The way to learn is to do. That is one of the reasons why chefs are drawn to farms and farmers. We have an innate curiosity and a desire to learn and find out where food comes from. Today I had the opportunity to dig for ramps. Today I played in the soil. Today I learned that more than just ramps grow in the moist soil near riverbeds.
When you spend the morning digging through dirt you begin to wonder why pickling ramps is the go to for such a humble and seasonal ingredient. There is more to be done, more to see and more to try. An ingredient dependent on the season deserves an attentiveness to its detail rather than a perfunctory response. Today's jaunt in the woods has fine tuned our focus and sparked new paths to travel. What have we not thought of and how may we execute these ideas in order to share the inspiration?
