DISPATCHES FROM UTOPIA
by Randi Hoffman
Our excursion leader, Kristin, was younger than the rest of us. She wore a baseball cap with a dark-brown ponytail and black leggings. She also cooked our excellent dinners. She bent down and pointed at a ramp. “They have a thin stalk and two leaves. Do NOT confuse them with these larger green plants, which are poisonous and called hellebore. Does anyone need a scissors?”
Our group fanned out to pick the ramps. I gravitated toward the swampy area, small streams running through spongy earth. But there was only poisonous hellebore in this area. Most of the others had brought bags to hold their collected ramps, but I hadn’t, I just thought I would go on a hike. However, I was here, so I might as participate in the spirit of the endeavor. Most people stayed together among a clump of ramps, but I wondered in different directions, picking ramps here and there.
I noticed Rebecca chewing on a ramp.
“What does it taste like,” I asked.
“Try one, go ahead,” she suggested.
I took one of the ramps I had picked and placed in someone’s wicker basket. “Do you eat both the stalk and the leaves?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I took a small nibble of the stalk. It tasted mildly oniony, like scallions, but with a little kick, like
very mild horseradish. I didn’t expect such a small plant to have so much flavor.
Cecile Somers-Lee in a patch of ramps. Photo by Ayun Halliday.
On the way back we came upon a burnt brown swath across a green field. Grey, brown stalks crunch under my feet. This area was obviously deliberately cultivated.
“What crop is this?” I asked.
“They probably grew some kind of corn for the tax break,” Kristin replied. She lived in the area and understood it way better than the rest of us.
I looked down and noticed burnt corn cobs at my feet.
At one point on the walk back we were close enough to see our home base of a farmhouse. Here we came across ground that was difficult to step on. There were huge bumps and little valleys. I walked slowly and carefully to avoid turning my ankle.
“What is this?” I asked Rebecca.
“Maybe groundhogs?” she answered.
“Or prairie dogs?” I replied, carefully placing my feet.
Ramp Foragers
China Martens, Cecile Somers-Lee, Ayun Halliday, Ariel Gore, Randi Hoffman, Suzanne Westhues, Joyanna Priest and Rebecca Kuder
Photo by Kirstin McCalley
Randi Hoffman lives in New York City and has published nonfiction in the anthologies Places Like Home, and The Zen of Mothering. She has written art and book reviews for The Women’s Review of Books A Gathering of the Tribes, and Downtown magazine. She teaches English at Hudson County Community College in Jersey City.
