Many of us, if told we must live by foraging in the wild, would quickly go toes up – from fear, not malnourishment, like the birds in Ol’ Paul the Mighty Logger, who saw snowy white popcorn bits flurrying through the air as the giant Bunyan munched, figured winter was back, and promptly froze to death.

But there’s no need to die of fear at the idea of picking spring greens. True, we love our washed and bagged “spring mixes” of baby lettuce and we tremble at the thought of dandelion greens plucked from the meadow by our own inexpert hands, uncurated by the all-wise authorities of the food industry. But vegetables do, after all, grow out of the ground, and were edible before refrigeration and produce regulatory boards existed.

Vegetables do, after all, grow out of the ground and were edible before refrigeration existed

Vegetables do, after all, grow out of the ground and were edible before refrigeration existed

Lots of people recognize wild leeks – also called ramps – the brilliant green patches springing up on the leaf-covered floors of hardwood forests from Québec down to Georgia and across to Minnesota. Easily spotted as the first green thing to appear in the woods come spring, they like shade and damp. They are close relatives of garlic and they smell like it; they’re known in Richwood, West Virginia, as “little stinkers.” Richwood will hold its 87th ramps festival, known locally as the Feast of the Ramson, this month. (Ramsons are a European name for ramps.) In Richwood, they fry them in bacon fat, but they also pickle the bulbs and make ramp jelly and ramp salsa.

Wild leeks are only in........

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