Ramping Up For Spring

Spring has officially sprung and that means the Greene County area is gearing up for its annual festival season. In the upcoming months, Greene County will honor its rich heritage with festivals and fairs celebrating sheep & fiber, blacksmithing, wildflowers, coal mining, history, and, of course, food! Two of spring’s earliest celebrations are feasts of an Appalachian favorite, the ramp.

Ramps (Allium tricoccum) are a scarce delicacy available only for a short time each spring, around late March and early April. They are one of the earliest wild edibles to emerge each spring. Also known as a wild leek, ramps aren’t actually a leek at all. Often confused with scallions, as well, ramps are known for their unique flavor, stronger than the mild onion flavor of a leek and more garlicky than a scallion.

Ramps are native to the hardwood forests in the higher elevations of eastern North America, as far north as Canada and spreading down south as far as Georgia. They have 1 or two broad, flat leaves measuring 1 to 2 ½ inches wide by 4 to 12 inches long.

Throughout the Appalachians, ramps have always been revered as a favorite. It was a certain sign of spring when ramps came into season, and eventually ramp harvesting grew into gatherings with cooking and music, eventually evolving into the festivals we know today. Appalachians love of the pungent ramp helps support many local community organizations, through fundraising festivals and dinners.

Nicholas County, West Virginia even had its very own Ramp King, Bato Crites. Bato, born in 1888, became known as the “King of Ramps” in Richwood, WV and the surrounding area. He was the 16th of 19 children in a WV family. Bato supposedly could locate ramps faster that any other person and was instrumental in their harvesting. He died in 1960. Richwood is still known as the “Ramp Capital of the World” and continues to hold an annual festival.

Ramps were also used a folk remedy, a spring tonic, throughout the Appalachian region, thought to have restorative qualities and cleanse the blood. Ramps are high in vitamin C, so their use after long, cold winters by early settlers helped with scurvy and other nutritional troubles.

Ramps began to reach national interest in the mid-1980s and exploded in popularity in the mid-90s when the New York Magazine published a story extolling the virtues of the wild leek. Ramps continued to grow in popularity, reaching a frenzy outside of the Appalachians where they are much harder to come by. In 2011, James Chamberlain, a research scientist with the United States Forest Service announces that ramps are being overharvesting due to foragers not acting sustainably.

But there is a light: the Cherokee offer a traditional method that allows for sustainable ramp foraging – using a sharp knife, cut the leaves from the main bulb, leaving the bulb in the ground to continue to grow. . Other sustainable foraging practices include only harvesting one leaf per plant, not harvesting all plants in a patch, and cultivating them by growing your own, from seed or bulb transplant.

In Greene County, their short growing and harvesting season is celebrated with two local events, a Ramp Festival in Mason-Dixon Park and a Ramp Dinner at the Mason-Dixon Historical Park at the end of April. This year the Ramp Festival at the Mason-Dixon Park is April 27 and 28,10am – 5pm. You can enjoy some ramp delicacies, as well as music, crafts, ramp vendors and more. On the other side of the Mason-Dixon line, stop by the Mason-Dixon Historical Park for their annual Ramp Dinner – the finest ramp dinner the Appalachians have to offer - on April 27 from 9am to 2pm, with a guided wildflower walk at 1:15pm. There are so many delicious ways to eat ramps – what better way to try as many as you can by going to a ramp festival?