The
FOOD
Happy Ramper A writer gathers a key spring ingredient by the roadside
Issue
B y E T h An d E S E iF E
INFO.BURLINGTON.EDU/IMA Flexible enough to fit your career goals and lifestyle. Work one-on-one with faculty to design your own degree plan.
04.23.14-04.30.14
SEVENDAYSVt.com
A low-residency, study-fromanywhere degree program.
34 FEATURE
SEVEN DAYS
I
BURLINGTON VT • 802.862.9616
4v-BurlingtonCollege032614.indd 1
recently moved to Vermont from Brooklyn, where gathering wild edibles is nearly impossible. (I did often spy purslane — aka pigweed — a delicious complement to salads and beans, growing alongside fences and curbs, but I don’t like my foods doused in dog urine, thank you very much.) My wife, Laura, and I once took an enjoyable foraging tour through Central Park, where our guide, “Wildman” Steve Brill, showed us how to recognize and pluck a variety of wild urban victuals. Since that time, I’ve been more cognizant of and interested in tracking down feral foods. That said, I’d never put much effort into the task. The arrival of spring and my residence in a far more rural area — not to mention the pressure of coming up with
3/25/14 11:35 AM
phoToS coURTESy oF EThAn dE SEiFE
O
n a recent Tuesday, I clambered down a hillside that had somehow escaped the worst of the rains that had engorged the White River, which raced just a hundred feet below me. The soil was, fortunately, not too slippery, damp or crumbly, providing the ideal growing conditions for the object of my quest: ramps. I’d been introduced to ramps’ garlicky zing about 10 years ago, when I lived in Wisconsin. There, as in Vermont, these delicious, oniony plants were enthusiastically celebrated not just for their toothsomeness but for their portending of spring after the too-long winter. Now, I crave them every April. Ramps — also known as wild leeks (or not; more on that later), ramson, wild garlic and other names — smell like garlic and taste like fresh, garlicky onions. They’re fantastic in salads, omelettes, sauces and all kinds of savory dishes. They’re also one of the first wild edibles to ripen every year, maturing rapidly in the late winter to beat out even such early risers as asparagus. Ramps grow in a wide range that encompasses most of the eastern U.S. and Canada, but they do not grow just anywhere. To pluck these delicacies, you need to find a “ramping ground”: a site where, when conditions are right, the ramps will, if you’ll pardon the expression, run rampant. That’s why I found myself on a roadside hill in central Vermont on a meteorologically temperamental day in mid-April. I’d gotten a good tip about where to find the key ingredient for the dinner I’d planned for that night. With my little green bucket in hand, I was going ramping.
story ideas for this Food Issue — were all I needed to go ramping in earnest. Well, actually, I needed more than that. I needed confirmation that, by mid-April, after a long, cold winter, the ramps would be available for the plucking. Ramps are easy enough to spot, and a quick sniff will confirm their identity. But before I could fill my bucket with ramps, I needed to know where to look for the damn things. So I called Nova Kim. Kim and her husband, Les Hook, are the éminences grises of Vermont wildcrafting: the collection and consumption of wild (that is, not cultivated) foods. For several decades, they’ve been the state’s experts on where to find such comestibles. If anyone would know where to find ramps, they would. But would they share with me the locations of their ramping grounds? They would, and they did. Kim and Hook were most gracious, suggesting two locations, each about 70 miles from Burlington, that had reliably produced ramps for as long as they could remember. They also clarified a few misconceptions
for me, the first of which has to do with the word “foraging.” Though she knew I meant no harm when I used it in our conversation, Kim said she finds this term “derogatory,” preferring the all-encompassing “hunting and gathering” or the somewhat more chic “wildcrafting.” For my own part, I think I’ll stick with “gathering” or “collecting,” since “wildcrafting” implies that something is