《最後的晚餐》中食物份量不斷增加?

A pair of US academics have analysed 52 of the most famous paintings of the Last Supper painted between 1000 and 2000 -- and discovered that, over that period, the portions of food placed before Jesus and his disciples grew astonishingly.

近日，美國兩位學者對1000年至2000年間繪製的52幅以“最後的晚餐”爲主題的著名畫作進行分析比較後發現，在這一時期內，畫中擺放在耶穌和他的信徒面前的食物份量不斷增加。

Using computer-aided design technology, they scanned the main dish, bread and plates and calculated the size of portion relative to the size of the average head in the painting.

研究人員採用電腦設計技術對畫中的主菜、麪包和餐盤進行了掃描，並計算出食物的尺寸與畫中人物頭的尺寸之間的比例。

Over a thousand years, the size of the main dish progressively grew by 69.2 per cent, plate size by 65.6 percent and bread size by 23.1 percent, they found.

研究人員發現，在這一千多年間，畫中的主菜、餐盤和麪包的尺寸分別增加了69.2%、65.6% 和23.1%。

The growing size reflects the success of agriculture over the ages, the researchers said.

研究人員稱，食物和餐盤尺寸的增長反映出這麼多年來農業產量的增加。

"The last thousand years have witnessed dramatic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food," said Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing and applied economics at Cornell University.

康奈爾大學營銷和應用經濟學教授布賴恩·萬辛克說：“在過去一千年間，食物的生產、可用性、安全性、 豐富程度以及可購性都大幅提高。”

"We think that as art imitates life, these changes have been reflected in paintings of history's most famous dinner."

“我們認爲，由於藝術描繪的是現實生活，所以這些變化也反映在這一史上最著名的晚餐的畫作之中。”

The study, published in Britain's International Journal of Obesity, is co-authored by Wansink's brother, Craig, a Presbyterian minister and professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College.

該研究報告在英國《國際肥胖雜誌》上發表，由萬辛克和他的兄弟、弗吉尼亞衛斯理公會學院宗教學教授、長老會牧師克雷格共同撰寫。

The Bible makes no mention of what was eaten at the Last Supper. But the main dishes depicted in the paintings contained fish or eel (18 percent), lamb (14 percent) and pork (seven percent).

《聖經》中並未提及《最後的晚餐》中有哪些食物，但畫作中出現的主菜包括魚肉或鰻魚（18%）、羊肉（14%）以及豬肉（7%）等。