You Only Need to Make One Ramp Meal This Spring

I will be honest! I did not know what ramps were until a few years ago when I saw them at the Prospect Park farmers market, nor did I understand them to be the name of a food product until then. Here is a definition of ramps from a 2015 SEO article about them, which doesn’t really get into why people freak out about ramps, but that’s fine, we’ll get there:

A good way to define ramps might be to describe the negative space, i.e. what ramps aren’t. Ramps are not leeks, nor are they scallions, nor are they exactly shallots. Ramps (which are sometimes called wild leeks or spring onions, adding to the confusion) look like scallions, but they’re smaller and slightly more delicate, and have one or two flat, broad leaves. They taste stronger than a leek, which generally has a mild onion flavor, and are more pungently garlicky than a scallion.

So ramps are alliums, and you can sort of achieve the flavor of ramps by using some combination of onions, scallions and garlic if you want to. So why do they exist and why do people go crazy over them? I don’t know, really, but I have a couple theories. One, food people love to feel like they have their finger on the pulse a new thing. I say this as a completely amateur food person. Whether it’s a new ingredient or cooking technique or like, a new tool, I strongly feel as though a subset of people who love cooking and enjoying food love any reason to freak out about a trend. This is not derogatory—I unfortunately count myself among these people—but it is what it is. Tinned…