According to Rehill, “The wild leek, also known as the ramp, or common wild leek, is our best wild onion and a source of food and spiciness all year round.”   “Wildman” Steve Brill, a forager who introduces edible plants to New Yorkers in Central Park, says:

There are no two ways about it: Whether you use the leaves or the bulbs, this is simply the best-tasting member of the entire onion family, wild or commercial. You can use the leaves or bulbs raw or cooked. Any cooking method works, taking 5-15 minutes. You’ll find that ramps are terrific, and so is the resulting bad breath.

Ramps are celebrated in festivals all over Appalachia.  According to the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, the first such festival was held as a tourist gimmick “in 1954 when the Cosby Ruritan Club of Cocke County, Tennessee, decided to establish a celebration around the ramp . . . a common spring staple” in that area.  The resulting two-day festival honored “the sweetest tasting and vilest smelling vegetable in Mother Nature's bounty” (Jenkins).

I found a second site, Richwood, West Virginia, which held its 71st annual event this past Saturday, April 18, that claims its pioneering status—but who is really keeping track?  These are, as many of the organizers and attendees attest, simply celebrations of spring—and people come for the music, dancing, crafts, and camaraderie as much as the leeks. Plenty of people attend who won’t even nibble the vegetable being honored.

Chances are, these modern-day festivals hark back to Indians’ and colonists’ excitement when these ephemeral (quick to appear and disappear) plants emerged from a forest floor covered with dead leaves.  Having been introduced to ramps by the Cherokee, settlers in these mountains looked forward to the edible greens after a long winter gnawing old potatoes and turnips from the root cellar.  Ramps probably saved many a family from starving.

Ramps have been considered a “spring tonic” for generations “because they provided necessary vitamins [primarily C and A] and minerals following long winter months without access to fresh fruits and vegetables” (Davis and Greenfield).  A 2000 medical study found that the selenium—a chemical compound rarely found in nature—in ramps reduced cancer in rats (Whanger et al.).  Selenium is commonly added to vitamin supplements today, but it is undoubtedly better for you when consumed within nature’s delivery system.  In fact, it is toxic when taken in large amounts.

Many descriptions of the plant highlight the apparent discrepancy between the pungency of the odor and taste—the former formidible, the latter sweet.  I guess the message is—don’t turn up your nose if you don’t like the smell!  Ramps are worth a try in any dish that calls for onions or garlic.  I can attest that they’re delicious chopped into cream cheese—I had a sandwich with that combination at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, West Virginia, a few years ago, my only taste of ramps to date.

No matter how sweet the plants may be, ramp-eaters are known for their bad breath.  And, apparently, halitosis is not the only risk when ingesting ramps.  “When eaten, a strong odor emanates from the skin of the ramps gourmand,” says a commercial site (Earthy Delights) that sells ramps online.  Dangling modifier aside, these plants obviously cause various bodily odors in the person whose culinary sense trumps concerns about offending those with more rarified taste—and noses.

“The smell,” writes John Roach in the National Geographic, “oozes out of the pores of sweaty folk. In years past, schoolchildren who gorged on the spring veggies were often excused from classes for several days. ‘You can imagine in a one-room classroom—especially with little boys getting overheated—and what that smelled like,’” says Cathey Owens of Cosby, Tennessee, which was celebrating its 52nd festival in 2005 when Roach wrote about the event. 

According to an article in the Library of Congress’s American Memory series, “The salient feature of ramps is the smell. The Menominee Indians called it ‘pikwute sikakushia’: the skunk. ‘Shikako,’ their name for a large ramp patch that once flourished in northern Illinois, has been anglicized to Chicago: ‘the skunk place’” (Jarrell and Eiler).  I never realized that my favorite U.S. city was named for this local legend!

In recent years, ramps have been “elevated” from Appalachian curiosity to gourmet fare, with this month’s issue of Bon Appetit celebrating their culinary uses.  “Celebrity chefs have been promoting ramps as a gourmet food item and ‘white-table cloth’ restaurants have begun serving ramps,” report Davis and Greenfield.

For those who, like me, hope to find ramps in the wild (and I’m determined to do so this spring after years of trying!): “Look for soil habitats that are sandy, moist and often on hillsides and near streams” (Reehil).  Their leaves look similar to those of lily-of-the-valley, but don’t mistake that poisonous plant for ramps.  Unlike lilies-of-the-valley, ramps have a purplish stem and an elongated, not a round, bulb, as well as their characteristic smell.  You can positively identify ramps by tearing off a leaf and sniffing—if that is even necessary.  Leek leaves and bulbs can be eaten.  Reehil says they can often be found in the same habitat at the same time as morels—a delicious edible mushroom I’ve eaten sautéed with olive oil and butter.  Other sites give recipes with a third culinary delight found now in the woods—fiddleheads (the early shoots of fern). 

Most sources give late March/early April as the time for gathering ramps, but they may come later to areas with lower elevation.  It is possible to locate the still-edible bulbs later in the summer by their globular flowerheads, though the leaves will quickly disappear.  This year, I have a lead from a friend who knows where a ramp patch grows, so I hope to add my own picture of a locally found ramp to this article sometime this week.

Of course, with all this new media attention to ramps, the danger of over-harvesting is present.  Never clear out an entire stand of ramps—leave plenty for future generations.  On the other hand, the more people are educated about these important plants, the more likely ramps will be saved from developers’ bulldozers, even if that means relocating the ramps before clearing begins.  (But with the economy as it is, we won’t worry too much about that right now.)  They are apparently difficult to cultivate conventionally, though they may do well if transplanted to a habitat similar to their woodsy, wild one. 

Finally, if you, like me, are interested in the naming of plants, read on.   The genus name, Allium (Latin for “garlic”), denotes ramps’ classification in the onion/garlic family (see my note in the second paragraph about classification).  The species name is Latin for three-sided—tri, of course, a prefix for such things.  Barry Glick reminds us that choices for species names often followed the “Doctrine of Signatures”:   “In the ‘good ole days,’ people believed that the shape, coloration or some other physical characteristic of the plant indicated its medicinal use. Linnaeus and many other early plant explorers used this theory in naming plants.”

Glick further tells us that ramps is "probably a bastardization of rampion, an old Anglic word for leeks . . . ."  Rampions are “bellflowers” that grow in Europe, Africa, and Asia, “having bluish flowers and an edible tuberous root used with the leaves in salad”  (Farlex). Rampion is assumed to be an English take on the French raiponce which eventually gets us back to the Latin rapa, or turnip (Farlex).  When settlers were introduced to wild leeks by the Indians, or found specimens themselves, they assumed they were the same plant they knew, which has as similar taproot. 

By whatever name you know them--ramps, wild leeks, or pikwute sikakushia--may your ramps taste sweet and bring you health and good cheer!   

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References:

Davis, Jeanine M., and Jacquelyn Greenfield.  “Cultivating Ramps:  Wild Leek of Appalachia.”  In: J. Janick and A. Whipkey (eds.), Trends in new crops and new uses.  Alexandria, VA:  ASHS Press, 2002.  449-452.  (http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-449.html).

Farlex Free Dictionary.  (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rampion). 

Glick, Barry.  “A Walk on the Wild Side:  Wildflowers of West Virginia.”  GardenWeb. n.d. (http://www.gardenweb.com/cyberplt/plants/wildflowers.html).

Jarrell, Carrie Lou, and Lyntha Scott Eiler.  “Ramp Suppers, Biodiversity, and the Integrity of ‘The Mountains.’”  Tending the Commons:  Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia.  U.S. Library of Congress, American Memory. (http://cweb2.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay4b.html).

Jenkins, William L.  “Ramp Festival.”  Local Legacies:  Celebrating Community Roots.  U.S. Library of Congress, The American Folklife Center.  2000. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/TN/200003547.html).  

Reehil, Roy.  “Wild Leeks—April’s Wild Food of the Month.”  The Foragers Press:  Field Guide 2006.  ( http://theforagerpress.com/fieldguide/aprilfd.htm).

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