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Urban foraging
城市覓食
Salad daze
炫目的沙拉
Hipsters are foraging for greens in urban parks
潮人在都市公園采集綠色蔬菜
SHOPPING for salad in supermarkets is too easy. A bag of ready-washed baby greens costs only 3 at Walmart, and takes no time to lift from the shelf. So a new breed of foodie spends hours foraging for plants in city parks and vacant lots. For what can compare with the joy of ripping up the roots of a mallow plant and eating the mucus they produce when boiled? Many wild American plants are edible but unavailable in supermarkets: dandelion, pig weed, bull thistle, skunk vine. But not everyone recognises them. Enter the foraging gurus, who teach hipsters how to pluck on the wild side.
到超市買蔬菜沙拉輕而易舉。沃爾瑪一袋洗凈的綠葉蔬菜僅需3美元，從貨架上取下不費吹灰之力。但是新一族的美食家們更愿意花費數小時在都市公園或空地采集野菜。還有什么事能比連根拔起錦葵煮了吃更讓人感到高興的呢？美國許多野生植物可食用，比如蒲公英、藜屬、矛葉薊及爬藤等，但是在超市是買不到的。然而，不是所有人都認得出這些野菜。加入菜蔬大師的隊伍，他們會教潮人怎樣在野外拔野菜。
“Green Deane” Jordan charges 30 for a foraging excursion in Orlando, Florida; demand exceeds supply, he says. New foraging apps, websites and books are making it easier than ever to score free food. But this only part of the story.
“綠色迪恩”約旦像每位參與奧蘭多及弗羅里達采蔬遠足的人收取30美元費用，他稱，供不應求。新出的采疏應用、網站及書書籍讓得到免費食物比以往更為容易。但是這僅是采疏的一小部分。
Foraging fits the anti-corporate faith of many hipsters. People are “yearning for something that's real”, says Frank Grindrod, who teaches foraging in Massachusetts. Urban parks typically offer more plant varieties than similarly sized wilderness areas. And city greenery holds more calories per acre than wildlands that are picked over by deer, says Steve “Wildman” Brill, who sells a 26-language “Wild Edibles” app and gives foraging tours in New York city parks.
采疏符合眾多潮人反公司信仰。在馬賽諸塞州教采疏的Frank Grindrod說道“人們渴望找到真正真實的事物。”比起同等面積的野外，都市公園往往有更多品種的野蔬。史蒂夫稱，平均每英畝的城市綠地綠色野菜比野外更多，因為野外的野蔬被鹿群食用。他運營一個26語種的食用野蔬應用，在紐約提供都市公園采蔬游。
Wild food tastes better than you might expect, enthusiasts say. Cattail roots, roasted until caramelised, have a pleasant chestnut flavour. The mucus of the mallow plant can substitute for egg whites to enrich meringues.
野蔬狂熱者稱野生蔬菜比你想象的更為可口。烤過的香蒲直至烤出焦糖會有一種怡人的栗子口味。錦葵的湯汁能取代蛋白補充人體所需的調和蛋白。
Roughly 18% of Americans forage at least once a year, up from 13% in 1999, says Marla Emery, a geographer at the US Forest Service. ForageSF, a San Francisco firm, serves 100 dinners with foraged ingredients such as beached kelp and fennel pollen. Iso Rabins, the founder, had hoped to employ staff foragers but found that the laudable attributes of folks willing to forage full-time did not include promptness in returning calls or punctuality. He now uses freelances instead.
現在大約18%的美國人一年至少來一次采蔬，從1999年13%的美國人這么做，瑪勒·埃梅里，美國森林服務中心的地理學家說道。圣弗朗西斯科ForageSF公司為顧客提供價值100美元的野生餐飲，包括采集的野蔬及擱淺的海藻與茴香粉做的菜。創始人Iso Rabins希望雇傭采摘員工，但是他發現愿意全職采摘野菜的人盡管有許多值得稱贊的品質，但是他們不能及時回復電話。現在他轉而聘用自由采摘者。譯者：占文英
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