美国国家公共电台 NPR The Big Stories Behind Small Seeds: This Man Wants To Save Them All

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

All this farm-to-table stuff in restaurants these days has renewed interest in heirloom fruits and vegetables. But long before the most recent enthusiasm, there's been a Tennessee gardener who's been on a mission to preserve rare heirloom seeds and to document their heritage.

NPR's Debbie Elliott accompanied him on a trek¹ to Louisiana farm country.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE²: When John Coykendall makes his yearly pilgrimage to Washington Parish, La., his first stop is typically the Circle T Feed and Seed (ph) in Franklinton.

JOHN COYKENDALL: For me, it's especially the seed. Let's go in and see what they've got this time.

ELLIOTT: Dressed in denim³ overalls⁴, Coykendall heads straight to the back of the store to an aisle⁵ of cardboard bins⁶ filled with vegetable seeds. He's always on the lookout⁷ for rare varieties.

COYKENDALL: Only one bag - I'm going to go ahead and grab these.

ELLIOTT: Coykendall is like a walking, talking seed catalog. He has a back story for just about every sack of seed in the store.

COYKENDALL: Now, this is the Louisiana purple pod bean. It makes a pretty bean - beautiful display growing. The pods are solid purple. But when you cook these, once the steam hits them, they turn green again.

ELLIOTT: He's the master gardener at the luxurious⁸ mountain retreat Blackberry Farm in his native Tennessee, where world renowned⁹ chefs serve up the bounty¹⁰ of his harvest. But his passion is collecting heirloom seeds and their stories.

COYKENDALL: Little bit of ancestral history where you're living - where did this seed come from? Did it come from your grandfather or your grandmother? Was it brought here from somewhere else? How do you grow it? How was it cooked?

ELLIOTT: Coykendall has more than 500 varieties gathered from small farmers and backyard gardeners around the world. The bulk of his collection comes from the American South, Appalachia and here, rural Washington Parish, La. He keeps detailed¹¹ journals on all of his seed expeditions, something he calls memory banking¹². He's a trained artist as well as a seed preservationist, so the journal entries include lovely drawings of the seeds, their plants and the surrounding landscape.

CHRISTINA MELTON: They're little artifacts, each one of them.

ELLIOTT: Producer Christina Melton is helping¹³ Coykendall organize his journals into a book. There are more than a hundred of them.

MELTON: And it's something that is a real resource for people in trying to re-establish people's ties to the food that they eat.

ELLIOTT: Melton made a public television documentary about Coykendall called "Deeply Rooted." It's been circulating for private screenings at Slow Food USA chapters around the country.

On this trip to Washington Parish, the subject is peas as Coykendall visits local farmer Mike Lang.

MIKE LANG: Like we say, John, we ain't never met a pea we didn't like.

COYKENDALL: I've always said that.

ELLIOTT: Lang lives and plants on what used to be his grandfather's land. Sitting around a table in the sun porch, the men sift¹⁴ through Lang's collection of field peas. He keeps samples of Coykendall's heirloom seeds stored in plastic bins in his freezer.

COYKENDALL: It's in our court now. We've got...

LANG: Yeah, yeah.

COYKENDALL: ...to take care of it. If it happens...

LANG: We save it now.

COYKENDALL: If something happens to it now, it's our fault.

LANG: That's right.

ELLIOTT: One seed they're saving for posterity¹⁵ is the unknown pea, a prized variety that's been passed down for generations but went missing from local farms for decades.

COYKENDALL: The unknown pea of Washington Parish.

ELLIOTT: It's a mystery?

COYKENDALL: Now - that's it. You know? The unknown pea goes way back in time, probably late 1800s, early 1900s. And they called it the unknown pea because nobody knew where it came from.

ELLIOTT: Coykendall says farmers used to plant the unknown pea right in their cornfields, the stalks serving as stakes for the climbing pea shoots. Without even looking at his notes, he can tell you this kind of history about hundreds of seeds.

COYKENDALL: It's kind of like having grandchildren. You've got to remember their names.

LANG: And birthdays.

COYKENDALL: And birthdays, right.

(LAUGHTER)

ELLIOTT: The birthdays are when certain varieties gained popularity on U.S. farms. But Coykendall says most of the plants have deeper roots.

COYKENDALL: The genetic¹⁶ homeland of the field pea is the Niger River basin in Africa. So they came over in association with the slave trade.

ELLIOTT: Knowing the history of our food, he says, is part of knowing who we are.

COYKENDALL: And if somebody doesn't record it, put it down, it's going to be lost for all time. That goes for the seeds. This is the living part of it - living heritage, our agricultural heritage.

ELLIOTT: Coykendall says the work has grown even more important as industrial farming practices threaten the old farming ways and the biodiversity of crops.

Some of his collection is available to growers through the Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit group that preserves heirloom crops and stores endangered seeds in an underground freezer vault¹⁷ in Iowa.

Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Franklinton, La.

1 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 denim   

n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤

参考例句：

• She wore pale blue denim shorts and a white denim work shirt.她穿着一条淡蓝色的斜纹粗棉布短裤，一件白粗布工作服上衣。
• Dennis was dressed in denim jeans.丹尼斯穿了一条牛仔裤。

4 overalls   

n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣

参考例句：

• He is in overalls today.他今天穿的是工作裤。
• He changed his overalls for a suit.他脱下工装裤，换上了一套西服。

5 aisle   

n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道

参考例句：

• The aisle was crammed with people.过道上挤满了人。
• The girl ushered me along the aisle to my seat.引座小姐带领我沿着通道到我的座位上去。

6 bins   

n.大储藏箱( bin的名词复数 )；宽口箱（如面包箱，垃圾箱等）v.扔掉，丢弃( bin的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Garbage from all sources was deposited in bins on trolleys. 来自各方的垃圾是装在手推车上的垃圾箱里的。 来自辞典例句
• Would you be pleased at the prospect of its being on sale in dump bins? 对于它将被陈列在倾销箱中抛售这件事，你能欣然接受吗？ 来自辞典例句

7 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

8 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。

9 renowned   

adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的

参考例句：

• He is one of the world's renowned writers.他是世界上知名的作家之一。
• She is renowned for her advocacy of human rights.她以提倡人权而闻名。

10 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

11 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

12 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

14 sift   

v.筛撒，纷落，详察

参考例句：

• Sift out the wheat from the chaff.把小麦的壳筛出来。
• Sift sugar on top of the cake.在蛋糕上面撒上糖。

15 posterity   

n.后裔，子孙，后代

参考例句：

• Few of his works will go down to posterity.他的作品没有几件会流传到后世。
• The names of those who died are recorded for posterity on a tablet at the back of the church.死者姓名都刻在教堂后面的一块石匾上以便后人铭记。

16 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

17 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。