View Full Version : Ramps!
I've just returned from the ramp festival in Flag Pond, TN and let me tell you.... it was a great way to spend a few hours.
Appalachia at its finest - bluegrass, country-folk, ramps, potatoes, pintos, cornbread, bacon, homemade desserts everywhere... Even a ramp eating contest.
Gonna let my food digest and then head out to the strawberry festival in Unicoi!! 2 festivals in 1 day!
I love living in Erwin - it's the best place I've ever lived in my life. :)
WingedMonkey
05-14-2011, 14:20
I'm not here to stop the joy of eating ramps, but...here is an interesting article I read the other day, (New York Times of of all places) about over harvest and the possibility of restricted harvest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/dining/20forage.html
In Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee, ramp harvesting was banned in 2004 after a study there found that the only way to prevent damage to a ramp patch was to harvest less than 10 percent once every 10 years. Again...I'm just sharing don't shoot the messenger. ;)
WingedMonkey
05-14-2011, 14:21
P.S. It's a two page article...good stuff on the second page.
I'm not here to stop the joy of eating ramps, but...here is an interesting article I read the other day, (New York Times of of all places) about over harvest and the possibility of restricted harvest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/dining/20forage.html
Again...I'm just sharing don't shoot the messenger. ;)
Go ahead, rain on the strawberry festival too while you're at it...
:) :)
WingedMonkey
05-14-2011, 14:33
Go ahead, rain on the strawberry festival too while you're at it...
:) :)
They grow strawberry out side of Florida?
http://www.flstrawberryfestival.com/
:p
They grow strawberry out side of Florida?
http://www.flstrawberryfestival.com/
:p
I know you say that T&C but The best strawberries in the world are grown in East Tenn. Florida strawberrys don't even come close.
Tipi Walter
05-14-2011, 19:19
On my last April backpacking trip I saw truck-loads of Ramp Eaters coming out in East TN to harvest the things. I saw one group as it was coming out of the woods with six grocery bags full of the plants. Two hours later I was almost to my campsite and saw another truck load of "migrant workers" coming in with their bags and hoe-claws to scavenge another big batch. It was THE REVENGE OF THE RAMP EATERS.
This sound like some kind of 50's B movie horror movie
John
gonna be hikin' and eatin' me some ramps and lipton, ramps and grits, ramp buritos and ramps cooked in the fire in about 2 weeks. can't wait.
Maybe they ought to be called something else.
How about a slope or inclined plane festival?:)
ramps work ha.... mmmmm ramp and ramen soup mmmmm
How about a slope or inclined plane festival?:)
Those names would be more appropriate for a festival aimed at celebrating simple tools than Appalachian culture.
Those names would be more appropriate for a festival aimed at celebrating simple tools than Appalachian culture.
Or algebra!
Those names would be more appropriate for a festival aimed at celebrating simple tools than Appalachian culture.
funny, i always thought that ramp festivals celebrated the arrival of ramps.
I think it was just a good excuse for everyone in Flag Pond to listen to bluegrass, do some two steppin and eat a lot of food.
It was a great experience - it reminded me very much of growing up in rural Georgia except the part of GA I grew up in is more cosmopolitan now as Atlanta has extended its reach.
Flag Pond, TN is like walking back in time 30-40 years.
The only difference is that you can really, really see the obesity epidemic at work. My guesstimate is that 70% of attendees were more than 15# overweight and 20% of those would be classified as morbidly obese. Sad to see. I guess it's because of Direct TV and other labor saver / time wasters have come along but appetites have stayed constant.
Thank you for helping to make my point. I don't know why anyone would celebrate the arrival of ramps.
These festivals are about something more than ramps and would be worth attending whether or not ramps are on the menu. It's not as if ramps are to Appalachia as potatos are to Ireland.
I don't expect those in attendance at Flag Pond carrying around insurance against famine got to be that way by eating ramps.
Seems to be plenty of slopes and inclined planes along the AT.
Festivals celebrating a community point of pride were not commonplace in 1954 when the Cosby Ruritan Club of Cocke County decided to establish a celebration centered around the ramp, a wild plant which was a common spring staple in this Appalachian Region of southern Tennessee. The festival originated in the desire of the Cosby locals who "deplored the fact that the Cocke County acreage of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park had been largely neglected and unpublicized since the park's founding," and sought a "gimmick" with which to focus attention on the area and generate tourism.
The result was a two-day weekend festival honoring the potent mountain ramp, "the sweetest tasting and vilest smelling vegetable in Mother Nature's bounty." An edible member of the onion family, the ramp is alternately called the wild leek, taking its name from a similar plant, the rampion, which also has a fleshy tap-root. Believing the ramp to possess the revitalizing power of a spring tonic, the mountain folks looked forward to the return of the ramp after a winter of eating mostly dried foods. The ramp's flavor, though sweet with a hint of garlic, is accompanied by a potent odor so objectionable school children with "ramp odor" were known to have been excused from school for a few days.
naw, ramp festivals don't have anything to do with ramps. emerald, i got your point the first time. i just didn't think that it was much of one.
WingedMonkey
05-17-2011, 13:52
The only difference is that you can really, really see the obesity epidemic at work. My guesstimate is that 70% of attendees were more than 15# overweight and 20% of those would be classified as morbidly obese. Sad to see. I guess it's because of Direct TV and other labor saver / time wasters have come along but appetites have stayed constant.
I notice the same body types in the water throwing sidelines at Trail Days. Seems to be the only physical activity many of them get. Seems they kept eating like a hiker after they stopped hiking.