Ready for Ramps

Morels are on the move, and ramp season is ramping up! The foraging season is upon us, and the landscape is bursting with new life. Even up here in northern Vermont, the snowpack is receding as spring ephemerals delight in the sunlight piercing through the leafless canopy.

We moved from Ithaca, NY to Burlington in January 2012, leaving behind not only our vibrant community but also our most coveted foraging spots. We had to say goodbye to chanterelle carpets and black trumpet treasure troves, but perhaps hardest of all was moving away from our sprawling ramp patches. We called them the “ramp fields,” because every April the ramps came in so densely that they formed a solid green groundcover as vast and intoxicating as the poppy fields that Dorothy encountered as she neared the Emerald City of Oz.

Though Ithaca’s ramp fields have no equal, today we were delighted to discover our first respectable Vermont ramp patch. What began as a tiny splash of green along the roadside turned into an immense band of ramps that weaved its way around boulders as it climbed a wooded slope. I munched as I plucked, and soon my breath reeked of garlic. The taste of spring lingers on my tongue.

Now all I need is a basket of morels to round out my spring feast. As Pennsylvania and New York finds start to roll in, I patiently await spring’s greatest gift.