ROMANCING THE WILD LEEK

 When the leaves start to turn yellow, the season is nearly over...

You can still eat the bulbs but they'll rapidly become hard and coarse.

There are few food plants more seductive than a wild leek. Satiny leaves of verdant green, silky alabaster bulbs like elongated pearls, all permeated by the primitive, wild scent that is neither onion nor garlic but somewhere unique and between, potent and irresistible as the tree of life, stimulating the mind to gratifying visions of dishes fit for the gods.

Wild leeks, also known as ramps or ramsons, are one of our first botanical harbingers of spring, and only a northerner can truly understand the yearning for that first sight of green washing lushly across the bare grayish-tan hillsides. It’s more than just psychological food for the soul. A true spring tonic, wild leeks are an intoxicating elixir of vitamins, minerals and bio-flavonoids after a long northern winter.

 Leeks prefer to grow on hillsides.
At the bottom of the hill there's often a stream...

handy for washing off the dirt!

I’m an experienced leek hunter, and I know these members of the Lily family in ways that few people do. I know how to find them by their inconspicuous dry flower umbels, long after their leaves fade and vanish into the forest floor. I know that not every plant blossoms; that they don’t blossom every year, depending on conditions; that seeds can lie dormant for at least a year and a half; that they reproduce more by bulb division than by seed, meaning that most leeks are actually clones. I know that in the fall the bulbs are a lot larger, harder and tougher than they are in spring, but just as flavorful. And I know how the outer layers of those bulbs, feeding the new growth, disintegrate and slough off by spring; this is what we rub off when we clean the bulbs down to their small, tender, delectable core. I have a few captive leeks in my refrigerator right now; this is the second time I have wintered some over in the fridge, playing the voyeur, covertly observing their behavior – a sneak peek into the private life of leeks.

Unfortunately the human craving for their wild, fresh, clean garlicky taste has put leeks on the “species of special concern” list in three states (Maine, Rhode Island and Tennessee) and on the endangered species list in Quebec where they are protected from all but limited individual harvesting and may not be served in restaurants; poachers carry them across the border into Ontario to sell. Annual east coast festivals in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina unintentionally but unfortunately encourage over-harvesting. But the story of how wild leeks achieved endangered status is more complex.

Leeks are spring ephemerals – like the frogs and salamanders in a vernal pool, they are obvious for only a short time. They take advantage of the intense spring sun in deciduous forests before the leaves arrive on the trees and shade out the forest floor. In just a few weeks, their high photosynthetic rate enables them to rapidly accumulate enough carbohydrates to survive the rest of the year. Then the leaves die back, returning their calcium and nutrients to the soil for re-use, and the plants (sometimes) send up their single flower stalks; leeks are unusual in that they have separate photosynthetic and reproductive phases. This brief and intense period of growth requires highly fertile forest soil. When it’s over, the leeks hunker down deep in the dirt and go into dormancy (some differentiation occurs in the bud during the summer dormant period). Dormancy is broken by the low soil temperatures of autumn, and the roots and shoots begin to grow slowly. They will continue to grow over the winter.

Little is known about the pollination of the flowers. Commercial growers of wild leeks have observed bumble bees and ants working the flowers. The species name, Allium tricoccum, refers to the three seeds produced by each flower. Leeks seem to prefer hillsides, where rain washes the seeds down the slope. But leeks reproduce mainly by cloning (bulb division), and the largest bulbs are the ones that do most of the reproducing.

Since leeks have few natural predators, they don’t reproduce fast - it can take a colony up to ten years to recover from as little as a 10% loss. Populations recover more slowly in the north; in Quebec, the minimum viable population size for a colony is 300 – 1030 plants, and harvesting rates of just 5 – 15 percent have been shown to decrease population growth rates to below equilibrium. In southern Appalachia, a 10% harvest every 10 years would be sustainable. Another important factor is that foragers tend to selectively harvest the largest bulbs, effectively robbing the colony of its breeding population. This can drastically affect the recovery rate.

Increasing research into the commercial cultivation of wild leeks has led to more information on their secret sex life. As it turns out, they are touchy little critters who don’t really like to breed in captivity the way they do in the wild. For starters, it’s tough to duplicate the proper balance of high soil fertility (they favor soils with high calcium : magnesium ratios and an average pH of 5.5), and even tougher to replicate the necessary light conditions. The seeds aren’t inclined to sprout in an open farm field. The best germination rates were obtained under a 30% shade cover, but the seedlings didn’t live long. They need light to sprout, but more than 30% shade to grow.

Additionally, leek seeds contain a dormant, under-developed embryo. To sprout, the embryo needs a moist warm period, which breaks root dormancy, followed by a cold period, which breaks shoot dormancy. In the wild, the proper warm conditions may occur in the late summer or early fall and the seeds will sprout the next spring. If weather conditions are not right the first year, the seeds may sprout the following spring. They require particular moisture throughout the year.

Most of our food plants were domesticated long ago, so it's unusual and interesting to see the process in action with wild leeks. Based on past data on other domesticated species, we can probably expect cultivated ramps to get larger, less flavorful and less nutritious than wild ones. We can also expect that, inevitably, they will lose much of their mystique and cache... alas. Domestication has never been kind to species. As you enjoy this spring’s earthy pleasures of wild leek flesh, remember to treat them with respect and appreciation. Harvest gently!

Cleaned, peeled and ready for dinner!

FUN FACT!

Legend has it that the Midwestern Menomini Indians called leeks pikwute sikakushia – “the skunk.” They referred to the rich woodlands at the southern end of Lake Michigan, a popular leek foraging ground, as shikako, “the skunk place.” Now a large city has replaced the woodland leek colonies, and it smells much worse than the leeks. But it’s still called “the skunk place” – shekako, or as we now say, Chicago.

WILD LEEK (GUILTY) PLEASURES

So many recipes for leeks are based on potatoes and eggs, but wild leeks are far more versatile. They make a great potato-leek soup for sure, but they are also exquisite in a nettle-leek soup, spiked with rosemary. Try them slivered into salads; tossed with pasta, rice or grain; or pureed into salad dressing. Brush the entire plant with olive oil and grill, or bake beneath a sprinkling of pine nuts. Wrap choice morsels of whatever in whole leek leaves, brush with olive oil and bake, broil or grill. By happy coincidence leeks are superb sautéed with fiddleheads (which arrive at the same time).

You can prolong your leek ecstasy by drying, freezing or pickling them. A to-die-for freezing option is to make pesto; if you're using cheese, add it after thawing. Think beyond pasta when using pesto: it’s equally swoon-inducing with rice or grains, in casseroles, spread onto good bread, mixed into dips for crudités, or dolloped on top of soup or stew. Use your imagination. Ramp it up – and ramp on!