Welcome to the first installment of our (Wild) Edible series! Over the next few months, we will cover several wild edible plants and mushrooms that grow in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, including where to find them and how to ID them, tips for harvesting responsibly, and some culinary uses. On the edible plant side, we’ll be working with the ultimate Hudson Valley foraging queen Dina Falconi, author of the beautiful illustrated field guide Foraging and Feasting. And on the mushroom hunting side, we’ll be consulting the ultimate mushroom walk guide and fun guy, Catskill Fungi founder John Michellotti.
Foraging Ramps
For better or for worse, there is probably no other wild edible that has done more to make foraging a household term than the humble ramp. As one of the first wild edibles to appear after the last frost, a sort of mysticism and mythology surrounds the plant—a perennial symbol of the earth waking after winter.
Also known as spring onions, ramsons, wild leeks, wood leeks, and wild garlic, this high-profile plant (Allium tricoccum) exploded on the national scene as the springtime darling of forest-to-table New American chefs some 10 to 15 years ago, though true blue foragers all throughout Appalachia have long known its charm. Ramps are in season now in the Hudson Valley, so we’ll start there, and then examine ramps’ “less sexy cousin”—field garlic.
When is ramp season in the Hudson Valley?
Depending on where you are—and the weather patterns of the specific year—ramp season starts in early to mid-April.
“We’re having a beautiful spring in the Hudson Valley—cool,” Falconi says. “Things are gently rolling in. The cherry blossoms are in bloom. It’s kind of a neurotic time for foragers. There’s a million things to harvest—with at least 20 different species popping right now that you could include in a spring salad.” Among those, ramps are currently peaking.
We asked Falconi for her two cents on this wild allium. Despite the press hype and the dangers around over-harvesting that surround ramps, she admits, “it’s wonderful to eat a plant that is a native perennial. Ramps take seven years to mature—that is a beautiful way of connecting to old-world cuisine and eating.”
Where do ramps grow?
Ramps like lush, rich, moist soil. “You’ll find them where the soil is humus-rich and there’s enough shade,” Falconi says, “usually by a creek with tree cover.” Sounds nice.
How to identify ramps
Early in the season, when everything is small, ramps could be confused with irises or lily of the valley (poisonous), even false hellebore. “So many things can look like it—that’s the problem,” Falconi says. “But ramps never grow beyond a certain height—seven or eight inches, while other plants like false hellebores can get two to three feet tall.” A couple weeks after emerging, the height differential is pronounced enough to avoid confusion with most lookalikes. “Just don’t go eating any old thing,” Falconi says, warning of toxic lookalikes. Here are four ways to ID ramps:
- Smell: They smell like onion/garlic.
- Height: Ramps don’t get taller 7-8 inches, though they’re usually around 6 inches.
- Leaves: Fully mature plants will have three leaves.
- Venation: Ramps have parallel veins instead of netted veins (it looks how it sounds). “That is not that common—a lot of things have net veining, so this is a useful trick for identifying,” says Falconi.
How to sustainably harvest wild ramps
As a slow-growing perennial, ramp patches take a long time to establish (think seven years) and so are especially vulnerable to over-harvesting. It can take up to 10 years for a ramp patch to recover from overharvesting. Here are some general rules to follow:
- “Never harvest ramps unless the patch is really densely populated,” Falconi says. “You want to make sure there are too many ramps.”
- Plants that have fully matured will have three leaves. From each, harvest only one aerial leaf. If a plant only has one leaf and you pick it, you will kill the plant.
- Don’t dig up ramps by their bulbs except to thin an especially exuberant, successful patch. At Greenmarkets and other similar farmers’ markets, you’ll often see vendors selling ramps with their bulbs. “That usually means they are digging out the ramps and clearing the land in a negative way,” Falconi says. “If you’ve found a really crazy ramp patch that has crowding, you can help the patch by thinning like you would in your garden.” You can either eat these dug-up ramps, bulbs and all, or you can seed another patch elsewhere by planting the bulb with its roots and leaves attached.
Best culinary uses for ramps
“I recommend the opposite of what the New York Times pushes” Falconi says, eschewing recipes for dishes like quiches and pasta built entirely around ramps. She prefers to make ramp salt with this wild allium.
“If I find a really dense patch, I pick my leaves and then I make this beautiful salt,” Falconi says. “You honor the ramp, you have its flavor, but you’re not cooking up ramps.” Rather than dehydrating the ramps to make a dry salt, Falconi makes what is called an old school bouillon—ramp leaves preserved in salt. Later, you can use a teaspoon or two of this savory condiment to flavor sauces, soups, stews, and more. “It holds up beautifully,” she says.
Foraging Field Garlic: Ramps’s Unsexy Cousin
“In the Foraging and Feasting book, I left most of the perennial, slow-growing, ecosystem-fragile native plants,” Falconi says. “I focused mostly on invasive plants, because there is a really abundant need to control them.”
Plus, because of their fragility (and over-harvesting), native edibles like ramps and fiddleheads can be hard to find, making foraging a dissatisfying adventure. Falconi says, “I like to get people into the ‘vulgar’ plants, the less sexy cousins.” Enter: Field garlic (allium vineale), AKA onion grass. Hot.
When to harvest field garlic?
A tenacious invasive, field garlic, has been up since snow melt—usually around late March in the Hudson Valley. “It’s one of the first green things you might see after winter,” Falconi says. Like domesticated garlic, it’ll die back in the warmer months after flowering, then sprout back as temps cool in mid autumn.
Where does field garlic grow?
While ramps are precious and poetic about their creekside growing conditions, field garlic, also known as edible wild onion, will grow just about anywhere. “Just walk outside your door, if you have a lawn you’re going to find it,” Falconi says. “It’s a European native named vineale after finding it in vineyards.”
How to identify field garlic
Smell: Like ramps, field garlic smells like onion or garlic.
Stem: It has a cylindrical stem, which is hollow. “You can stick a pin through it,” Falconi says. Venation: And like ramps, field garlic has parallel veining.
“If the stem is flat but smells like garlic or onion, it’s probably something else, like garlic chives [Allium tuberosum],” Falconi says. “But even field garlic has toxic lookalikes, so be careful.”
Tips for harvesting field garlic
Given that field garlic is a hardy invasive species that grows readily in New York State and even outcompetes native plants, Falconi recommended to dig the garlic up by the bulbs and eat them—often and abundantly. “This is the surest way to remove them,” Falconi says. “Eat as much as you want—you’re doing the local ecosystem a service.”
Field garlic health benefits & culinary uses
“These onion family relatives all contain therapeutic properties like garlic—they lower blood pressure and cholesterol and improve cardiovascular health,” Falconi says, noting that field garlic is similar in strength to domesticated garlic, while ramps are a bit weaker.
As far as cooking with the leaves of field garlic, she says, “use it the way you would chives or scallions—in everything.” Finely minced in salads, as a garnish for meats, to spice up your cream cheese.
If you harvest early in the season, the tender greens are nice and juicy. Falconi recommends tossing them with butter or olive oil, salt and roasting the whole thing in the oven. “Right now they are peaking in a good way,” Falconi says. “Later leaves get too tough and stringy to enjoy this way.” Then you shift to using the little bublets (that function as their seeds) and flowers (if they show themselves).”
For more tips on foraging wild edibles and their medicinal and culinary uses, follow Dina Falconi on Instagram and subscribe to her Youtube channel.
