SPRING has Arrived! I saw it!

April 4, 2010: It is Spring!! I know it is SPRING!! I saw my first RAMP sign last week. I received my first notification of a Ramp Dinner. In my part of West Virginia, it is not the calendar, not the end of snow, nor the beginning of Daylight Savings time that tell one it is Spring. It is the signs at wide-spots along the roads or where one sees a table with the umbrella through it along the side of the road saying RAMPS that says Spring is here. It is the small ads in the papers and on the Public Access channel on Cable telling which charity or church is having a Ramp Dinner at what time and day and location.For those not blessed with being from West Virginia, do not feel badly. Unless it was because I was just a kid and in MY day, kids did not know everything, but I grew up in the Northern Panhandle and I never heard of ramps until I came to north-central West Virginia. From west of here to into the mountains east of here, West Virginians are going into ecstasy because they can have ramps again. The season lasts approximately one month.Ramps grow only in the mountains. Although many have tried to cultivate them, I am told it cannot be done. They are dug out of the hillsides by hand, which is why they are not inexpensive, but are still affordable and usually only found at roadside stands or local produce stands. Let me describe a ramp. Picture a green onion. Now instead of the straight flat green, picture a flat limp green about 3/8 to ½ inch wide and rounded at the top with an onion-like white bottom end.Not being fond of green onions, I admit I have never eaten one raw, but they are eaten raw, boiled, fried and cooked with many things. I have made a ramp potato soup that was delicious. I maintain that GOD took the worst of green onions and married it to the worst of garlic and called it a ramp. They go down so deliciously – but do not breathe on anyone, nor in the vicinity thereof, for at least 3 days! The person who ate the ramps is totally unaware of this consequence if their pleasure of dining on ramps. So go ahead! Dive in and sample a ramp dinner with your partner.