Every spring I wait for the same phone call. It comes from a farmer in Watauga County, North Carolina, sometime in late March. The ramps are in. That call changes everything about what we put on the menu for the next six weeks. Ramps are the first real sign that the Appalachian spring has arrived, and they have a particular character in our region — sharper than Pacific Northwest ramps, wilder, with a garlic edge that does not taste like anything you can get from a bottle.
We use ramps three ways this year: pickled as an acid element in the soft-shell crab appetizer, charred under the wood grill and finished with cultured butter for the vegetable course, and puréed into the base of a sauce for the lamb saddle. Morels came in two weeks after the ramp call — these from a forager in Haywood County who has been supplying us since 2015. Morels want richness, so they end up alongside the duck breast, roasted in the pan drippings with thyme.
The Carolina soft-shell is the centerpiece of the spring menu. Soft-shells are crabs that have just molted, and the window when they are truly tender is a matter of hours. Ours arrive from Beaufort, South Carolina, twice a week during the season. We serve them pan-fried in brown butter, over a ramp purée, with a small salad of fennel and blood orange. It is the dish I look forward to cooking most in the year. By June it will be gone, which is part of what makes it worth eating now.
