Do you have a favorite West Virginia ramp feast you'd like to share with the public? We'd like to hear from you.
Now in its fourth year of publication, our guide to Ramp Feasts and Festivals is annually visited by more than 10,000 visitors, according to publisher David Sibray, who encourages readers to share the list of celebrations of this spring-blooming vegetable.
He's also encouraging would-be hosts to consider celebrating with an annual public dinner.
"As I understand it, ramp dinners can be excellent fundraisers for organizations, but on a larger scale we all benefit from celebrating these rites of spring," Sibray said.
"The novelty of participating in a ramp dinner attracts potentially thousands of visitors to the Mountain State, and even attracting a few additional families for a spring weekend in West Virginia is bound to help the economy."
A ramp, a colloquial name for Allium tricoccum, is North American species of wild leek that is one of the first edible greens to appear in spring in the mountains of West Virginia.
Their consumption after a long Appalachian winter became the focus of traditional gatherings among mountain peoples, who would dine together and homes and houses of worship, Sibray said.
For more information on submitting information, visit "Ramp Feasts Calendar." You'll fid the current guide to 2017 dinners here: Ramp Feasts and Festivals
