For on thing, they are the first edible greens of spring.  And for people who once lived or still live close to the land in Appalachia, ramps have long been a source of joy and hope each April, greeted with parties and feasts.

In recent years, chefs and foodie fashionistas have fallen in love with ramps.  Now you find cultivated ramps in upscale urban farmers markets and even some Whole Foods (so I hear).  Yes, another poverty food gone chic.

As I looked into my bag of ramps, I remembered this folklorist named Mary Hufford.  Mary spent a lot of time hanging out in West Virginia’s “Big Coal River Valley” back in the nineties documented the lives of the mountain people who, for generations, used the forest for gathering and hunting.  She described communities deeply connected to the seasons and one another.  Ramps as part of a larger world of quilting bees, the Baptist church—and, of course, the annual Ramps Supper in the “Ramp House” on Drew Creek. 

You can see her work on ramps here.  It’s just about one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen..

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay4a.html

Not exactly the kind of stuff they cover on the Food Network, is it, now.

But back to the muddy ramps on my kitchen counter.  How to cook these things?  Of course I wanted to make them like they do in West Virginia.

I reached out to Rebecca Tolley-Stokes at Potlikker, who wrote me that ramps are eaten many ways--fried, plain, boiled, but very often with some sort of pork fat and eggs or potatoes, in a skillet on top of the stove. 

So when Nancy arrived at my house, we did just that.  First we fried up the bacon. Then we added some sliced potatoes and salt, then the parboiled chopped ramps, and then got everything a little soft.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much.  I figured it would taste just like any other kind of humble potatoes and greens dish. But the truth is that the ramp surprised me.  It’s a divine creature--complex, sweet, with just a little bite.  A cross between onion and garlic.  No wonder chefs love it. 

Shortly after my first taste of ramps, I tracked down my hero Mary Hufford, now the director of the folklore center at U. Penn.  It’s been ten years since she finished her study, so I wrote and asked if the folks in her mountains were still collecting ramps and having their ramps suppers.  Here’s what she wrote back. 

“I haven’t been to a ramp supper in a few years, but I think they are still holding them in southern West Virginia.  My understanding is that ramp patches are increasingly harder to get to, because they grow in the high hollows that are being blasted away through mountaintop removal mining--a violent and extremely wasteful way to generate energy and is devastating to the communities living near sites of extraction.  It is destroying a world class ecological treasure, the central Appalachian Mixed Mesophytic forest, and the habitat for ramps.  It’s an unacceptable price to pay for coal, no matter how “cleanly” the coal industry promises to burn it.

“In such a historical context, ramp suppers and ramp patches bear watching as indicators of national political health and well-being—spring tonic for the heart, tonic for the democratic communal well-being.”

A tonic for the heart….  A tonic for democracy.  Imagine….

Thanks Mary.

And thanks to my friend Joann for bringing me my first ever ramps.

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We lived in New York City then and took the train, speeding down my homelands of urban New Jersey and past Philadelphia’s vista of crumbling row houses.  Then into the “mainline” of suburban towns with their grand homes and gentile neighborhoods.  I’d seen such things before of course.

It was the third hour of the journey, that I looked out the train window and was awed with surprise. We were rushing across fields greener than anything I’d ever seen.  Here was the emerald world of Lancaster County. Farmlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch.  Ordered and productive.  Lush and glimmering with blessed soil.  Onward we went to his small town of Hummelstown.

It was an exotic place to me.  They did things differently there. 

My husband and his dad got up at dawn to fish in the creek down the road.  They ate weird foods like scrapple and shoefly pie—and everyone distinguished whether theirs were the wet bottom or dry bottom crusts.  Oh that was just the beginning of it.

It was Memorial Day, and his family had a big picnic around the pool.  Everyone came by and checked out Herbie’s new girl. The hamburgers and hotdogs were on some very yellow potato bread from the grocery with a German name.  The salads were mayonaisey.  The people were friendly but reserved.  One guy had such a heavy south Central Pennsylvania accent I had trouble understanding him as he raved over the Lebanon bologna. 

But to me, oddest of all were the red beet eggs.  It was a custom these Germanish people had of putting peeled hard boiled eggs—whole-- in a sweet-sour sauce with red beets.  After a while, the eggs became fuschia colored. Very shocking.

This Not To Be Forgotten recipe from 1774 Lancaster is a winner—a classic pickled beet recipe from the Germans.  It was intended for winter pickling but makes a wonderful summertime salad.  Try this in your modern life on greens with ricotta salata or blue cheese crumbled on top.  Maybe some walnuts and red onions, too.

For me of course, this recipe can’t help but remind me of the moment I entered a foreign family.  It was that very same weekend 21 years ago, that father told son I was the best woman he’d ever brought home. He gave his blessing—for me ever associated with the sight of red beets in that strange emerald green world.

Modern interpretation

6 red beets
pinch of salt
¾ cup red wine vinegar
7 to 8 tablespoons of honey or sugar (according to taste)
salt, pepper, and chopped fresh dill weed to taste

1.  Scrub beets, leaving skin on and removing stems.  Put in big pot full of water, add pinch of salt, and bring to boil.  Cook on medium heat 1 hour or until beets are cooked.  You may need to add boiling water if water level goes below beets.

2.  Let cool and peel off skins.  Cut each in half, then slice.

3.  In nonstick pan, heat vinegar on medium high heat and add sugar or honey, stirring until melted.  Turn down heat to medium and let bubble until it reduces by fifty percent, to a syrup.  Pour over beets and add salt, pepper, and chopped herbs. 

Keeps well, covered in refrigerator, up to a week. 

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But times have changed--and home cooks no longer strain their sauces through mesh too often—at least not here in New Jersey, where we tend to be in a quite a rush and cut our vegetables rather large.  So you feel free to skip this straining step if you wish. 

Begin, of course, with a fish that’s impeccably fresh.  Of course, there are many potential variations—you can use squid and shell fish in combination and add them in succession according to size—the smallest and quickest cooking, last.  I like to use a cup of very dry white wine instead of the vinegar water.  And you could add capers or herbs you might like.  In winter I used canned tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, cut in half.  I suggest you do as I do and use a sautee pan.  After I add the fish, I spoon some of the tomatoes on top and cover with a tight fitting lid, then cook a few minutes on low heat. 

This cacciucco comes to you from a star in the Italian culinary canon, Pellegrino Artusi It was published in 1891—a mere 30 years after the unification of Italy—and it was intended to be the tome of Italy’s culinary unification.  Between two covers, Artusi gathers 800 recipes from all over the peninsula.  No easy task.  Anyone who’s done a little culinary research on Italy knows how common it is to find a word for a dish that means one thing in a particular region, and something else in another. But why don’t I let Artusi speak to you directly on this matter: 

“Cacciucco!  Let me say just make a little comment about this word, which is understood perhaps only in Tuscany and on the shores of the Mediterranean, since the shores of the Adriatic it is called “brodetto.” In Florence, “brodetto” means a soup with bread and broth, bound with beaten eggs and lemon juice.  In Italy, the confusion between these and other names from province to province is such that it is almost a second Tower of Babel.

After the unification of Ialy, it seemed logical to me that we should think about unifying the spoken language, and yet few can be bothered with such an undertaking and many are outright hostile to it, perhaps because of false pride and the ingrained habit that Italians have of speaking their own regional dialect.

To return to cacciucco, let me say that naturally enough this is a dish prepared in seaside towns more than anywhere else, because it is a there that you can find fresh fish of the kind needed to make it.  Any fishmonger can tell you the varieties of fish that are best suited to a good cacciucco.  Good as it may be, however, it is still quite a heavy dish, so one needs to be careful not to gorge oneself on it.”

In fact, this dish is far more complicated, than he lets on and turns up all over Italy and the Mediterranean in endless variation with endless dialect names.

But Science in the Kitchen is a “modern” cookbook.  And by modern, I mean, many things.  First of all, it seeks to codify and standardized.  It was written not for the cooks of noblemen, but for the home cook who wanted to learn.  Second of all, we see a fair amount of exact measurements and precise directions—and the idea of rationality—which modern people love. 

Finally, this really seems like a modern cookbook to because it’s full of personality and sometimes Artusi feels like a performance artist doing a shtick on stage.  He gives amusing jabs to the French and English.  He attacks the stupidity of the publishing industry (as authors are known to do), and he offers bizarre observations: for example, he’s got a sauce for you that’s “like a woman whose face isn’t so pretty on first glance but gets better with time.” Or, say, a strudel that may “look like a giant leach—but don’t worry:  it tastes good anyway.”

With such personality, no wonder Science in the Kitchen quickly became a bestseller.  Artusi would have taken to blogging like white on rice.  His book, by the way, came at around the same time the Fannie Farmer published her scientific cookbooks in America.  Needless to say, I’d take Artusi any day.

All Italian Americans (and others interested in Italian cooking) should get themselves a copy of Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, which is beautifully translated by Murtha Baca and Stephen Sartarelli.  Click here.

Want to see the original Italian?  Of course you do:
www.homolaicus.com

Want to see the model for this beautiful painting? 
http://www.jellypress.com/about/#about

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Quince fell out of use probably because they are not a fast and easy fruit. They do not bring quick They do not bring quick gratification.  You cannot crunch into a quince like an apple or pack it in a lunch.  In fact, you cannot eat it raw at all. But with the addition of sugar and cooking, quince becomes a joy, transforming in color from to gold and pink.

When Nancy sent me this image, I looked up from my computer and reached across my cluttered little office of papers and books and tried to dig for the story of this fruit.  which originates in €”the Caucasus mountains--a meeting place of Europe and Asia, near Russia, Turkey and Iran.  A convergence of worlds--bounded between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Arabs and Persians and Turks have been using quince forever in both sweet and savory dishes--often with meat. The ancient Romans preserved them whole in honey and vinegar--a preparation that may be the forerunner of jam.

This is the sort of thrill of discovery I love.  When walls of my office fall away for just a brief second, and I’m flying across the globe with quince.  I realize that’s why I love history and food.  Not for the moments when I discover things that reflect the things I already know--but to learn something new and different €”to think of stewed quince and meat in an ancient Persian court, or a quince paste, like the one above in 16th century England.

Modern life cooking tip:

Make your quince jam according to taste €”but basically the same procedure explained above will work just fine.  Scrub the quinces and cook them whole, covered by water, at least one hour until they are soft.  One way is to put them in a pan in a 350 degree oven. Reserve the water.  Then do the messy work of removing skins and seeds.  Add the quince flesh to a stew pot on top of the stove, along with sugar and whatever flavorings you like, whether rosewater mentioned above or vanilla.  If you want to make quince paste stir constantly.  If you want to make quince jam, add reserved quince water as needed to get the consistency of jam. Cook until golden pink, not red, constantly stirring.

see also: To Draw a Quince