Ramp Pickles Ramp Up Flavor

A couple of years ago, a friend told me the story of a trip to New York City, where she met friends for dinner at a swanky restaurant.  One of the group was telling the others about a delicious "new" vegetable that was all the rage in the City.  When my friend learned the trendy vegetable was ramps, she chuckled as she thought about the wild ramps that grew in her North Carolina yard.  

Ramps growing in NC mountain forest

In season now and available to lucky farmer's market shoppers and adventurous foragers, ramps are wild edibles that are delicious on their own or combined with other vegetables or proteins.  Native to eastern North American mountain ranges, ramps, or wild leeks, appear in early spring and, although their season is brief, fans of this pungent bulb preserve that unique garlic/onion flavor in a variety of ways.  
 

Cooking ramp leaves is a show

Both ramp greens and bulbs are edible and tossing the flat leaves (think Lily of the Valley) in a bit of hot olive oil creates a show.  As the greens cook, they swell and deflate, writhing as if alive. With wild ramps increasingly in demand, it is imperative that foragers practice sustainable harvesting methods.  A tutorial about harvesting ramps is available at:
http://appalachianfoodstorybank.org/ramps-a-sustainable-harvest/ 

A couple of weeks ago, my husband surprised me with a basket of ramps he harvested during a trip to far western NC.  Thanks to that gift, we can look forward to enjoying compound ramp butter, ramp pesto, dehydrated ramps and ramp pickles.
 

Richard's ramp harvest, plus a Morel mushroom

One of my favorite ways to preserve ramp bulbs is to pickle them. Toss pickled ramps into salads or hot vegetable dishes, dice and add to deviled egg mixture or potato salad or just enjoy them alone. Because our family loves a bit of heat in pickles, I add whole hot peppers to the ramps before processing.  Since it is impossible to harvest fresh peppers while ramps are in season, I use peppers I froze in late fall.  For pickled ramps, a good choice is Fish pepper, which packs a nice heat that does not sear the tongue.  

Whole, frozen Fish peppers add heat to ramp pickles

Plan to enjoy ramps this season and if you are fortunate to find yourself with an abundant supply, pickling is a great way to preserve them.  Half-pint jelly jars are perfect for ramps and for pretty pickles, take time to pack ramp bulbs and peppers carefully before adding pickling solution.  
 

Pickled Ramps with fresh dill and Fish peppers

 Ramp Pickles
Prepare fresh ramp bulbs by removing outer skin and trimming leaves from bulbs
Place cleaned, trimmed bulbs in a large glass bowl and liberally add kosher salt.  Cover with water and place in the refrigerator for about 12 hours.
Prepare pickling solution.
1 3/4 cups water
2 cups white vinegar
4 tablespoons kosher salt
Heat pickling solution ingredients in a large Dutch oven and stir until salt dissolves.
Rinse and drain ramp bulbs
Pack bulbs, fresh dill sprigs and whole peppers into hot half-pint or pint jars.
Add hot pickling solution to cover, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.
Adjust lids and tightly screw bands.
Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
Remove jars from water bath and invert on a heavy towel for 6 minutes.
Turn jars upright and cover with the towel.  
Allow jars to sit for 24 hours and check to be sure lids sealed.

Heirloom Seeds by Mail

Usually, my mail delivery is not very exciting.  Other than seed catalogs, which stir the same sort of anticipation I used to feel when the Sears Christmas Wishbook arrived at our home, most of what is in my mailbox is pretty mundane.  When I pulled the metal lid away last Monday, however, what I found inside was very much out of the ordinary and when I opened the padded manila envelope, tears blurred my eyes as I read handwritten notes and held precious small plastic bags full of family treasures.  
 

Heirloom seeds in my mailbox?  Much better than bills!

I reconnected with my cousin, Ruth Bolick, a few years ago when I was researching the source of my family's heirloom seeds.  Ruth, the family historian, shared information that helped me trace my maternal lineage back to Mary "Polly" Schmidt (Smith) Bean, the woman who probably brought seeds with her when she immigrated from Germany in the early 1800s.  Many Heart & Sole crops originate with this resourceful ancestor and when I opened the package from Ruth,  the seed packets inside added another tangible link to Polly, my great-great-great-grandmother.  No wonder my hands were shaking as I inventoried the gifts, which included family pumpkins and peas, as well as other heirloom seeds Ruth collected from friends and relatives years ago.  

As with all heirlooms, each seed comes with a story and Ruth included a handwritten note with each packet.  Especially intrigued by the black peanut seeds, I called Ruth to discuss their source.  

Peanuts are creamy white under the black skins

Over thirty years ago, Ruth noticed a coworker eating what she thought was burnt peanuts.  When she asked why he would choose such a snack, the man replied he was enjoying black peanuts, nuts he grew in his garden from heirloom seeds.  The next day, he brought Ruth some seeds and she grew black peanuts for many years.  Smaller than other heirloom peanut varieties, black peanuts are slightly sweeter, but still pack the flavor punch of heirlooms.  Yes, I tasted the seed; if you have never eaten heirloom peanuts, it is hard to imagine how delicious they are, compared to commercial varieties.  Think about the flavor difference in homegrown summer tomatoes, as opposed to January supermarket fruit, and you begin to grasp the contrast.  

Black peanuts beside heirloom red-skinned peanuts

After speaking with Ruth, I researched black peanuts and looked at numerous images online.  The seeds Ruth shared are probably Carolina Black peanuts, also known as the North Carolina peanut, a common NC crop in the 1800s.  The online catalog for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (PO Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117, www.southernexposure.com) includes this information: "According to food historian William Woys Weaver, the black peanut may have been used as a substitute for Black Bambarra (African ground nut) by the black community.  Black Bambarra is important in African folk medicine as an aphrodisiac. . .  Carolina Black produces sweet-tasting, black-skinned peanuts that are slightly larger than Spanish peanuts."  

As I plan where to plant these special seeds, there is a tiny voice inside that reminds me I promised to downsize garden space this year.  I know, I know, but how to resist North Carolina Black Peanuts?  Smaller garden?  Maybe next year . . .

Battle Wild Onions: If You Can't Beat 'em, Eat 'em!

I remember the springtime battles my father waged at our modest Whitnel home.  Before the grass in our yard began to green, his nemeses would shoot up, their prolific long leaves waving in the late winter breeze, taunting him.  No matador's red cape ever enraged a bull as thoroughly as the wild onions' appearance bothered Daddy.  He enlisted my brother and me in his futile quest to remove them from the lawn.  We dug the small bulbs from the earth and tossed them into buckets, unleashing the pungent fragrance that made Dale and me wrinkle our noses.  Finally, we dumped the offending weeds in a pile, far from the lawn, only to see new ones emerge within days.  If only we had eaten them . . .

Tiny wild onion bulbs pack a lot of flavor

It's not as if my family did not enjoy wild edibles.  Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and Japanese wineberries were seasonal treats and my mother processed the extra fruit into jams and jellies and stored bags of fresh fruit in our freezer.  My grandmother always made poke (polk) salad in the spring and swore by its powers as a health tonic.  In the fall, we enjoyed wild persimmons that puckered our mouths before frost sweetened them and we gathered buckets of black walnuts.  Dale and I would remove the outer hulls, staining our hands with dark juice and by the time Mama made her famous black walnut chocolate cake, we forgot about that unpleasant job.  No, we enjoyed many foraged foods, but for some reason, we never ate wild onions.

Wild garlic, allium vineale, and a close cousin of wild onion, allium canadense, grow edible leaves and bulbs.  Wild garlic is distinguishable from wild onion in that its leaves are round and hollow, while wild onion leaves are flat and solid.  Small bulbs pack a wallop of flavor that intensifies as the season progresses.  For the mildest onion/garlic flavor, harvest as soon as plants appear.  Use the leaves as you would chives and add the bulbs to any dish that incorporates onion or garlic.

Two cultivated heirloom garlic bulbs are to left, the right side one is wild

At Heart & Sole Gardens, our wild garlic plants are huge, compared to those that grow at our home, but far smaller than two heirloom varieties we cultivate.  Despite the diminutive size, the wild bulbs' flavor is much stronger than the cultivated plants and just a little added to a dish makes it fragrant and flavorful.

Wild creasy and dandelion greens are delicious cooked with wild onions

If you do not use chemicals on your lawn and wild onions are part of your landscape, why not bring some into your kitchen and celebrate a delicious victory?

Wild Greens and Onion Salad

Boil two eggs, peel and chop.

*In a large skillet, fry 2 strips bacon until crispy.  Remove bacon and add 1/4 cup wild onions, whole if small and chopped if large, to the hot fat.  Briefly toss to coat veg and cook until translucent, no more than 2 minutes.  Add four cups fresh dandelion and creasy greens, washed, dried and chopped, to the hot skillet.  Toss to combine and cook until greens wilt, but retain bright green color, about 1-3 minutes.  Season to taste with salt, a few grinds of black pepper and a dash of red pepper flakes.  Pour mixture into a large bowl and add boiled eggs.  Crumble bacon over.  
Serve with herbed vinegar, on the side.

*For a vegetarian version, use olive oil, rather than bacon.