I’ve been using ramps rampantly in my posts without talking about what they are. My long time friend Sue stopped me short by seriously asking “What are Ramps?” Ramps are famous in West Virginia so I forgot folks from the West coast have never heard of them. We have festivals and big community dinners around ramps. They signal spring in the hills of Appalachia.
Ramps are famous for the odor one acquires after eating a whole lot for days on end. That might be me this year. But who cares. COVID-19 gives me freedom to smell like ramps and not catch flack because Jim is eating them right along with me. In fact he is the one foraging for them. It’s a good thing. I’ve been out of garlic for 4 weeks now and these are a great substitute. I can’t vouch for their COVID-19 virus inhibiting properties but they might help with social distancing.
Recipes for ramps are easy to come by. Big named restaurants from East to West coast talk “woods to table” cuisine when they serve ramps in gourmet dishes. Epicurious has multiple ramp dishes. The web is full of them. But I just substitute ramps for garlic or onions in my favorite dishes. If it weren’t for ramps, I would have suffered much more deprivation in this pandemic. I love garlic and but hoarders cleaned out my grocery store.
If you follow that photo link to Scrambled Eggs with Ramps and Asparagus, you will see the recipe calls for morel mushrooms. I had morel mushrooms. But they are so precious to me that I would never bury them in eggs. That, to me, is sacrilegious. I will do a post on morels soon.
You can eat that? 