America the Bountiful

[Capri] In the forests of West Virginia, a time-honored harvest is taking place.

A wild vegetable that's been enjoyed for hundreds of years... You all are very lucky if you get to eat like this all the time.

[woman] We do.

[Capri] ...makes the locals want to celebrate the very first greens of the season... Now, this is a pretty incredible spread.

...and find innovative ways to enjoy their unique flavor.... That balance of that acidity of the tomato really brings out the flavor of the ramp.

This labor of love has really paid off.

...all year long.

For somebody who loves bread, and also loves the taste of ramps, this is next-level.

Yeah.

[Capri] I'm Capri Cafaro and I'm on a mission to uncover the incredible stories of the foods we grow... ...harvest, create... ...and celebrate.

Beautiful, amazing meal.

So, I'm traveling America's backroads to learn our cherished food traditions from those who make them possible... Look at that.

...and are helping keep them alive.

There is so much more to learn.

[man] It's just a tradition here in this area.

-[gunshot] -[woman] Mmm hmm.

[Capri] On "America the Bountiful."

[announcer] America's farmers have nourished us for generations, but today they face unprecedented challenges.

American Farmland Trust works with farmers to help save the land that sustains us.

Together we can work to keep America bountiful.

[Capri] Ramps, or wild leeks, are one of the most beloved wild vegetables in America.

They're a member of the Allium family along with garlic and onions, and are often enjoyed in a similar manner.

They have a very short harvest window from early spring to early summer and can be found in deciduous forests throughout much of the Midwest and eastern United States.

Appalachia is known for its ramp harvesting traditions, and here at Richwood, West Virginia, a small town of just 1,600, volunteers celebrate this pungent wild food by harvesting and cooking up a feast for 1,000 every April.

Well, good thing I came hungry.

I'm ready to eat.

It's called the Feast of the Ramson and is now in it's 84th year, making it the longest-running ramp feast in the country.

It's a big part of the reason that Richwood is known as the Ramp Capital of the world.

It smells incredible.

It does.

What are you making?

This is a lot.

Eight-hundred pounds of ramps.

So, obviously ramps, star of the show.

What else is in there with the ramps?

[woman] Greens, bacon grease, because you can't have ramps without bacon grease.

-And ham.

-Ham, beans, potatoes.

[woman] Potatoes.

[second woman] And then we have volunteers who also bake cakes and desserts.

[Capri] I can't wait to taste them, so you're going to have to get me a plate.

Here to celebrate the ramps and share their knowledge is Glen Facemire, a local festival volunteer and author of the book "Having Your Ramps and Eating Them too," and Jim Chamberlain a Virginia scientist and ramp historian.

This is actually really exciting because this is the first time I'm actually having a chance to eat ramps, which I'm really excited about.

[man] First ramps of the season.

First ramps of the season.

You can tell this is incredibly fresh coming directly from the earth.

A little bit like garlic.

A little bit like onions, but more mild.

So, I love it.

I mean, I'm a huge garlic fan, I'm a huge onion fan, and I love greens, and it's a little bit of all three, so I can see why people are so excited for it.

It seems as if ramps are such a quintessential part of West Virginian culture of Appalachian, of the Appalachian spirit really.

How long have people been harvesting ramps, foraging ramps in this part of the country?

Since people first inhabited this area.

So, the Native Americans were using ramps, digging up ramps every spring for food and for medicine.

And then back in the 1700s during the potato famine folks with huge migration of people from Northern Europe came to this country.

They brought with them local knowledge about a plant that grows in their forest, which was rampson.

They smelled the plant.

I believe that.

They smelled a familiar plant and then they looked underneath their feet and said, Wait, that looks like rampson."

And they started calling it rampson.

Right.

And that just turned into ramps over time.

How long have you been actually digging ramps and eating ramps?

When my mom would, she would sterilize those half gallon jars.

We would dig ramps.

She would wilt them down and put them in the jars.

And like I said, there wasn't so much of a celebration, it's just good food.

So, that actually reminds me of something that I wanted to ask you Glen because I understand that you were a postman at some point.

[Glen] Yes.

And you would spread ramp seeds.

Can you tell me about that?

Yeah, they call me Johnny Ramp Seed.

Johnny Ramp Seed.

How did you get the nickname Johnny Ramp Seed?

Well, I really plant the ramp bowl, and I'd planted them in flower beds, things like that, on my mail route.

We've shipped ramps to Julia Child, all the chefs up there in New York.

If ramp season is right now, I might actually be able to go out and forage some for myself while I'm here, yeah?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

You should drive the back roads, and look down into the hollers and look for the green.

And you can see them just popping up and waving their leaves at you.

And actually, if you find the trail, you might smell them before you see them.

Well, I'll keep my nose peeled.

That's a good idea.

[Capri] Just outside of Richwood, culinary instructor and cider maker Jason Durham Burke has been harvesting ramps with his family for years.

On his wife's side of the family, it's part of an intergenerational tradition of hunting, fishing and foraging that highlights the spirit of self-reliance found throughout the Appalachian Mountains.

Jason's agreed to share one of his family's harvesting spots high up on a ridge in a forest of mixed hardwoods.

So, this looks like there's a lot of ramps up here.

There is a lot of ramps.

It's like a big, thick carpet of green, right?

I think this is probably a good spot to start out.

All right.

So, how do you get these ramps out of the ground so they're good enough and intact enough to actually eat?

That's an excellent question.

You know, I think traditionally people would use a hoe or a shovel, but these days what I've really come to enjoy is the hori, hori knife.

It's a Japanese gardening knife.

[Capri] I see.

So, it's part shovel, part knife.

So, I like to get in right next to the stem there and just loosen it and gently tug on the ramp itself.

So I know those-- -Very nice.

-Big beautiful whole bulb.

-Yeah, I can-- -Roots still intact there.

Smells fantastic, doesn't it?

It does smell fantastic.

-You bet.

-It smells like the earth.

But it smells both like the earth and like a garlic onion hybrid.

Most definitely.

So, we're actually going to slide that coating down exposing a beautiful, clean bulb.

We're going to take the edge of our knife and then we're going to take our roots.

Stick them right back where they came from.

Just cover them loosely.

And then, with any small amount of good fortune, I can come back three, four, five years from now and dig that same exact ramp right back out of the ground.

So, ramps keep coming back if you're a good steward of the land.

[Jason] That's the key.

That is really important these days because ramps, as you well know, have gotten very popular over the past few years.

The first thing I like to do is find a patch large enough that it can sustain a little foraging.

I'm not going to take more than maybe 10-20% at the most.

So, one here, one there, one over here spread out, so we're not damaging those big clumps of ramps.

Now, if you are in a place that isn't quite as overrun with ramps as where we stand right now, a lot of times I'll simply come in and pinch a leaf.

What do you do with the leaf if it doesn't have the bulb?

Oh, a million things.

You can cook this just like greens.

You know traditionally what you'd see around here is this is going to get fried with bacon fat.

I like to make a ramp pesto or Chimichurri.

It's infinitely adaptable.

[Capri] That's next level.

I want to learn from you, so you're going to have to show me how to at least get one of these out of the ground.

For sure.

-Put me to work.

-Let's do it.

This looks like a pretty good...yeah?

That is a beautiful specimen.

-Okay.

-Absolutely.

So, we're going to come in right next to that bulb and slide your blade in there.

-Like so?

-Yep, you got it.

[Capri] Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

If you grasp the base of that ramp down low-- Oh, I see it.

Okay.

Yeah.

See how loose the soil is?

You can almost just pull that right out.

-You got it.

-Ah ha.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

And then we're going to slice off the roots leaving just a little of that bulb attached so we can stick it right back in the ground.

And then we'll just cover it up very loosely.

[Capri] Great.

That's a good-looking ramp you got right there.

Hey, nice work.

That's a beautiful specimen.

Let's just do that 60 or 70 more times.

[Capri] All right we better get to work.

After collecting five to six dozen more, Jason plans to cook these ramps with forage morel mushrooms he was gifted from a friend.

Ramps and morels share a harvest season and are often cooked together in this region.

Before cooking, he gives them both a quick rinse at a nearby stream.

What else are we making for dinner?

Just a traditional Appalachian stream side meal in ramp season.

We have some rills.

I have some venison loin from a couple of deer I harvested last year.

And we're going to make a very simple elderberry cider gastrique with some local honey from our friends in Louisburg, and some cider that I helped make with some friends of mine.

That is incredible.

So, all of these things in one way, shape or form you've had a hand in.

They've come from the land, they've come from the community, and they're going to come into our mouths.

Absolutely.

I'm excited about that.

As soon as we make them.

All right, so what are we going to start with first?

Well, the very first thing we're going to do is we're going to get a little lard rendering here.

So, as this lard starts to render down for us a little bit, whenever you're ready, if you'd like to throw in some ramps.

Absolutely.

Just whole?

You bet.

And those will cook down just like greens.

And I can already smell it.

Oh, it smells fantastic.

There is nothing like cooking over a live fire.

[Capri] I totally agree.

So, I'll tell you what, while you finish off those ramps into the pan, I'm going to get started on our gastrique.

All right.

So, we're going to make a very simple elderberry cider gastrique.

We're going to start with some great local honey.

So, we're going to get this in the pan and start this caramelizing.

All right, so as that honey caramelizes in the pan, we're going to add in a little bit of cider.

[Capri] Elderberry.

[Jason] Absolutely.

So, as this simmers over the flame, we're going to give our ramps just a little quick turn here.

I think I know what's coming next.

Absolutely.

This is our venison.

Venison time.

You got it.

All right, so these are some beautiful loins.

We're going to just give this a very quick simple salting.

All right, so the ramps are looking really great.

I think, let's make a little space in the pan.

Okay, for my favorite.

Absolutely.

What I'm looking forward to, the morels.

[Jason] They are gorgeous, aren't they?

And you know the beautiful shape of these mushrooms is just going to soak up all that flavor.

[Capri] That makes sense.

There's so much history of West Virginia in this pan.

Is this something that maybe would've been cooked back in the day too?

It sure is.

Absolutely.

This would be a very typical meal.

That's good.

-A little taste of history too.

-That's right.

I think we're pretty close.

Little elderberry cider gastrique has reduced.

We're going to pull off this last venison loin.

And what do you say?

Let's slice into it and put something on a plate.

-Let's do it.

-All right.

[Capri] Jason begins by coating the plate with the gastrique, a French term for a sweet and sour sauce.

Then he adds venison loin pieces followed by ramps and mushrooms.

Wow, look at this.

Jason's family joins for a very typical springtime mountain meal.

Let's eat.

You all are very lucky if you get to eat like this all the time.

[woman] We do.

We're very fortunate.

It's true.

And he cooks amazing food all the time.

Now, is this something that growing up in West Virginia, that you would traditionally eat?

Yeah.

If there's traditional foods, that's them.

From the early settlers until now, these have been the foods that's been handed down to us.

-Yeah.

-We still enjoy today.

So, it's just getting passed down to generation to generation here.

[man] Yes, ma'am.

I just feel very fortunate to have a chance to be able to learn about all of this and taste all of it.

-That's the best thing.

-Really why we're here.

I'm excited about that myself.

The morel definitely has taken on the ramp taste.

And the campfire.

I'm also just so surprised how versatile the ramp is.

When I was growing up, we always dug our ramps, so we were digging the bulb out of the ground every time we harvested.

Anymore, I try not to do that.

I'll pick my greens that I want and then I'll take a few bulbs.

Yeah.

And those ramps when you pick your greens, they'll be right back up.

Yeah.

It's a good way to help preserve it.

Yeah.

[Capri] That is a very good tip.

I'd love to propose a toast to stewardship, to tradition, and to West Virginia.

Cheers!

Thank you for having me here.

What a beautiful day.

What an amazing meal.

Thank you for sharing.

All right.

[Capri] While a special meal like this with the springtime taste of ramps can be fleeting, West Virginians have found a delicious way to preserve that flavor for year-round enjoyment: ramp salt.

Nancy Bruns is a 7th generation salt maker.

And here at J.Q.

Dickinson Salt Works not only are the ramps local, the salt is too.

Okay, well we're in West Virginia, a place that I don't think a lot of people associate with salt water.

But here we are with salt water.

How is that even possible?

A lot of people ask that question.

So, we're on top of an ancient seed bed called the Iapetus Ocean.

It's a 400-600 million-year-old-source, and it runs under us like a salty river.

So, we draw this brine up with a well and we evaporate it and crystalize it and make this beautiful mineral rich salt.

[Capri] Wow!

Now this salt is in your blood.

Yes, it is.

So, my great, great, great, great grandfather seven generations.

That's a lot of greats.

Yep, 7 generations back.

Came here in 1813 from Eastern Virginia and started making salt in 1817.

Made salt until 1945.

And then, I was a chef for 20 plus years and I saw the need for locally produced products, and with my history in the salt industry and the family, I decided to come home and revive it.

[Capri] Well, I'm glad you did.

You know, when I think about how salt is made, this is not necessarily what comes to mind.

Is this a traditional way that salt is cultivated?

Well, these days most salt we consume is mined, but naturally made salts will be evaporated.

You'll have salt pans that are crawled along the Mediterranean.

But our process here in a landlocked state is totally unique.

But we figured out the process, and we think our salt tastes great and captures all the minerals from the earth as well.

So, we've got to capture some salt, right?

We've got to capture some salt.

So, just scrape it up.

Now, you do some pretty cool stuff with your salts, and you use other agricultural products that are local to West Virginia to try to enhance the flavor, right?

We do.

It's very important to us to use indigenous flavors like ramps.

Right now, we're in the middle of ramp season, so you can't smell on the camera, but we have a ramp aroma going through everything we're doing right now.

Well, you're going to have to show me some of this because I need to understand how salt gets flavored with something like ramps.

Since we're in the middle of ramp season, let's start there.

I can show you the whole thing.

[Capri] Nancy's sources her ramps from local foragers that use sustainable harvesting practices.

She then dries the ramps until not a trace of moisture remains while her team breaks down the salt to a gourmet style finishing size and texture comparable to a Fleur de Sel or a Maldon sea salt.

She then adds her own method of infusing the ramp flavor before jarring the salt and shipping it nationwide.

So, tell me a little bit about this process of how you actually get that ramp flavor into the salt.

So, we dry the greens and the bulbs in our drying room, dehydrate them, and then we grind them up.

So, I'm just going to put some in here.

[Capri] This is the small batch.

This is a small batch.

Yeah, this is just a part of the process just to give you an idea.

So, you're looking for a powder.

A powder yeah.

So, then we take our salt.

So, this is a 10-pound batch.

We normally do 40 pounds of salt at a time.

And then we blend it.

Well, I want to try this.

Now what?

Okay, so.

Nice and green.

Yes, nice and green.

Here is some salt, so grab a tomato.

This is something you like to do with the salt.

Yes.

Okay, I'm going to give this a shot.

Don't get too much.

It'll be salty.

Mmm.

Wow!

That balance of that acidity of the tomato really brings out the flavor of the ramps.

It's very refreshing.

I mean in the sense that it brings out the freshness of something like a tomato.

I could see how it'd work on a cucumber or fresh vegetables.

It really just-- It's fresh forward.

If that makes any sense.

It does.

Well, our salt does that, the minerality of it.

It has a slight sweetness to it.

We try and stick to our roots and celebrate with what West Virginian and Appalachia have to offer.

West Virginia on a stick.

[Nancy] That's right.

[Capri] While West Virginians have learned how to savor the ramp flavor year-round, that doesn't stop them from celebrating the unofficial state vegetable and the short window when it can be harvested fresh.

The Feast of the Rampson in Richwood is one of ramp feasts and festivals like this one in Huntington.

The organizers for the Wild Ramp Food Market endearingly named it Stinkfest after the ramp's pungent fragrance.

Shelly Keeney is the Market Director and host of Ramp Recipe Contest every year as part of the festival.

Now, this is a pretty incredible spread.

What kind of recipes has people entered in this contest this year?

So, today we have a ramp humus.

We have a rampie instead of a shrimp scampi.

It's shrimp with ramps.

-Oh, rampie.

I love it.

-Yes.

We have some crab rangoon with ramps.

We have biscuits.

A biscuit with goat cheese and ramps in it.

We have a ramp Keish and we even have a ramp martini.

That just shows the versatility of ramps.

Exactly.

[Capri] In addition to hosting the contest, which highlights some very creative uses of ramps, Shelly offers a couple recipes of her own for sale at the market.

Her famous ramp ice cream, and a very versatile ramp butter.

[Shelly] You can use it on anything that you would normally use butter on, but it gives that little bit of Appalachia flavor to it.

I can't wait.

So, what's our first step?

All right, so our first step would be to zest some lemon into the butter.

So, we're going to do that.

[Capri] It gives it a nice-- It's just a nice kick.

Nice, fresh taste.

I think it helps the ramps to the flavor bringing out in the ramps.

[Capri] Makes sense.

Our next step after zesting would be to cream the butter.

So, we need to add some more things.

-Right.

-Ramps.

So, I like to add a little bit of the dehydrated powder but also some of the fresh ramps too.

[Capri] Okay.

I got a nice handful here whenever you're ready.

Okay.

I just want to get my hands on the ramps.

Don't blame me.

Right.

So, we're going to chop these and we're going to use the white and the green, both.

So, we'll just take a little bit here.

It's really to your liking.

[Capri] Oh, that smells so fresh.

[Shelly] Yeah.

So, we're just going to put that in with our butter.

And as you can see, it's looking really green and pretty.

[Capri] It is, and it's smelling wonderful too.

It does.

All right.

So, we're just going to scrape this down.

And what I like to do, especially during spring when I have people over-- Look how green.

I know, isn't that beautiful.

I have this absolutely adorable ramp crock that I like to put it in.

[Capri] It's so perfect.

[Shelly] Very sweet.

All right.

All right.

All right, are you going to join me?

I'm going to.

I love it.

Cheers.

[laughing] Yes.

Cheers.

Mmm, mmm.

Okay.

It is good.

For somebody who loves bread... [chuckle] ...and also loves the taste of ramps, this is next level.

Yeah, that is good.

I love it.

And so easy to make.

You know, you can freeze butter.

A lot of people don't know that, but you can freeze it.

The texture may change just a little, but it's still really good.

This makes me want to ask you, what else do you make with ramps?

We have a special ice cream that we make every year here during our festival.

Ramp ice cream?

Yes, we call it breakfast rampage.

And this ice cream contains ramps, of course, grits, sorghum and bacon all together.

That is a creative combination.

Here we go.

This is actually surprisingly good.

I can taste the grits.

I can taste the bacon.

I could taste the sorghum, and the ramps don't overpower it.

It is not onion ice cream, so to speak.

No.

This is actually-- It is a nice balance of sweet and savory.

So, I am pleasantly surprised because I was a little weary.

When you said ramp ice cream, I wasn't sure what to expect.

I think a lot of people are.

We have a reason the ice cream is-- We have many farmers here, right?

Right.

And so, I tried to take a little bit from each of our farmers.

The sorghum from our sorghum farmer, bacon from our bacon farmer, and then the cream, of course, and bloody butcher grits.

It's frankly probably why it tastes so good because it didn't have to travel far-- Exactly.

--to get in our belly.

Yeah.

That commitment to community and reinvesting in the local makers is absolutely inspiring and I'm just so happy to see it.

Yeah.

[Capri] Experiencing the many ways West Virginians gather to celebrate a simple bulb posts a question like that of the chicken and the egg: does great food inspire a community fellowship, or does community fellowship pave the way for great food?

Here in West Virginia, it might not matter which came first because wherever these country roads take you, you're sure to experience both.

But why take my word for it, when you can come experience it for yourself.

"America The Bountiful" is waiting for you and me.

For more information visit Americathebountifulshow.com.

[announcer] America's farmers have nourished us for generations, but today they face unprecedented challenges.

American Farmland Trust works with farmers to help save the land that sustains us.

Together we can work to keep America bountiful.