Ramps

Too Many Cooks: Forage For Your Life

April 19, 2013

You'll be hearing from the staff at FOOD52 every week in Too Many Cooks, our group column in which we pool our answers to questions about food, cooking, life, and more.

This week we're putting our team's culinary survival skills to the test. Things are bound to get interesting. 

pasta

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Here's the scene: you're on a desert island, in the springtime, and you can only forage for one thing. Things are getting dire.

Which do you go for: ramps, morels, or fiddleheads?

What's your take on the ultimate spring smackdown?

Team Morel

Kenzi: Morels for lyfe [sic].

Merrill: I second the 'shrooms.

Bryce: I'm with Kenzi. MFL.

Sarah: Morels -- simply because they're amazing, and I think I could eat them for the longest without getting bored.

Brette: Morels, especially because I obviously found a way to bring some pasta onto this island with me.

Marian: I want to form an alliance with Brette.

Lauren: My first thought was agave, so that at least one island could serve umbrella drinks! But if I have to choose, I'm jumping on the morel bandwagon.  

Michael: Morels: Get fed or die trying. Hope I have a bucket of butter in tow.

Jennifer: Morels please!

Ryan: Morels.

Karl: Mo' morels!

Maddy: Morels are so money. 

William: Can we get a morel chant?!

 

Team Ramp

Amanda Li: Ramps, because I'd probably end up picking false morels. Fiddleheads are creepy.

Jason: Gotta go with ramps! 

Stephanie: I'm going ramps.

Team Fiddlehead

Beatrice: Fiddleheads.  

Peter: I'm with Beatrice. Fiddleheads! (Of course, they'd be tastier sautéed with some ramps in a little coconut oil. There are coconut trees, right? After all, it's a desert island.)

blackberry

Rogues

Christina: Pokeweed!

Kristen: Blackberries, from brambly bushes by the side of the road in the NorCal foothills. (My mom made a lot of jam -- we'd pick buckets of berries with her in the summer; the tiny scratches all over our arms were badges of honor.)  

Kristen: Oh darn. I didn't read the question. I made my own island.

Lindsay: Can I join Kristen's berry paradise? I want to enjoy the island weather and not have to build a fire for every meal.

Maddy: Lindsay, I'll build your fire in exchange for some berries. A girl's gotta have dessert.

Which camp do you fall into? Tell us in the comments!

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

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Marian Bull

Written by: Marian Bull

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3 Comments

Rhonda35 April 24, 2013
Must be in the DNA - I'm on Team Ramps with Amanda, et.al. They're the most versatile out of the choices, in my opinion.
 
fhp April 20, 2013
Did I hear someone say Dessert Island. Oh dear I was hoping I'd have to forage at those Spice ones.... I'll have to drown my sorrows in Ile Flotant.
 
darksideofthespoon April 19, 2013
I love fiddleheads, I was raised on them.... which astonished my british Ex Husband, who assured me they are a poisonous weed and I will die if I ate them.

If the morels were paid for by someone else, I'd be on team morel. ;) $48 a pound at our farmers market! Ugh!