Little stinkers: It's time to hunt — and celebrate — the ramps of Appalachia

PITTSBURGH — In these first sunny, wonderfully balmy days of spring, nothing hits the spot — or nose — quite like ramps.

One of the earliest spring plants to emerge in Midwestern and Eastern deciduous forests, these greens that taste like a cross between onions and garlic are the culinary equivalent of a Taylor Swift concert ticket: If you dilly-dally, they'll be gone before you can get your hands on them.

"I have people beating down the door before the season even begins," says John Jackson, who has been foraging for himself for around eight years and for his mushroom business, Real Fungi, since 2018.

Sometimes called wild leeks or spring onions, Allium tricoccum is considered a cultural keystone Appalachian wild food. It's been a spring delicacy in the Appalachian and Great Lakes regions of the U.S. and Canada for generations. While ramps appear in upscale restaurants and farmers markets in Pittsburgh, people are especially crazy about them in West Virginia and Tennessee, where you'll find festivals and dinners almost every weekend during the harvest season, which runs roughly from March through May.

The country's largest and longest-running ramp festival takes place around 200 miles south of Pittsburgh in Richwood, West Virginia. Feast of the Ramson will celebrate 83 years on April 22 at the Richwood Community Center, with live music, crafts, a ramp recipe contest and a traditional ramp dinner from 10:30 a.m. -3 p.m. Tickets ($20 adults, $10 under age 12) can be purchased at the door or in advance at 304-846-6790 or richwoodchamberofcommerce.org.

Familiar flavor

Ramps' name comes from its similarity to the European woodland plant known colloquially as ramson (Allium ursinus). They have a long culinary and medicinal history. Indigenous Americans ate the stinky greens to cure colds and get rid of intestinal worms, and Scottish and Irish immigrants who settled in Appalachia in the 1800s gathered and ate them, too, because they tasted similar to the bear's garlic they ate in their homelands.

Thanks to their high levels of Vitamin C, ramps were favored in rural communities where people ate them to ward off scurvy after a winter deprived of fresh fruits and veggies — despite their reputation as "poor man's" food.

Ramps have become increasingly more popular over the last decade or two in large part because of celebrity TV chefs like Martha Stewart and Emeril, says Eric Burkhart, an ethnobotanist and associate teaching professor in ecosystem science and management at Penn State University. Depending on your perspective, that's either a good thing or a cause for concern.

First the good: Ramps — which can be eaten raw or cooked — are easy to swap in for onions or garlic in many dishes. Even though they're tough to find in grocery stores, "they're familiar," Burkhart says. "It's not like a rare, odd-flavored vegetable you don't have a palate for."

The farm-to-table movement has also made people more interested in local, wild and hyper-seasonal foods, Burkhart notes, especially if they can afford an ephemeral, seasonal treat. One of your more expensive spring foods, ramps can cost as much as $30 a pound depending on how late in the season you buy them.

Now the bad: Because demand keeps growing, and not everyone is a knowledgeable steward of the land, ramps can be over-harvested. Germinating alone takes a year, and the slow-growing plant needs another seven to 10 years to mature.

Harvesting them too early in the season not only reduces crop yields but it can take years (and years) for plant populations to rebound. Because of their shallow root system, they can't grow out in the open like other onions.

"Too many things will outgrow them, and full sunlight will dry them out," Burkhart says.

If you're foraging, the solution is to do your homework, not just on where you're allowed to forage — jurisdictions can have different rules on gathering for personal consumption — but also how to harvest them using the best practices.

Careful hunting

While there is no one way to harvest sustainably, there are steps a forager can take.

A general rule among ethical foragers is to take no more than 10% from a patch every 10 years. But in the woods, that can be hard to ascertain — especially since it's almost impossible to tell if someone has been there before you.

Cathryn Pugh, who is studying the importance of ramps to Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic region along with Burkhart, suggests focusing on density rather than percentages: For each 10-by-10-foot spot, harvest as many bulbs as you like so long as you leave at least 88 plants behind.

"Think about thinning a patch rather than digging out a section," Burkhart says.

You also need to think about the plant part. If the crunchy texture of the bulb isn't important, harvesting just the leaf material and leaving the bulb to regrow helps conserve populations — but only if done correctly. If you remove too many leaves, or take them too early, the plants will not have enough left to photosynthesize needed carbohydrates to grow and reproduce, says Burkhart.

Ramp bulbs go from fat to pencil thin to fat again over the season as carbs are consumed and then restored, so if you wait until later spring to harvest, you can take a lot less. Total ramp and bulb weight increases 250% and 400%, respectively, between early season and late season stages. In mid-April, it takes about 150-200 plants to get 1 pound of ramps. In May, after sizing up, you need just 40 or 50.

Also, three-leafed ramps are significantly larger than two-leafed ramps.

In most situations, you won't have to disturb the ground very much to pick them so long as you wait for the bulbs to plump up. Just follow the stem down with your hands and they'll snap right off the mother plant. Or, use a soil fork to dig them up.

"I've seen people go into patches with shovels and mattocks and start rooting around," says Burkhart, which disturbs not just the ramps but other plants, as well.

Where to go

The region has been a little behind the weather this year, but that shouldn't affect the overall quality of this year's harvest, says John Jackson of Real Fungi. His registered foragers were already working in West Virginia and Somerset and Westmoreland counties. He expects to harvest a ton or more over the course of the season from a secret 14-acre patch.

What you'll pay varies. His wholesale price is typically higher early in the season because the ramps are small and harder to dig up. But as they get bigger and foragers are able to harvest more in a day, the price point comes down. East End Co-op, for instance, is currently charging $29.99 a pound and a twist-tie bag of ramps at Bloomfield Saturday Market runs $5.

"It's a commodity like everything else," says Jackson.

While he loves a good ramp pesto and also likes to dehydrate the plants to make a seasoned salt, one of his favorite ways to enjoy them is by fermenting in a salt solution with peppercorns and bay leaves.

"They bubble up like a wine, and when it stops, it's done and you can refrigerate them for a year to eat as a snack," he says.

If you're looking to cook with ramps, just remember that they can be VERY dirty, so be sure to swish them around in a bowl of cold water to remove as much dirt as possible, then give them a second rinse under running water to remove any remaining grit.

The following three recipes are a good place to start.

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SPINACH AND RAMPS QUICHE

PG tested

This easy-to-make quiche is on the garlicky side, but it sings "spring" with its savory mix of ramps, spinach and fresh mush­rooms. I used havarti, a semi-soft Danish cheese with a creamy, buttery finish.

Butter for pan

Olive oil for pan

1 tea­spoon minced garlic

8 ounces fresh mush­rooms, sliced

8 ounces fresh spinach

1/4 pound ramps, cleaned and roots re­moved, chopped

Salt and freshly ground pep­per to taste

6 ounces smoked Gouda or havarti, shredded

2 ounces Parmesan cheese, shredded

5 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

1/4 cup half and half

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Generously butter a 9-inch pie plate and set aside.

In a small pan, heat about 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add garlic and cook until lightly browned. Add mush­rooms and cook until reduced. Add ramps and spinach and stir until spinach is wilted.

In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, whole milk, and half and half. Sea­son with salt and pep­per. Stir in Gouda and Parmesan. Add cooked spinach, ramps, mush­rooms and garlic.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pie plate.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until the eggs look set and the edges are slightly browned.

Serves 6.

— Adapted from eastendfood.coop

RAMP CHOWDER

PG tested

Cheesy, with just a hint of garlic, this soup is very easy to make. Serve with a green salad and some crusty bread for a light sup­per or lunch.

2 tablespoons bacon fat or butter

1/2 cup ramp bulbs, roughly chopped

1/2 cup ramp greens, roughly chopped

3 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Salt and pep­per to taste

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Crumbled bacon, for garnish

Shredded cheese, for garnish

In a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot, saute ramps over medium heat in bacon fat or butter until soft. Add potatoes, broth, salt and pep­per. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Add heavy cream and shredded cheddar cheese. Stir to combine. Cook over low heat until the flavors meld.

Let chowder stand for 30 minutes to an hour so it thick­ens. For an even creamier soup, blend 1 or 2 cups of cooled soup in a blender until smooth and add back to the pot.

Be­fore serving, gently re­heat chowder. Garnish bowls with bacon, shredded cheese and ramp greens.

— wvliving.com

PICKLED RAMPS

PG tested

Ramps can be super expensive if you're not a forager so I halved this recipe to use less. Add to anything you'd serve other pickled vegetables with — a bloody mary or martini, a sandwich or burger, deviled eggs or on a cheese board. You also can eat them out of hand.

1 pound ramps

10 black pep­per­corns

1 1/2 tea­spoons red pep­per flakes

3/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

Kosher salt

Clean ramps well, then cut off the bot­tom 4 inches of the bulb and stem so they will fit neatly in a jar. Re­serve the greens for an­other use. Add pepper­corns and chili flakes to the jar.

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and 1 tablespoon salt in a small sauce­pan and bring to a boil over high heat, stir­ring to dis­solve the sugar.

Pour boiling saucepan over the ramps in the jar. Seal and re­frig­er­ate over­night. Pick­led ramps will keep in the fridge for several months.

Makes 1 pint.

— "Onions Et­cetera" by Kate Win­slow and Guy Ambrosino (Burgess Lea Press, $35)