Ramps: A stinking man's food
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Wild leeks foraged in Brookville, Ohio, on Sunday. The leaves are flat but not as wide as on ramps, or Allium tricoccum, so they could be another species or variety such as burdickii. -
Spring Risotto with Ramps, Asparagus and Morels, made with freshly foraged ramps.
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Ramps are the unlikely cool kids of spring cuisine.
These scrawny little wild leeks, which reek, are prized by mountain folks and chefs alike as early harbingers of green, and seem to be increasingly celebrated from one side of the country to the other.
Here in Appalachia, we are in the heart of ramp country, and lots of people here literally dig them. Last week, Sean Ehland, executive chef at Kaya in the Strip District, was tweeting photos of ramp roll-ups with bacon and goat cheese, and now ramps are popping up all over the menu and other menus around town, as well as at Giant Eagle Market District stores and Whole Foods. Lidia's is celebrating Earth Day with a four-course ramps dinner on Fri., April 22 ($40).
If you want to see what all the love is about, you might want to check out the Mason-Dixon Ramp Festival. The 21st fest runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 16 and 17, at Mason-Dixon Park near Mount Morris in Greene County, just off Interstate 79, about 65 miles south of Pittsburgh.
Saturday actually starts at 9 a.m. with "Diane's breakfast," and Sunday starts at 9 a.m. with an outdoor church service. There's music and crafters, prizes and raffles, antique engines and campers.
But the stinky stars of the show are the ramps, made every which way and into every kind of food by a dozen food vendors. There'll be beer-battered, deep-fried ramps, ramp salad, Mason-Dixon dogs (topped with fresh chopped ramps plus chili, coleslaw, sauerkraut and onions). There'll be ramp burgers, ramp kielbasa, fried potatoes and ramps, ramp butter and dips, and ramp cheese ball.
Organizer Connie Ammons says they'll go through more than 22 bushels of ramps.
You can even taste homemade ramp wine. It was made by Betty Quintana, a retired schoolteacher turned dairy goat farmer who lives between two 3,000-foot-tall wooded hills near Blacksville, W.Va. She's got a "show patch" of leeks in her yard, and elsewhere on her property a "big patch," and she loves to go there when the leeks are ready in the spring with a piece of bread. "I pull them out of the ground, rinse 'em in the crick, and have a ramp sandwich immediately," she says. "My yearly, how shall I say it -- the way I celebrate."
First Published April 7, 2011 12:00 am
