Years ago during the Labor Day holiday, when my mother-in-law asked me to climb a mountain in her rural Hangzhou village, it wasn’t sightseeing she had in mind. 許多年前的五一勞動節(jié)，我的婆婆讓我隨她到杭州鄉(xiāng)下老家的山里去。這趟旅程并不是為了欣賞風景。 Granted, it felt like an adventure as we ascended through tall, weedy patches of grasses and vines, pulling ourselves up with the help of shaggy China firs, smooth bamboo trees and weathered gray rocks scattered along a trail only visible to a veteran hiker. The view we were rewarded with halfway up the mountain, gazing upon the colorful patchwork of fields and whitewashed homes set against the verdant hills and a sky so blue it looked digitally altered, was just a benefit of being there. 那感覺真像是一場冒險。我們攀過一片片叢生的雜草和藤蔓，拉著冷杉的樹干，沿著只有山中?？蛡儾艜⒁獾牡缆放试靶?，路邊布滿了竹子和風化的灰?guī)r。在半山腰看到的美麗景色讓我們的辛苦有了回報：五彩錯落的田野，潔白的民居，映襯著青郁郁的山丘和藍得像數碼合成的天空——這一切風景只有爬上高山才能見到。 After all, our eyes were mostly fixed on the ground instead, in search of the real purpose for our journey -- the wild edible plants that thrived on the mountainside. 畢竟在大部分時間里，我們都將目光盯著地面，尋找此次行程的真正目標——在山里繁榮生長的野味。 We first came upon wild mountain bamboo, a smaller variety of bamboo with clusters of slender shoots that grew shorter than my own knee. This tender plant was the main ingredient in my mother-in-law’s salted bamboo shoots that, once preserved, could be used all year long in stir-fries and stews. Up to that moment, when I was helping my mother-in-law harvest the shoots, I had never realized that preparing this important kitchen staple actually required an annual trek to the woods. 我們先是找到了野竹子，這類竹子形態(tài)較小，其叢生細長的枝條只到我膝蓋處。這種嬌嫩的植物就是我婆婆腌制竹筍的主要原料，保存妥當便可以常年用于炒菜和燉肉。直到幫我婆婆收割嫩芽的那一刻，我才意識到，要準備這種重要的廚房食材，每年都得徒步到山里采摘。 But along the way, we also encountered another precious wild food -- fiddlehead ferns. Those delicate, curled fronds had often appeared on my mother-in-law’s table, stir-fried with fragrant ginger, garlic and green peppers. Once I had actually purchased fiddleheads at a specialty market in the US, and at a premium. Yet there we were, plucking this prized vegetable on our own, with only our labor as the cost. 但這一路上，我們還找到了另一種珍貴的野菜 —— 蕨菜。我婆婆經常將這種嫩而卷曲的植物嫩葉佐以姜，蒜和青椒炒香，端上餐桌。在美國的一個專門市場，我曾經買到過蕨菜，花了不少錢。然而，在山里，獲得這種珍貴食物的成本只是勞動而已。 What we had collected that afternoon looked the same as any other wild mountain bamboo shoots and fiddlehead ferns I had glimpsed before in my mother-in-law’s kitchen. And yet, they felt different to me because I had used my own hands to help pick them and carry them back down the mountain. Spending time and energy to gather these wild plants had given me a deeper appreciation for the food that ends up on the dinner table. 那個下午我們收獲的東西看起來和曾在婆婆廚房里看到的其他野筍和蕨菜一樣。 但是，對我來說它們是獨特的，因為它們是我用自己的雙手采摘并帶回的。因為花費時間和精力，我對這些食物有了更深的認識。 It also made me more aware of the powerful connection among the natural world, food and life, symbolized by my mother-in-law. Living in the city, it’s so easy to forget that we all depend on the environment to sustain us -- that the green mountains and blue rivers matter as much to our survival as supermarkets and shops. But she tends her own garden and sustainably forages the surrounding area for wild edible plants, a natural lifestyle that many people like her have kept for generations. Those mountains and rivers supporting her life weren’t some abstract concept. They were right there, outside her door and within her rural village. And once I saw them through her perspective that afternoon, I realized they were closer to me than I ever imagined. 這也讓我更加意識到，自然，食物和生活之間不可分割的聯系，這也是我婆婆所象征的。 生活在城市里的人很容易忘記，我們的生活都靠著自然環(huán)境來維系——綠色的山脈和藍色的河流對我們的生存來說就像超市或商店一樣重要。但我婆婆更喜歡自己的花園，同時也不斷搜尋著周邊地區(qū)的野生食用植物，這種自然生活方式被許多人像她一樣的人世代相傳。那些支撐她生活的山川并不是抽象的概念。它們就在門外，在她的鄉(xiāng)村里。那個下午，當我從她的角度看自然時，我意識到自然比想象中離我更近。