面條的點綴，也可以搭配烤蔬菜，或與奶油奶酪混合之后撒到面包圈上。

這種濃郁的鮮香甚至還可以提升甜食的口感——例如巧克力脆曲奇里或者澆在冰淇淋上（真的嗎！）。最重要的是，它所具有的誘人味道讓人無法放下手中的勺子，并且你會很快發現瓶子突然空了。即便如此，你依然無法解釋為什么那種微熱的辣感和油脆感會搭配得如此之好。

The flagship product, Sichuan Chili Crisp, is a multi-textured sauce that requires you dig in with a spoon to get at the big bright flavors from tribute peppers—an ingredient almost never found outside China. The chili crisp is a dip, sauce, condiment, or brine, depending on the day. It’s designed to be versatile. It works atop eggs or noodles, roasted into vegetables, or mixed with cream cheese and spread on a bagel.

The umami-heavy flavor even boosts sweets—in chocolate chip cookies or spooned over ice cream (really!). Above everything, it offers the kind of beguiling flavor that keeps you coming back for one spoonful after another until suddenly the jar is gone—and you’re no closer to being able to explain how the gentle heat and oily crunch pair so well.

顧客對四川辣椒脆很著迷，而對于珍妮·高來說，這正是她想要實現的目標之一。她說：“我想和他們談談”，與他們分享她所喜愛的味道，并與他們交流和互動。“我希望能夠坐下來，向每位客戶講述背后的故事。”珍妮制作這款醬汁是為了幫助人們以前所未有的方式來品嘗川菜，從而引發人們談論以前并未注意到的川菜味道和品質。這款醬汁誕生的另一個原因在于，她意識到自己已經與家鄉成都的烹飪方式漸行漸遠。

珍妮·高的成長經歷遍布世界各地，她在成年后重返亞洲，供職于寶潔公司。她意識到，自己并非是唯一錯失這些獨特風味的人。她說：“中餐太博大精深了，但知道的人卻少之又少。”

珍妮·高在上海創辦了一家獲獎的休閑快餐廳，然后開始在自己的私家廚房餐廳烹飪自己記憶中的菜肴。珍妮·高說，當她把自己的快閃餐廳從上海開到新西蘭、澳大利亞、日本和美國時，她看到了人們對以前沒有品嘗過的食材和菜肴的反應——至少部分原因是因為眾多的菜肴從未走出過中國國門。與此同時，她了解了西方人對中餐的看法。為什么他們覺得所有中餐都應該很便宜，而且由廉價的罐裝調料制作；以及部分人對中餐的系統性偏見，而正是因為這類偏見，人們在談論中餐時往往關注的是價格，而不是品質。

Customers are intrigued, and to Gao, that’s part of the point. “I want to have a dialogue,” she says, to share the flavors she loves, to exchange and engage with people about them. “I wish I could sit down and tell each customer the backstory.” Gao created the sauce to help people taste Sichuan cuisine in a way they might not have before, to get them talking about the flavors and quality they might not have associated with it previously. The sauce’s creation also stemmed from her own realization that she’d drifted away from the cooking of her native Chengdu.

After growing up all over the world, Gao returned to Asia as an adult, working for Procter & Gamble, and realized she wasn’t the only one missing out on those specific flavors. “There’s so much depth and complexity to Chinese food, and nobody knew about it,” she says.

Gao founded an award-winning fast-casual restaurant in Shanghai, then moved on to cooking the foods she remembered in her private kitchen restaurant. As she took her pop-up dinners from Shanghai to New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the U.S., Gao says she saw the reactions people had to ingredients and dishes they hadn’t tasted before—at least in part because so much of the cuisine never even made it out of China. At the same time, she saw how Westerners looked at Chinese food—why they expected everything to be cheap and made from low-budget filler ingredients—and the systemic biases that prevented the conversation around this cuisine from being about quality, rather than price.

珍妮決定制作一款能夠提振這類對話的產品。產品使用的辣椒源自珍妮數年來作為大廚和餐廳老板所培養的獨特資源和關系。然而，除了在四川之外很少見到的美味辣椒之外，其它成分都很簡單和天然：非轉基因油和天然鮮味來源，例如香菇粉、海藻和發酵黑豆等。該品牌是純素食類產品，不含麩質，而且純天然，這正是與珍妮同齡的千禧一代對食品的慣常訴求。

因此毫不奇怪，她的大部分產品都是通過其自有網站銷售給忠實的客戶群體。然而，珍妮如今正在向更大的成功邁進。她的品牌擴張的十分迅速：在假日季登陸梅西百貨，獲得了壯大其團隊用的種子輪資金，然后迅速進駐了天然食品渠道。Fly by Jing已經蓄勢待發，很快將登陸亞馬遜和全食超市（Whole Foods），它正在快速逼近自己的目標：成為與高品質川菜有關的家喻戶曉的品牌。

Gao decided to make a product that would blow that conversation up. Her products use peppers acquired only through the mining of sources and connections she’s developed during her years as a chef and restaurateur. But beyond the coveted chili peppers rarely seen outside Sichuan, the ingredient list is simple and natural: non-GMO oils and natural sources of umami, such as mushroom powder, seaweed, and fermented black beans. The brand is vegan, gluten-free, and all-natural—fitting the bill for what Gao’s millennial peers often look for in a product.

So it’s unsurprising that most of her products have sold via her own website to a loyal customer base. But Gao sits now on the precipice of wider success. Her brand is expanding rapidly: arriving in Macy’s for the holiday season, raising a seed round of funding to grow her team, and then heading quickly into natural foods channels. Fly by Jing is already on the path to be on Amazon and in Whole Foods soon, in hot pursuit of her goal—to become a household name associated with high-quality Sichuan foods.

在她一頭扎進更廣泛受眾市場的同時，其飛速增長需克服“正宗性”這類問題，而且人們必然也會拿它與老干媽這個備受喜愛、根深蒂固的辣椒脆和中式辣椒醬品牌進行比較。她說，這類似于Cholula與Frank’s RedHot之間的比較，因為它們都是醋制辣醬。她的產品與老干媽唯一的共同點在于它們都是油制辣醬。人們將這兩者進行對比的原因在于這兩款產品在美國銷售的并不多。

珍妮強調，她的產品只是她自己對中式味道的表達。“我并不是說四川菜就是這個味道。”她說：“正宗與否與人的經歷息息相關。”這款產品的目的是為了引發對話，一個珍妮希望與所有人開展的有關川菜的對話。“目的是為了讓人們聚在一起形成一個共同的認識，并用一種贊不絕口的味道將他們連結起來。”（財富中文網）

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

As she dives headlong into a wider audience, that growth means overcoming questions of authenticity and deflecting the inevitable comparison to Lao Gan Ma, the beloved and well-established brand of chili crisp and Chinese-style hot sauce. She says that is like comparing Cholula to Frank’s RedHot because they are both vinegar-based hot sauces. The only similarity between her sauce and Lao Gan Ma is that they’re both oil-based chili sauces. But people compare them because there aren’t many on sale here.

Gao stresses her product is about her own expression of Chinese flavor. “I’m not saying this is what Sichuan food is,” she says. “Everything is authentic to someone’s experience.” It’s about a conversation, one that Gao wants to have with anyone and everyone, about Sichuan cuisine: “It’s about bringing people around the table for a shared understanding, uniting them with amazing flavors.”