Smokey Mountain Breakdown

I'm posting this a bit late, as our ramps season is a bit past at this point. But they do grow as far north as Canada, so I'm supposing that somewhere the ramps are just about perfect right now.

The ramp is a small plant of the onion family that is the wild leek of the mountains. Its bulb has a very intense garlicy taste and the leaves are much milder. I actually like the leaves in salads or just plain. They are hugely popular in the Southern Appalachians and often large festivals are held for people to get together and gorge on these very strong flavored wild leeks.


Friend Scott and I attended the Cosby Ruritan Ramps Festival some weeks back. This ramps festival has been around since the 1950's and has been a traditional stump stop on many a political campaign. They've had musicians like Johnny Cash play there. It's a pretty big deal and one of the largest ramps festivals.


The gourmands have jumped on the ramps bandwagon with avengence. I've seen recipes combining trouffles and ramps. This is hugely appealing to me but is quite a foreign idea to folks around here. Now, chicken-of-the-woods or morels with ramps....I could get behind as being traditional.

The two preferred ways to cook these here are with eggs or with potatoes. Bacon grease is involved. I'll give you the traditional recipe for eggs with ramps.

Ramps and Eggs

A few dozen ramps
Salt to tast
6 eggs
thick cut bacon


Fry up your bacon in a cast iron skillet. When done, set aside on paper towels to drain. Pour off extra so you only have about a quarter cup of bacon drippings. Clean and cut up your ramps and place in the left-over bacon grease. Sprinkle with salt and saute until tender. Beat your eggs and scramble in the grease and ramps.

Serve immediately with cornbread and bacon.