The local food movement is growing in the United States. Restaurant owners and families look to nearby farms for fruits, vegetables and meat. Now small forest owners want to join the local food party. They're promoting edible mushrooms, berries, and salad greens that flourish in the woods.
美国各地越来越多的餐馆和家庭愿意购买当地农场生产的水果、蔬菜和肉类，食品地方化运动方兴未艾。如今拥有小树林的人也希望加入进来，推销自家树林里生长的蘑菇、草莓和绿色蔬菜。
Carol Wick and her husband own a small slice of the American dream, 12 hectares at the edge of the Cascade foothills, southeast of Seattle, Washington. A short walk from her doorstop, past some pastures and a dilapidated barn, is the fir and cedar forest that covers about one-third of her property.
卡罗尔·维克和丈夫在华盛顿州西雅图市东南方的卡斯卡特山麓丘林地拥有12公顷森林。从他们家出来，经过一片草地和一座破旧的谷仓，就到了这片林杉和雪松林。这片林地占他们整个地产的三分之一。
"Our object is not to turn this into a harvestable timber farm, but to do something else with it," says Wick, who wants her beloved forest to generate supplemental income from any number of edible delicacies. "It just kind of lends itself to have a U-pick in the forest."
卡罗尔说：“我们不想把这儿变成生产木材的林场。我们想做些别的。”卡罗尔希望这片林地能够提供一些美味食品，并为家里增加收入。比如，把它变成一片让人们自由采摘的森林。
The Wicks have planted gourmet mushrooms and native berry bushes. She ticks off a long list of forest produce she could potentially sell.
维克夫妇已经在林子里栽种了蘑菇和当地的浆果灌木。卡罗尔有一个很长的单子，上面都是有可能在市场上出售的林产品。
"Wild blueberries, huckleberries, the wild raspberry, wild blackberries. Some of the forest native vegetables that you might have, like miner's lettuce for instance, purslane. Those are not that hard to harvest and they taste good."
卡罗尔说：“野蓝莓、越桔、树莓、黑莓，等等，还有你可能吃过的一些树林里的野菜。这些都不难采摘，而且味道很好。”
The Cascade Harvest Coalition is a nonprofit in Washington state, dedicated to localizing food production. Its director, Mary Embleton, won a small grant to explore how to expand the 'eat local' movement to include small forest landowners.
卡斯卡特收成联盟是华盛顿州的一个非营利组织，致力于推动食品本土化。联盟主任玛丽·恩布尔顿得到一小笔赠款，用来研究如何把小树林主也纳入饮食本土化运动。
"It's, I think, a very natural progression to start to expand this type of programming and consumer education to a broader set of working lands," says Embleton, who wants to play matchmaker between suppliers and markets.
She had a good turnout at an initial information meeting to present the idea to small woodlot owners. An expert panel talked dollars and cents. They said wild mushrooms can fetch $24 to $40 per kilo. A kilo of huckleberries can net $16 in the restaurant trade. Chefs also are showing an appetite for fiddlehead ferns.
恩布尔顿希望为供应者和市场牵线搭桥。她组织了一次构想说明会，很多小树林主都出席了。一个专家小组在会上谈到价格问题。他们说，每公斤野菰可以卖到24至40美元，每公斤树莓卖给餐馆，可以有16美元的净利。餐馆大厨对野生蕨菜也很感兴趣。
One potential buyer is Tony D'Onofrio, who works for a chain of local grocery stores.
当地副食品连锁店的东尼·迪奥诺弗里奥是潜在买主。
"I love this idea of forest-to-table because there is more to the forest land than just harvesting timber," he says. "If you can harvest sustainably year after year some product that ends up on the table, it means the forest stays intact."
他说：“我喜欢这个由树林到餐桌的构想。因为树林远远不是仅仅出产木材的地方。如果树林每年都能提供餐桌上的食物，树林就可以保留下来。”
But he also offers a reality check. Size matters. To be efficient, even a modest chain like his needs greater volumes and scale than a small forest can generate.
但是他也提出了一个现实问题，这就是规模。因为即使一家像他的那种一般规模的连锁店所需要的数量也超过一个小树林所能提供的产量。
"A grocery store needs to have a product available for a consistent length of time, let's say throughout the chanterelle season. You want the chanterelles there and you always want the bins full because your customers expect them," says D'Onofrio.
迪奥诺弗里奥说：“例如在整个蘑菇季节里，食品店需要长期稳定的供应，蘑菇不能缺货，货架上要有足够的蘑菇。因为这是顾客指望的。”
He suggests that farmers markets might be the best outlet for forest bounty foraged on smaller scales.
迪奥诺弗里奥建议，如果产量比较少，不妨在农贸市场上销售。
Professional forester Kirk Hansen consults with small woodlot owners. He says another strategy might be to connect a landowner directly with one specialty shop operating on a similarly small scale.
为小树林主提供咨询服务的森林学者柯克·汉森说，另外一种策略就是让树林主直接和同样小规模的专卖店挂钩。
"You know, what we're talking is boutique harvesting and sales. So if somebody has twenty acres [8 hectares] you can only expect to harvest so much sustainably off of that," he says. "So if it is a floral green like salal or sword fern you may only be harvesting a few pounds of that every year off your property."
“我们谈的是所谓细菜的收成和销售。所以，如果一个人拥有20英亩的树林，那你能期望的产量也就这么多。”
A Seattle-based company called Foraged & Found has made a full-time business out of combing public and private timberlands in the Pacific Northwest for edible delicacies. The company's pickers forage very large parcels for seasonal bounty to sell to gourmet restaurants.
设在西雅图市的精品食物探索公司专门在公有和私人林地中，寻找可食的精品食物，然后作为时令食品，卖给美食餐厅。
Governments are also giving the trend a nudge. A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant is helping a Portland, Oregon nonprofit research and promote the most viable non-timber products produced by family forests. And in Asheville, North Carolina, the county tourism board promotes food adventures by giving families directions for berry picking, mushroom gathering and harvesting wild leeks in the forest.
政府对这种发展趋势也助了一臂之力。农业部补助俄勒冈州波特兰市一个非营利研究机构，开发家庭林地的非木材产品。北卡罗来纳州艾希维尔郡的旅游部门给当地家庭提供指导，在树林里采收草莓、蘑菇和野韭菜，推广当地的“食品寻奇”活动。 |