PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK LOADER
A lot’s underway in the natural world, as the ground thaws and the days lengthen, eager to play out at the kitchen table. Ramps, the culinary star of Western Massachusetts ephemerals, anchor each of these recipes, but they share the stage with a variety of ingredients also notably abundant come spring. Laying hens are more prolific, as their yield follows the arc of increasing daylight. Dairy cows, back on grass, bump up their volume of milk, almost instantaneously. The first edible mushrooms materialize before the eyes of experienced foragers, brook trout can be spotted in little streams in the hill towns, and on many farms, now’s when lambing is happening. Celebrate ramps’ announcement that the season’s in motion by cooking them in companionship with these other symbols of spring.
RESPONSIBLE RAMPING
The allure of wild local food has meant that ramp foraging for pleasure, (and profit), has grown dramatically over the past decades. At the same time, this wild plant reproduces and grows very slowly, putting ramps’ future increasingly under pressure. There’s a reason these recipes call for ramp leaves, rather than the whole plant. Protecting repopulation is a ramp lovers’ responsibility, so we like to take a conservative approach: Harvest the leaf, while leaving the bulb—or at least the entire root—in the ground. A “sustainable harvest” is one in which ramps can be foraged indefinitely from a limited area without impact on the population. Here are some tips to help you do just that.
Take from extremely healthy populations (some characterize this as an area carpeting an acre or more).
Harvest just the leaves—conservatively, only one per plant (each plant has two or three). The remaining leaves can keep harvesting the sunlight—the plant’s primary energy source. These plants can go on to make flowers and seeds.
Use the right tools: A sharp knife or scissors will make a clean snip.
Be mindful of the “footprint” you leave along the way. Opportunistic invasive plants love a disturbed woodland floor, and that can crowd out the natives.
If you see evidence that someone else has harvested ramps where you’re foraging, move on.
Start thinking of ramps as a year-round life-cycle experience, and look for succession, including the sight of adorable seed heads peeking up through the winter snow.
Support research efforts into sustainable ramp harvesting and cultivation. The more we know about their resiliency and what makes them thrive, the more confident active foragers and eaters we can become.
