Ramsons (a.k.a wild garlic) are a staple in a foragers' diet and are often one of the first wild plants people like to try. I refer to them as a gateway drug to the foraging world for this very reason!
Where colonies are well established, sustainable harvesting can be quite plentiful, so you have ample opportunity to experiment with preservation and cooking techniques at home.
Ramsons or wild garlic // Allium ursinum
It has many other common names like wood garlic, bear leeks and bear garlic. The later names and the Latin ursinum refer to the plant being high up on the menu of bears awakening from hibernation. What a punchy breakfast of champions.
That punch is the allium family trate - a defence mechanism to deter predators by releasing strong smelling and tasting compounds. Unfortunately (or fortunately?!) it has the opposite effect on bears and humans!
As an ancient woodland indicator ramsons are often a beacon for special places. Colonies take hundreds of years to establish so soak up that good energy and watch your step.
Identification
Glossy green leaves. Each on a single stem growing from the base of the plant. The oval leaf becomes quite broad and large with a vein down the centre. They yellow with age and at this point should not be picked for consumption.
Leafless stems bearing flower buds shoot up, higher than the leaves, from the base. The buds have a papery sheath. These open to reveal a collection of small white flowers forming a sphere or pom-pom shape.
You should be able to smell them before you see them! When mature they dominate the environment and form green blankets across the forest floor.
Look for damp banks in broadleaf woodland with dappled light. Ramsons can also grow under hedgerows too but it likely won't spread into the open.
Note that there are several other allium species you might find like three cornered leek or snowbell (Allium triquetrum) or few flowering leeks (Allium paradoxum). Both are edible and delicious and unlike wild garlic are non-native invasives. They like similar locations to our native ramsons and can put compete so eat them! Photos below.
You might also read or hear about ramps which are a related species in America.
A conscious harvest
Ideally, you want to gather in a way that means no-one can tell you were ever there. The gentle forager. Unfortunately this is not always the case with the ramsons as you can sometimes see and I wonder whether the sheer volume of them is what makes people careless. Perhaps too, being a gateway drug of sorts, they are taken by people new to foraging who haven't had the chance yet to consider their own impact.
Here are some suggestions on how to collect them to minimise your impact:
Pick leaves individually (this will also help you to avoid any unwanted plants and keep you safe!)
Take no more than a couple from each clump/plant.
Watch your feet-trampling capabilities... tiptoe if you have to!
Keep moving as you gather to ensure you spread your harvest.
Find several different colonies so you can alternate patches. There is evidence to suggest that repeated picking weakens the bulb so you don't want to be harvesting from the same spot every year.
Consider harvesting a limited amount of flower heads and why not sprinkle mature black seeds in new locations. You can transplant some too, if you have permission.
Warnings
If you live in areas where ticks are present check your leaves, hands, and body!!
Watch out for toxic lookalikes and poisonous plants found in similar locations. Often mentioned are lords & ladies, dog mercury, foxglove and lily of the valley. You would not want to accidentally pick up ANY of those. Being on the West coast of Scotland I would also mention hemlock water dropwort here. I sometimes find them growing side by side on the edges of burns and although it grows into a much larger plant than wild garlic, they are both at a similar height in early spring. HWDW is one of the most poisonous plants in the UK.
Edibility
Back to the ramsons! All parts of this plant are edible however you need permission from the landowner to uproot the plant if you wish to harvest the bulb. I wouldn't recommend this anyway. It's much less sustainable as you are killing the plant and reducing the patch for very tiny, inconsequential bulbs.
Harvest the leaves as long as they are green and healthy looking. Move on then to the flowering stems, buds, flowers and finally young green seeds.
If you have not nibbled on wild garlic before be prepared for it's power. I often chuckle at the thought of the reaction
Benefits
“Is leigheas air gach tinneas creamh is ìm a’ Mhàigh; òl am fochair siud bainne ghobhar bàn.”
This is part of an old Gaelic proverb and translates to 'A cure for all sickness is wild garlic and May butter; drink it with the white goat-milk.’
I'm not sure about a cure for all but ransoms are antibacterial, an antibiotic, antifungal and high in various vitamins and minerals. The health properties of alliums seem are getting some attention at the moment and there is evidence to suggest they are beneficial for many things including being anti-cancerous and as a support to heart health. So let's eat!
Processing, Cooking and Eating
Give your leaves a thorough washing with a salad spinner ideally, if you have one.
They can be used fresh and raw in salads and diced as a topping on various meals.
If you want to use them in cooking they should be treated like flavoursome spinach in that they wilt and do not need much heat. If using them instead of garlic cloves in recipes I add diced leaves and stems at the end of the meal.
You can dry them and blitz them to use as garlic sprinkles or as a stock.
You can freeze them raw in zip lock bags and break off bits, as and when you need them.
Delicious bright green garlic oil can be made for cooking with or drizzling onto breads, salads etc. If you wish to keep it for longer than a few days in the fridge it can be frozen into ice cubes for ready made portions of garlic oil goodness.
Do your gut and taste buds a favour and make a lacto ferment! This stuff is phenomenal and can be added to dishes, cooked with and used all on it's own. Wild garlic kimchi is also fantastic.
You can take this one step further and dry and blitz the fermented ramsons into the most flavoursome sprinkles in the world! Have you ever eaten pickled onion flavoured transformer crisps?!
Recipe Ideas
Pesto is usually the first thing people make. You can find plenty of recipes on the internet often combining the plant with oils, seeds or nuts and cheese. They pair well with potatoes, in salads, with eggs, in hummus and as sauces.
I love to pickle the stems, flowers and immature seed heads. They make a fantastic accompaniments to grazing platters, as meal toppers, in sarnies and wherever else you can put them.
Wild garlic soup is just the best.
Other ideas include wild garlic mayo, ramson butter and wild garlic bread. Savoury pastry dishes can only be improved by this plant and curries like saag are asking for some leaves.
All this foodie talk and I'm salivating! I'm off to the woods with a basket!! Thank you for reading. Enjoy this fantastic plant.
Lucy 🌿
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