Ramps Are a Foraged Springtime Delicacy in Greater Cleveland

Spring greens are sprouting. In Northeast Ohio, they smell like onions.

Ramps, also known as wild leeks, or ramsons (or, perhaps the silliest nickname of all, “little stinkers”), are in season for only a few weeks in April and May. A Midwest culinary treat, the native-grown greens’ oniony, garlicky taste draws both chefs and foragers into the woods for an enthusiastic, annual harvest.

“Ramps are kind of like the secret code for all chefs,” says Cleveland chef Ryan Boone. “If you know, you know.”

Boone, the head chef of the recently reopened and reimagined Shooters restaurant, takes ramps seriously. Sometimes, when interviewing prospective chefs, he has just one question in mind: “What do you know about ramps?”

“If you don’t know anything, then I know you’ve probably not worked in a kitchen similar to ours,” Boone says. “And if you can tell me even just the basis of what they are, then it shows that you’ve worked in a type of kitchen that celebrates local, that celebrates foraged, that celebrates the type of food that we like to make.”

Boone and his team will bring ramps to Shooters’ "Chef’s Whimsy" rotating small-plate special, in the form of a ramp pasta dish (typically priced around $28) next week. But first, the Shooters team will head to their ramp “honey hole” together in an annual foraging trip on Monday.

On the outing, the team members will harvest the leafy greens, careful not to take too much of the plants they return to every year.

“Those of us who forage know you don’t over-pick a ramp field, because that means those ramps won’t blossom and regrow next year,” Boone says.

When they are overpicked, it takes a while for the plants to rebound, says Rosana Villafan, a forestry technician for Holden Arboretum.

“They take up to seven years to mature,” Villafan says. “Certain methods really can be detrimental to their population.”

Villafan leads “Leek Week,” a project in Holden’s Working Woods program to research the sustainable harvest of ramps. Across a few plots, Villafan’s team conducts different types of harvests, snipping and plucking various ratios of plants, then returning the following year to count the ramp leaves that return.

Three years in, and the project has reached its halfway mark with data still coming together. But based on existing research, Villafan notes that foragers should always keep an eye on how much of a ramp plant they take. F

“If you’re taking leaves from an individual that has at least two leaves, then try to leave that harvested individual with at least one leaf, so you can continue to photosynthesize and continue to grow and store energy,” Villafan says. “I would also be cautious about where you’re foraging. If you’re on public property, you might not know who else is harvesting from that area; your 10% might actually be the whole population’s 30%, from two other people.”

(Also, Villafan cautions beginner foragers to keep a lookout for the ramp’s toxic lookalike, lily of the valley. “The best way to weed out any lookalikes is to crush the leaf a little bit and smell it, and it should give you a strong whiff of garlic or onion,” she says.)

For those who want to try ramps, but don't want to trek into the woods, the greens are abundant at local farmers markets in the spring, Villafan says. They'll also be the central focus of Peninsula's annual Ramp Up festival taking place on Saturday.

When Boone and his team head into the woods on Monday, they’ll be seeking out these Ohio-grown garlicky bites: the same flavor that Boone sought after while previously working as a chef at acclaimed Downtown restaurant Cordelia. There, with chef Adam Bauer, Boone created the “Shroomin’ Onion,” a tempura-fried version of ramps served with crispy fried mushrooms in an homage to Outback Steakhouse’s “Bloomin’ Onion” appetizer.

Boone continued playing with ramps at a “Sorta Secret Supper Club” event last spring. His Lawson’s-style chip dip became so popular that he brought a non-ramp version to the Shooter’s “Coastal Cleveland” menu when it reopened in March.

The green leaves aren’t just a substitute for onion, Boone says. They’re a fleeting taste of seasonality.

“I think things like ramps are a luxury because we get them for such a small window of time,” Boone says. “It's such a unique flavor, and it signifies the start of our favorite time of year to cook and be a chef, which is spring and summer in Cleveland.”

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