Wild Garlic
By Daniel Butler, author and forager
Alium ursinum is one of the most widely recognised foraged British greens. Its colloquial English name of ramsons comes from the Old English hramsa (garlic) and its scientific name stems from brown bears’ alleged fondness for the bulbs. It is among the earliest plants to emerge in late winter and is at its best when young, so the harvesting season is generally something like February to April.
It has long been used as an important way of spicing up the human early spring diet, but was also valued as a medicine to treat cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive problems.
Ramsoms grow rampant in damp woodland in early spring
(Photo: Author’s own)
Unsurprisingly, this member of the onion family has a pronounced and familiar smell. Indeed the scent is often the first sign of its presence in its damp woodland habitat. But unlike onions or garlic, it is the leaves and flowers rather than the bulbs which are of most interest to humans (bears might differ). These – and the equally edible buds and flowers – are much milder than the more familiar cultivated bulb: roughly halfway between chives and garlic.
The flowers are edible - and give a lighter, slightly frothy, texture to salads
(Picture: Author’s own)
This means it is great used raw in a variety of dishes: try it in salads, sandwiches or a rarebit. It also makes a superb pesto. My favourite takes a generous bunch of leaves and grinds these with coarse sea salt, dribbling in organic rapeseed oil, grated Caws Cenarth’s Caerffili (a wonderfully flavoursome hard cheese from West Wales, definitely not to be confused with supermarket Caerphilly) and hazelnuts. This can be used as a conventional pesto with pasta or baked potatoes, but also works well smeared on roast meats, fish or vegetables.
It keeps for a week or two in an air-tight jar in the fridge, but there are other ways to preserve its delicate flavours for months ahead. The flower buds can be pickled in a brine and vinegar mixture to create a caper-like condiment to add to salads, for example, but my favourite is wild garlic salt.
This is made by grinding the leaves with coarse sea salt. The resulting paste is then dried (for example in a really low oven, airing cupboard or on top of a wood burning stove), before the dry ‘cake’ is reground. Some recipes suggest a 50/50 mix, but salt is a powerful preservative and the ramsons proportion can be greatly increased. I prefer to use at least five to one (I think 9:1 is better). This bumps up the flavour and it will keep just as well. Although it slowly deteriorates over time, it certainly stays useable until the next season’s foliage spears through the woodland floor.
Wild garlic salt - a wonderful condiment and perfect gift
(Photo: Author’s own)
At any point now its shoots and leaves will begin to emerge. When harvesting, particularly for the first time, be careful not to confuse it with the poisonous cuckoo plant (Arum maculatum) and lily of the valley (Colchicum autumnale). The easiest way to make a firm identification is by smell – if it reeks of garlic it’s the real McCoy.