Keeping things seasonal, Globe and Mail restaurant critic Alexandra Gill takes a look at one of the city's most popular spring offerings.
If it's spring, you should be eating ramps. Also known as wild leeks, the leafy bulb is the one of the first green edibles to pop up in the woods of Eastern Canada and the United States. They taste like mild green onions, but smell so strongly of garlic that a single plant could scare off an entire vampire coven.
Vancouver kitchens source their sustainably harvested ramps from Mikuni Wild Harvest, a local company that procures foraged foods for the crème de la crème of celebrity chefs, including Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud and Thomas Keller.
Mikuni's Tyler Gray told us that he gets his "beautiful" ramps from a forager named Crazy Harry in West Virginia, where the plant grows abundantly. "He treats them like babies. The diggers can crush the leaves, giving them a very short shelf life. But Crazy Harry is very careful in how he handles them."
Beware: ramps can be polarizing. In the words of award-winning food writer Jane Snow, they're redolent of "fried green onions with a dash of funky feet". The only way to figure out if you're a fan or not is to try them. In no particular order, here are the restaurants currently serving them.
Have we missed one of your ramp favourites? Tell us about the dish in the comments or on the tipline
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