LOCAVORE’S DELIGHT: The Series #1.

Follow us all summer long as we explore the bounty of our region’s farms.

by MOLLY McGINN

If we were in Canada right now, salting this pan of wild ramps, we could get arrested.

In Quebec, ramps are considered a threatened species. The appetite for wild ramps is so widespread, and the vegetable is so scarce, that it’s illegal to hunt the strappy, grayish green cousin to the onion. But here, salting ramps in a kitchen on a mountain top is a legal rite of spring. We’re in the deep back country of the Appalachian Mountains in Dugspur, Virginia.

Ramps are among the many heirloom vegetables still growing wild in the Appalachian Mountains. Cherokee and other Native American tribes hunted ramps here, and, thanks to their conservationist nature and a sparse population of community-minded Appalachian Farmers, such as Diane Flynt, this area is still rich in