At Upstate Farms, Kokas's 80-acre farm in Red Hook, each season begins with telephone calls from eager chefs from Manhattan and throughout the Hudson Valley—inquiring about the state of his seven-acre ramp patch. Through the rest of the year, Kokas supplies these same chefs with organic heirloom tomatoes, strawberries, and salad greens from his own fields and greenhouse, as well as from a dozen other farms farther upstate. But there is a special tremor of excitement reserved just for ramps, and in a long, cool spring Kokas harvests and sells up to a ton of them—each one dug by hand and carted out of the forest in a basket. "We offer them washed and cleaned without any hexes attached," he jokes.

Michael Kokas, owner of Upstate Farms stands with a basket of freshly dug ramps. Over the season Kokas and his crew will harvest about a ton of the foraged delicacy for upscale local and Manhattan restaurants.

Ramps are a short-season crop beloved by foragers, chefs, and gourmands for their ephemeral nature and pungent taste. Their flavor is a combination of leek, onion, and garlic, and they are most prized when young and tender, with their bulbs as narrow as a pencil. At least, that's how the New York chefs prefer them, says Kokas. In more southern parts of the country they are pulled later, when the older bulbs are big and sinewy, to be
boiled down for soup.

Harvested ramps

On a cool and overcast day in the first week of April, Kokas slipped on his Muck boots, grabbed a shovel and a basket from his barn, and strolled into the forest to survey his ramps. He has followed this routine every spring for the past decade, although he doesn't start looking for ramps too early because, he says, "A watched pot never boils."

Officially, the ramp is a member of the onion family; young ramps resemble scallions though their leaves are broad and sword-shaped. Both the leaves and the white bulb of the ramp are edible. Native to eastern North American mountains, ramps thrive in marshy areas of hardwood forests filled with decaying wood. The balance of shade to sunlight has to be just right, and the living trees amidst which ramps grow can't be too far apart or too close together. And while ramps are not as fussy as ginseng, nor as temperamental as wild mushrooms, they are picky. When ramps find a spot they like they multiply and divide like wildfire, but just a few feet away, an unfavorable direction will cause ramps to thin out and disappear.

Greedy for sunlight, ramps push their way up through the forest floor while their would-be competitors still lie dormant, and by the time the neighboring ferns, tiger lilies, nettles, and skunk cabbages have leafed out, ramps have already finished their aboveground cycle and retreated back into the earth—where they will rest out of sight until next year.

"I can spot ramps at 60 miles an hour when I'm driving on the Taconic," says Kokas from his perch on the edge of a cliff that overlooks a virgin forest sprung up in the place of an ancient riverbed. The leaves are still bare, and all around are fallen, half-decayed, 200-year-old trees. One enormous tree lays horizontally, pulled down years ago by a grapevine, six inches thick. It is a forest recently freed from snow, and last year's leaves litter the ground in so many shades of brown that the overall color is monotone—except for the ramps, which glow like beacons in the dull light. "There is a dynamic energy here—life, birth, death. Ramps need this," says Kokas. 

Once he has taken stock of the land, he sets his basket on the ground and demonstrates how to dig. He is a conscientious forager, and only digs if there is a clump of at least three ramps, so they can repopulate. He uses a sharp shovel so as not to destroy the root systems. If he sees another species, such as Jack-in-the-Pulpit, wound in with the growing ramp he moves on. From years of seasonal digging, the roots have spread beneath the ground, and seeds have germinated and established in churned soil.

When Kokas crosses a stream by way of a fallen log, he leaves a trail of onion-scented air in his wake. The aroma stirs the appetite and encourages thoughts of melted butter and wine. Pauline Yearwood, known as the personal chef Lagusta, has a passion for the intensity of the smell. "I wish some perfumer would make a perfume for cooks from ramps. I would buy it. I love that stink," she says.

Chef Jesse Frederick of Gigi Trattoria cooks ricotta dumplings with balsamic braised beef short ribs and ramps from Upstate Farms.

Yearwood forages for local ramps in the produce isle at the High Falls Co-op and at the Sunflower Natural Foods Market in Woodstock. In her kitchen, she divides them into parts and chops the white bottoms like scallions for garnishing or cooking briefly. She then sautés or steams the green tops to use in place of spinach or other lightly cooked greens—sometimes folded into soft polenta. She also slices ramps lengthwise, sautés them, and pairs them with steamed local asparagus and vinaigrette. "I love ramps, but I think most of their excitement is that they are around for such a short time," she says.

Kokas simmers ramps whole in olive oil over a low heat. He adds some butter for creaminess, and a bit of vermouth (or white wine) for sweetness. "Don't add too many other ingredients, otherwise you might as well use leeks," he says. 

A Gigi Trattoria pasta special featuring fresh, foraged ramps from Upstate Farms paired with ricotta dumplings with balsamic braised beef short ribs.

Ninety percent of the ramps dug by Kokas and his helpers from the acres at Upstate Farms will be driven to high-end restaurants in Manhattan, such as Blue Hill, Cru, and Craft, but Kokas also supplies local restaurants like Twist in Hyde Park and Gigi Trattoria in Rhinebeck. Chef Jesse Frederick at Gigi's incorporates ramps into nightly spring specials like pasta primavera made of sautéed ramps and baby vegetables, tossed into handmade gnocchi; or includes ramps in side-dish specials, possibly accompanied by baby beets, young carrots, and fiddleheads. Frederick also likes to pickle ramps and serve them alongside soft shell crab, and sometimes he blends them into a Mediterranean tomato dressing as a topping on a whole roasted snapper. "Anytime I get seasonal produce it's a good change of pace—especially when we are coming out of winter and I've been using root vegetables every day," says Frederick.

This spring, Jeffrey Gimmel and Nina Bachinsky of the Swoon Kitchenbar in Hudson will also slip out of their white aprons, don black rubber boots, and head for the hills. They'll forage in the marshy streambeds of Columbia County for ramps to serve in their restaurant. "A puree of blanched ramp greens adds a seriously vibrant flavor to grilled fish or quail," says Gimmel. Or he might sauté them before adding them to a fricassee of spring vegetables. He also likes the little bit of char that grilling adds to ramps.

Long before the bounty of summer, a ramp is an early-season delicacy that springs from the earth as a harbinger of tastes to come. Ramps are among the most seasonal of vegetables, and once they're gone, they're gone. Whether you can get them by foraging in the forest, searching through the grocery store, or spotting them on a menu, try them while you can.