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I have a love-hate relationship with wild leeks, which most of you know as ramps. It is the same feeling I get when I actually like a popular song; I felt this way when Madonna’s “Vogue” came out in 1990 (and no, I am not gay). It’s just that I am genetically predisposed to disliking trendy things… but I really do like eating ramps.
I especially enjoy eating them since I moved to California, where wild onions seem to be scarce. I’ve heard there are more than 20 varieties of wild onion or garlic living in California, but I have yet to find any of them — to my eternal shame. Wild onion was one of the first things I foraged for when I was a boy, and finding them has been a harbinger of spring for me ever since.
Ramps did not grow in my neighborhood in New Jersey, but they were always in the Watchung hills nearby, and sometimes my friends and I would find the whole understory of the forest covered in them. My little mental name for ramps was “forest-onion-lily,” which is pretty much what they are.
I never heard the term “ramps” until I moved to Virginia as an adult, although my ex-wife knew about them from growing up in Wisconsin. Now ramps are all the rage, have been for a couple of years now.
Far away from the Kingdom of the Ramp, which ends at the Great Plains in Minnesota, I decided I needed to play with ramps again. Although this time I’d cook them. As a boy I just picked and ate them raw; my breath must have been pretty special then…
Once I got my ramps, here’s what I did:
- Sauteed them with olive oil and served them with a squeeze of lemon and fleur de sel and pepper. Simple and delicious.
- Chopped them up and tossed them into an omelet.
- Sauteed them in a sweet-and-sour sauce, for ramps agrodolce
- Made a ramp pesto.
- And, most esoterically, pulverized the pretty green ramp leaves and added them to a dough to make a ramp pasta.
I still have enough to make several other ramp dishes, but our annual Big Fat Greek Party is Saturday and nearly 100 people are planning to show up — so maybe I’ll just grill the rest of the ramps and serve them with tzatziki.
All of these dishes were good, but the most ramp-tastic was the ramp pasta with ramp pesto, pictured at the top. It’s green on green, and damn good if I do say so myself.
Lots of people make ramp pesto, mostly as versions of the typical recipe, with basil and pine nuts. My ramp pesto has a Sicilian flair, with ramps taking place of the garlic, along with fresh oregano and almonds as the nut and pecorino as the cheese.
Lemme tell ya, making the ramp pasta was not easy. Ramp leaves may be flavorful and pretty, but they are also loaded with moisture and fibrous. And fibrous is no bueno when making a green pasta — the fibers compromise the dough’s strength. This means you cannot make very thin noodles, and that I had to knead the damn thing for a full 10 minutes. I have stronger arms now, thank you.
I wanted to go narrower than pappardelle with it, but the fibers broke the noodles when I tried to make tagliatelle. So papparedelle it was. Nothing wrong with wide noodles, I say. A moment in boiling water, a hit of lemon juice and a dollop of the pesto, and this was about as ramp-y as I could get.
What do I think after this whirlwind fling with my childhood friend, the ramp? I think pretty much the same thing as I did then: It’s a good spring onion, and I like that it has both a mild garlic flavor to go with its spring onion side. I will happily use them every spring.
But let’s get real here. Have you seen the heights people are soaring to when they describe the flavor of ramps. Please. I mean I know they are milder than a lot of other wild onions, but we need to get a grip and treat the ramp for what it is: An excellent, wild spring onion. It’s not the culinary messiah, people. It’s an onion.
And contrary to popular belief, it is apparently not uncultivatable. I plan on sticking a few of my extra ramps in the garden to see what happens. I am betting they will grow the way all my other onions do, only in the shade.
MORE ON RAMPS
- Linguine with Ramps, Morels, Sunchokes and Spinach, from A Good Appetite
- Ramps in Shallot Butter, from Not Derby Pie
It’s sort of iniquitous, isn’t it, that wildly foraged greens (not to mention mushrooms) should be sold at such outrageous prices – $10.95/lb? In our local (read: trendy) specialty food store in Brooklyn they had New Jersey ramps for $14.99/lb. For that kind of money, I’d actually consider setting foot in Jersey and foraging some myself (i kid of course, i love Jersey)! I also jogged past what I thought might be ramps in the park the other week, but felt somehow reluctant to chance picking and eating them. You know how it is. That said, i do like the look of your ramps agrodolce. They put me in the mind of a similarly springtide onion fest – the calcotada of Catalunya. I bet grilled ramps aren’t half bad with a romesco or salbitxada either. Nice work.
My parents made ramp butter last season, froze it and brought it out for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a lovely reminder of spring during the autumnal feast. And it was damn good on bread rolls! Highly recommended.
Okay, so I know you’re not into Glee, but you really must see Jane Lynch doing Vogue https://is.gd/bsz1w
I started two ramp patches in two different spots near the house, and both are thriving. Hardwood tree shade and leaf mulch is all you need. An as you know, they make a wicked aioli. No doubt they are over-hyped, but at least they taste good, unlike fiddleheads.
Amelia: Ramp butter sounds good. Maybe I’ll try it with a juicy venison steak…
Ken: Hilarious! I did roughly the same thing with those Jersey wild garlics, although no cops arrived…
Charles and Michele: Now I am no ramp-hater, but I just think the ramp-love has grown a little out of proportion these days. If it gets too serious, it might in fact damage the resource — but it’d have to get a lot more serious to do that, though. McRamp Burger, anyone?
Deana: Sure, you could make those squares. It’d be easier than papparedelle…
Camilla: Yep, they’re the same, more or less.
Jen: I like ursinus – it’s the powerful stuff Ken Albala and I are talking about that grows in New Jersey lawns. Ramps are WAY more delicate.
Carol: I heard about “onion valleys” in California. Might need to make a pilgrimmage.
Great post! One of the (few) things I miss about my ten years of living in the Midwest is foraging for ramps in the spring. They were so good! And nobody else seemed to know about them…not trendy in Iowa at the time! I’ve found wild onions in California (if you’re ever in the Eastern Sierras in late spring/early summer, check out the aptly named Onion Valley area), but they just aren’t as good. Please let us know how your attempts at cultivation work out.
Thanks for the info on ramps/ramsons. Not that I’m obsessed, just a gardener by trade, but I started looking at our native flora. It seems we don’t have the tricoccum species, just ursinus. The stem is smaller and it’s got a very garlicy taste. It is what I gather as wild garlic. Is your species more oniony, delicate? Ours can be bitter, but perhaps its all in the preparation (I haven’t got your mad culinary skills!).
These dishes all look fabulous. I wonder if your ‘ramps’ are the same as our ‘ransomes’ in England? (they look pretty identical) These seem to grow everywhere over here at this time of year. I have driven through some parts of the country where the smell of garlic coming from the woods is quite overpowering… stuck in London this weekend, so I might have to go on an urban forage and try out that pesto!
I have a friend who does a smoked ramp and salmon dish that I am crazy about. This ramp pasta really has my tastebuds going… i wonder if you could do it the medieval Italian way with pasta squares… because I think the flavor must be heavenly and so green and Spring-ful. Living in NJ, they are everywhere this time of year… I’ll let you know how ramp squares work!!!
Growing up in California I’d never really heard of ramps, and even living on the East Coast for a number of years I somehow missed them. Now I can’t get away from them (hearing/reading about them). Thanks for clarifying what they are and their provenance. Not sure either what all the excitement is about. One of these days I’ll have to try some to see.
Great post! I was venting about ramps and have almost the same title on my post as you!
Hank, I totally forgot about the wild scallions or onions or whatever they were that grew in the lawn when I was growing up in New Jersey. Once as a kid I decided I needed to make onion soup out of them on an open fire. The neighbors of course panicked, called the cops, who were soon eyeing my soup with suspicion. Apparently it was NOT against the law to make a fire in your backyard. The cops didn’t want to taste either. I used the pit to cook for years thereafter and it’s still there.
how wonderful! they are such a spring treasure. Love to “hunt” for them in the woods in secret places.
Here’s another way I found recently to prepare them: ramp butter, to spread on toasted bread. (I found it here: https://www.ediblecommunities.com)
Amelia
The title of this post alone is awesome, but the post as a whole? You win the Internet today, Hank.
Tina: Look for ramps in open woodlands – forest with sun dappling through. They’ll look like lilies at first.. You’ll know by the aroma they’re ramps, though. They like wettish places, too. Not swamps, but damp.
Thanks, Winnie! Hope to see you around, virtually that is…
Holly: No comment.
Jen: It is Allium tricoccum, but you will know them as ramsons in the UK. A version of them does grow there, so I am told.
Hank – Do you know the latin name for the ramp? I wonder if it’s one of the wild alliums growing here in the UK, which would give me an excuse to raid your recipes for new ideas!
Matt, I don’t care what Hank does with his hat, but I will not tolerate him wearing his jeans around his knees. Unless, of course, he’s doing something I appreciate.
You are just too trendy sir. Next you are going to be wearing jeans around your knees, and turning your cap around backwards.. wait, is it sideways these days? heck I am too old to know.
Anyhow, trendy or not, ramps are lovely. Great looking food there mate – simple preparations of first rate ingredients. Lovely honest food.
This is a really great blog. I enjoyed this post and want to say thanks for mentioning my ramp and egg dish…that was the very first recipe I ever blogged about, by the way! I am adding you to my blogroll and I’ll be back to read more- your blog layout is very attractive and your recipes are wonderful!
I’ve been hearing all the same hype over ramps for the last couple of years. In fact, up until about 2 years ago, I had never heard of them, then suddenly, they were everywhere. Celebrity chefs were using them all over the place and making me feel stupid, because I wasn’t familiar with them. Since I live in Central Pennsylvania, I’m sure I should be able to find ramps growing wild here. Where am I most likely to find them growing?