Ramps are back! (Although this table hawking wild leeks is at the Union Square Green Market in New York City.) The well-worn sign features ramps for $2.50 a bunch. This sign is a lesson on how best to prepare these garlicky delicacies. For example, if you squint real close at this picture, you will see authentic chef scrawl from such haute barnyard eateries as Blue Hill ("blanch greens then puree") and The Tasting Room ("saute ramps with bacon and Muscat, serve over freshly popped corn") and from Posto (a Mario Butalli outpost) where they are serving Ramps Ala Plancha with Romesco. This is the kind of inside info that would take two years to gather from reading Gourmet Magazine or working as a serial waitress at places you can never afford to eat.
But, considering my up-front commitment of gas, train, buying food for friends, an impulsive $20 cab ride and random wine tastings just to purchase a bunch of ramps for $2.50, you could just as easily stay home. The lady selling ramps in New York said she foraged them herself in the Catskills where they're "all over the place." They're here too, but don't expect me to hold your hand. This is foraging, not shopping.
Wild leeks, which are super garlicky tasting, are growing within 100 miles of where you're sitting or standing reading this right now. I know because Jessica Harwich (Valley Green Feast) is selling them out of the back of her grease truck.
For a free trip to wild food nirvana, get out your boots and do some foraging. Try Wendell, try Williamsburg, try Cummington and focus on marshy or hilly areas. Ask a forager, since they know their way around, but most likely they will tell you to ask another forager. No matter. They are worth a day nosing around the ground. Another source would be someone with the kind of old world wisdom that comes from generations of foraging in eastern Europe and Canada.
This recipe for Wild Ramps and Polenta would be fun to make outside if you have all the stuff, like a Coleman stove and a cooler.
Wild Ramps with Polenta (locavore version)
Ingredients:
1 bunch ramps (forage or buy from dealer)
1 little box shiitake mushrooms (see above or try River Valley Market and Green Fields, both of which carry local shiitakes)
1 cup ground flint corn (you're on your own here. I have a source but there's not enough for everyone!)
1 good knob of butter (various dairies in the area or Cabot which is at least in Vermont)
Use a black iron skillet, as one always should when cooking wild food. Trim the hairy part of the bulb off the ramp with a sharp knife, "flash fry" in butter whole, remove when crisp on the outside but silky inside and throw the chopped shiitakes in the pan with more fat if necessary. Remove mushrooms when done but not too done. Chop ramps in half-inch pieces and add to mushrooms. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
In a sauce pan, cook up the cornmeal into polenta. Use your own technique here, but basically it's a one to two ratio of corn to water, cooked slowly until it thickens. Pour into a couple of greased water glasses and put into the fridge to set for around one hour. After one hour has passed, remove the tubes of polenta from the glasses and slice like bologna. Give these polenta disks a quick flip in the pan with butter or oil to brown and arrange on a plate like silver dollar pancakes. Dress with sauteed wild edibles and serve. Do not grate cheese over it unless it's aged goat cheese, which is local. Enjoy your wild meal.
Locavore Tip
Talk to older types when trying to forage for ramps, fiddleheads, mushrooms and other wild edibles. There's info in those brains, much of it carried over from Poland, Russia and Montreal.
Market News
Believe it or not, Greenfield's Farmers' Market will open this Saturday, May 2, which might be a record. Show up on the green at Court Square in Greenfield between the hours of 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. You will be greeted by no less than 32 happy vendors hawking starter vegetable plants, hanging baskets, perennial and annual flower plants, herb plants and culinary herbs, mixed greens, spinach, asparagus, lettuce, honey, maple syrup, homemade jams, fresh baked breads, cookies, grass-fed lamb, beef and pork and more.
As the season progresses, look for heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, peppers (both hot and sweet), sweet corn and every other vegetable you can imagine along with a wide range of fruit, including peaches, plums, sour cherries, pears, apples, apple cider, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and watermelon.
You'll also find hand-wrought iron trellises and arbors, herbal skin care products, hand-sewn handbags, aprons, homemade soap, pottery, portable chicken coops, hand-crafted cutting boards, sheep skins, roving and jewelry. All this before many of us even have seeds in the ground! Check out the new website at www.greenfieldfarmersmarket.com for info about vendors, entertainment and events at the Greenfield Farmer's Market.
