Leeks, ramps, spring onions, field garlic, ramsons—they come in many varieties with many names. As winter fades to spring, people around the United States and Canada begin foraging for members of the allium family. Wild onions appear at farmers markets and on plates in posh restaurants. Their strong garlicky odor and sweet onion flavor make them a sought-after delicacy. And since ramp season is short—just a few weeks—many people make their arrival an event.
In some areas, the growing popularity of spring onions has led to overharvesting. And as with foraging for any food, take caution to avoid eating the onions’ very toxic look-alikes. In other words, don’t eat an onion you find in the woods unless an expert tells you it’s safe.
In the Appalachian Mountains, folks collect a species of wild onion known as “ramps.” Throughout the eastern United States, annual ramps festivals celebrate the spring veggie. Ramps have traditionally been seen as the first “greens” of the season—a chance to get vitamins and minerals after a winter without fresh vegetables.
During a recent dinner at Cúrate, an upscale Asheville, North Carolina, restaurant, a server extolled the joys of ramp season. She explained that when ramps are on the menu, they are ultra-fresh, hand-picked, and available for only about three weeks. That night, the restaurant fire roasted ramps and served them on a bed of roasted tomato and red pepper sauce. Yum.
In Oklahoma, generations of Indigenous people have placed alliums at the center of annual communal events. There’s a wild onion dinner every Saturday somewhere from February through May.
Cherokee chef Bradley James Dry collects wild green onions, a staple of Native American cuisine in Oklahoma. He forages on land straddling the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations. He’s thinking of his elisi (“grandmother” in Cherokee) who taught him how to pick and cook wild onions.
“Being able to cook like this—cook the things that my grandmother would cook for strangers—that’s really cool,” Dry explains. He scans the forest floor. He’s careful not to overharvest, taking only what he needs.
“Traditionally, what I grew up with, you just boil them in a little bit of water and then fry them with scrambled eggs,” Dry says.
That’s the way wild onions are usually cooked for large gatherings in Oklahoma. The side dish of greens with a familiar peppery bite is served alongside fried pork, beans, frybread, chicken dumplings, cornbread, and safke—a soup made with cracked corn and lye from wood ash.
Over the last several generations, churches in Oklahoma have used wild onion dinners to raise money for bills. But they have also become popular community events. This year, a wild onion dinner in Okmulgee helped raise travel funds for Claudia McHenry. The tribal citizen hopes to compete at this year’s Miss Indian World Pageant in New Mexico.
The following Saturday, another Oklahoma church, this one in Okemahthe, holds another wild onion dinner 35 miles south. For nearly two decades, hundreds of people have lined up on the porch of the church’s small gathering hall on the first Saturday in April for fried pork and a heap of wild onions.
Elders tell stories from the rocking chairs on the porch. Children play in the woods nearby. Vendors sell beadwork and clothing. They stay well into the afternoon, talking and eating. They’re sad when it’s time to go. But it’s mid-April. Wild onion dinner season isn’t over yet. There’s always next Saturday, a little farther down the road.
God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.” — Genesis 1:29
