When I first came to Britain nearly three decades ago, one of the (many) things I found strange was carrot cake. Carrot, for me, was something you pickled with oriental cabbage in kimchee, boiled in Japanese-style kare or fried with other vegetables for japchae (Korean glass noodles fried with julienne of vegetables and meat). It was not something you put in a dessert. Carrot cake is now one of my favourites but initially it was the equivalent, say, of Brussels sprouts crumble or cabbage cheesecake for a Brit, proving that so many of our ideas about how a food ingredient should be used are culturally specific.
差不多30年前，我第一次來到英國時，碰到諸多怪事，其中之一就是胡蘿卜蛋糕。在我看來，胡蘿卜的用途是與大白菜一起做泡菜、煮日式燴菜或是與其它蔬菜一起做韓式炒粉絲（用蔬菜丁與肉末炒韓式粉絲），它不應該是甜點配料。如今胡蘿卜蛋糕成了我最愛吃的東西，但我最初對待它的態度就如同英國人對待球芽甘藍甜點(Brussels sprouts crumble)與甘藍奶酪蛋糕一樣，這證明了我們對食材的既有吃法在不同國家與文化中會大相徑庭。