This past Sunday I decided to venture down to the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket for an event I’d seen on a flyer called “All About Ramps.”  Since it was rainy I decided to drive, a trip that ordinarily takes about fifteen minutes. But I failed to consider that the five-boro bike tour was on that day, and large section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was closed for it, creating a solid backup all the way to my neighborhood. By the time I finally made it to the market, over an hour after leaving home, the farmers were all packing up to leave.

So, with no story to report from Carroll Gardens, I appealed to my friends on Facebook to send me everything they know about ramps – Lore, facts, recipes, happenings, — anything I could use to post my very own version of “All About Ramps.”

Ramps are, if you don’t know, wild leeks that are foraged in the early spring. They’re prized for their flavor, which is often described as a cross between onion and garlic. They’re also celebrated, in my opinion, because they’re among the very first truly seasonal vegetables of the growing season. Their appearance at the greenmarkets heralds at last the start of the parade of summer and fall produce.

They’re a member of the lily family, and they look it: they have long, lily-like leaves that taper to a slender stalk, at the end of which is an oblong bulb. Once the roots are cut off, they’re edible in their entirety – leaves, stalk and bulb.  Some recipes recommend cooking the bulbs and leaves separately, particularly if you’re sautéing them, since they’ll cook at different rates.

In fact, they can be cooked in many different ways – sautéing, boiling, grilling, pureeing – or can simply be eaten raw.  Here are some ideas for preparing them, along with a bit of ramp lore, that I collected from friends this week:

Jane recommended Bitten, Mark Bittman’s blog at the New York Times.  A couple of interesting-sounding preparations found there: a risotto with ramps as the only ingredient, and in which the bulbs are left whole and the greens are pureed to give the whole dish a spring-green hue; and spaghetti, tossed with toasted breadcrumbs and ramps that again are pureed.

Jane also reminded me to check Epicurious (of course), where interestingly there is also a recipe for risotto, and one for spaghetti tossed with pureed ramps and breadcrumbs. Hmm…

Jane also sent me this link to a page about the Richwood, West Virginia Ramp Fest. Apparently they’re crazy about their ramps in West Virginia. The page lists 33 festivals, dinners, suppers and events devoted to ramps, across West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and even into New York and Pennsylvania. “God, Country, Ramps, Ramps, Ramps.”

Megan, a member of the Epicurious editorial team, gave me this fantastic tip: “they’re GREAT on pizza. Put some over and some under the cheese. You don’t need to precook. They get a nice char when you bake the pizza.” I can’t wait to try that. Megan’s bit of ramp lore: “they smell a lot stronger than they taste.”

My Brother Joe, sometime contributor to this blog, sends these notes:

“I sautéed some garlic in olive oil then added asparagus, green peppers and snow peas.  Ramps went in last.  I added some white wine and cooked it down a bit then mixed in some parmesan cheese.  Eaten over linguine – awesome!”

“I’ve also eaten ramps the traditional way – with eggs. At a local fancy restaurant ramp – potato soup was on the menu. I’ve heard about ramps with pinto beans but haven’t found a recipe yet. “

David Sherman, market manager for the Brooklyn greenmarkets, says that he thinks that for the most part, ramps at the Brooklyn markets are finished. This week at the Wilklow Orchards booth I was told the same thing: the hot spell we had a couple of weeks ago finished off the local crop.

But check your local greenmarket, because there are indications that there still are ramps to be found this year. My friend Karol, local billiards maven and winner of this past week’s guacamole mash-off tipped me off that at Paisley Farm, you can join one of several excursions throughout the month of May to forage for ramps. Paisley farm is a little further upstate, where possibly this year’s crop is still flourishing.

My brother Joe lives in Vermont, and tells me he knows of a few secret ramp-foraging spots, and he expects no trouble finding them for a few more weeks. I’m visiting him this weekend and hopefully he’ll bring me to one of them, though probably he’ll have to lead me in blindfold to protect his secret.

And me? What will I do with ramps this year? Last year I tried making this slightly fancy dish I found on “Adventures in Shaw,” a D.C.-area food blog. It came out good, though a bit heavy on the butter due to my complete lack of experience with Phyllo. (The photos I took of this dish are tragically locked away in a recently-deceased hard drive. Hope is dwindling they’ll ever be recovered.) This year I wanted to make something simpler, more unadorned, to allow the flavor of the ramps – at once pungent and delicate – to come through. Taking inspiration very loosely from this recipe for Alsace Onion Tart, I made simple quiches of ramps, spinach, and goat cheese.  They’re in the oven now – hope they taste as good as they smell!

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed