Ramps - Are They the Next Bluefin?

[weinoo]

Reading an article in the New York Times, it appears as if our springtime favorite, the ramp, might be going the way of the bluefin tuna; that is - they seen to be becoming endangered...

But lately, Mr. Berdine, a botanist with the environmental group the Nature Conservancy, has had to hike deeper and deeper to find ramps, he said. The acres-wide patches that used to carpet the forest floor are becoming elusive. Mr. Berdine has seen areas where every single ramp has been scraped up, he said, as if by “wild hogs rooting in the forest.”

Why do we insist on making it so difficult for some of our favorite things to survive? And what can be done?

[SobaAddict70]

Make it an endangered species and people will have to learn to live without.

Or deal with farmed ramps.

[weinoo]

Make it an endangered species and people will have to learn to live without.

Or deal with farmed ramps.

I don't know that they can really be farmed economically. Sort of like truffles, I think.

[SobaAddict70]

Government regulation is one answer but that makes people's hackles rise.

If ramps disappear, I suppose we'll have to love fiddlehead ferns. Most people think they taste like mud, so good luck with that.

[lstrelau]

Looks like ramps can be cultivated, just trickier than your regular cultivated members of the onion family. Being a spring ephermeral just means you would be looking at a bare plot of land (or forest floor) for most of the year.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-449.html

Not at all comparable to truffles which have way more complicated requirements. And even truffles have been cultivated on a small scale.

[Moopheus]

Why do we insist on making it so difficult for some of our favorite things to survive?

Because we are really bad at delayed gratification, at least in aggregate. Our frontal cortex can't make the hypothalamus understand the concept of finite resources. Organisms reproduce until they've exhausted the resources needed for further expansion, then they die off. With our big brains and tools and agriculture we've managed to cheat the system, but there's no guarantee we will always be able to do so. As Herb Stein said, if something can't go on forever, it will stop.

[gfweb]

Why? Because the industry insists on following trends. Orange roughy came and went, then Chilean sea bass, then bluefin, now ramps. If chefs would stick mostly to sustainable protein and produce things would be fine. But its easier to get a hot new item than it is to actually innovate in the kitchen.

As I think about it I wonder if the hot ingredients aren't used mainly to please the chef (which is OK w me) rather than the customer. I can't imagine losing or gaining a diner based on the presence or absence of ramps on the menu. One could certainly have a seasonal menu and spare the ramps.

[Pam Brunning]

I don't understand - why on earth do you destroy the whole plant when you use them. Here in the UK we love them but only pick the leaves, the plant goes on to grow another year. It is just vandalism pulling the whole plant.