Spring Trifecta
Like most people, I’m a big fan of spring. There are cherry blossoms, the fruit trees are flowering, bulbs are blooming and everything is turning green. But what I really want to do is taste spring. For me, it doesn’t truly arrive until three items show up at market: ramps, morels, and asparagus. The first few items made their appearance in the last couple weeks, but it wasn’t until last week that the third ingredient to a fine spring dinner arrived along with the return of Westmoreland Produce.
The first to arrive were the ramps. Ramps are also referred to as wild leeks or wild garlic but they are neither, having a blended taste of both. They are definitely not spring onions. Chefs and market aficionados have elevated ramps to cult status meaning they can become overharvested as they are primarily foraged. Unlike onions, garlic, and leeks, ramps are not cultivated. Native to woodlands with wet feet, ramps are difficult to establish even when conditions are optimal. There is no cultivar for them. They do produce seeds, but transplant from germinated stock aren’t reliable. As a flowering perennial some years they’re gorgeous and others, they barely bloom. Foragers and farmers who track conditions for the impending growing season know a bad year for ramps means a dry environment.
Next to the party were the morels, also a foraged item. The quintessential folktale fungus, these mushrooms will always be the first to sell out whether they are on a menu or at the farmers market. This is where being good friends with the mushroom people pays off. I get at least one very good meal with these mushrooms each year. There is nothing like their distinctive honeycomb texture and earthy taste; they’re like taking your tastebuds on a hike through the forest. Like the ramps, morels have a deeply complex lifecycle and symbiotic relationship with specific species of trees making them impossible to reproduce on a commercial scale.
The third leg of the spring trifecta is not as rare and is easily cultivated. Like the first berries of the season, patrons position themselves at the entrance closest to the bins of fresh asparagus and race-walk to the stand the second the market opens. Like the ramps asparagus is a flowering perennial however it is not native to North America. Nothing screams SPRING IS HERE louder than the brilliant green bundles of spears. Now I know to look for spears in the farm’s patch that has probably been growing for decades. This will be my daily vegetable for the next few months. I will eat them for breakfast lunch or dinner depending on what's on the menu. Asparagus hits all the healthy high notes including fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals and supports digestive health and immunity. There is no contest between fresh asparagus and a pill/shake/infusion. Eggs and asparagus, yes. Raw in salads, yes. Steamed, roasted, sautéed, yes. Pickled and plopped in a glass of good booze, yes.
In my good fortune last week I acquired all three along with an assortment of market goodies with which I made a phenomenal meal that took less than fifteen minutes and half of that was waiting on the water to boil. You don’t need to be a farmer to eat like this, only to get to the market early enough to score the ingredients.