'Tis the season for exclusive produce

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For anyone living in Hardiness Zones 4–7, spring is mostly an illusion, one we fake by buying tulips at the bodega, wearing the jacket that works for two weeks a year and using frozen peas (and liking it! Frozen peas are great). Over here, even by mid-May, there are no perfect strawberries, no abundance of peas— It’s still a lot of potatoes, little to no fruit, and (as of last week), maybe some green garlic and a few bunches of asparagus (nice). As someone who genuinely appreciates true seasonality and limited edition produce, this is one of my favorite things about living on the east coast. I like not being able to get everything when I want it! It’s all the more special when you can— genuine, organic exclusivity is very appealing to me.

Though, there are a few niche items lurking around that scream spring— the flowering rabe, the fresh, tiny green fava beans, the new purple potatoes still caked in dirt— and while I cook with them in the privacy of my own home, I rarely write recipes for any of those specialty items. Even within New York, availability ranges from week to week, from market to market, and lord knows, I hate to be exclusionary! One thing that doesn’t mind being exclusionary though, is a ramp. A ramp, if you are not familiar, is a tiny little allium, unable to be cultivated and thus only offered wild, with an edible bulb and leaf. They’re also known as “a wild leek,” though the flavor is far more garlicky than that (though I suppose that is a leek….gone wild).

If you like food and cook often, you are almost certainly familiar with ramps, perhaps overly so. You might even be “sick of them” and you might be thinking “ramps are not cool or cool to talk about.” And sure, I get it. This time of year, ramps are “everywhere.” Every pizza restaurant has a ramp special, Via Carota serves them sauteed over griddled polenta (v good), even the bagel shop near me has “ramp cream cheese”. And then…they’re gone. We don’t talk about them for another 11 months until