Ramp Up Peninsula -- Peninsula, OH


Yesterday was the 7th annual Ramp Up Peninsula festival in Peninsula, OH. Ramps (also known as rampson or wild leeks) are a wild herb which grows in the Eastern US and Canada. They are available in the spring for a short period of time which lends to their popularity. Ramps have a rich onion and garlic flavor.

Ramp Up Peninsula celebrates all things ramp with fresh ramps for sale, all sorts of ramp edibles, and presentations on CSAs and other wild Ohio edibles. The festival is outdoors and takes place along Main Street in Peninsula. This was our first time attending but throughout the day we heard from many regular attendees who were surprised about the nice weather (apparently this weekend is typically rainy and cold).

The first thing we did was seek out ramps, all ramps at the festival are sold at $16 per pound, for several recipes to make this week. Check out Vegetarian and Cooking later this week to see how we used our ramps. I'm hoping to make three to four recipes with the half pound we purchased and I already had another ramp recipe ready to go. You can also find ramps at farmer's markets throughout Northeast Ohio, I've been buying ours at the Haymaker Farmer's Market in Kent, OH.

Overall the festival was incredibly organized, there were volunteers to direct you and plenty of programs to go around. Go early and go hungry! We arrived around 1:30 PM and a vendor with ramp bread was already out of ramp products (there was still plenty of ramp food to go around). Check out the event website and Facebook page before going, the parking information that they provided was helpful and easy to follow. 



Linda and Larry the Ramp Mascot were available for photo ops throughout the festival. They maintained a strict schedule so there were many opportunities to pose with Larry.


There were a wide variety of ramp foods at Ramp Up Peninsula including ramp jelly, French ramp soup, ramp tater tot casserole, and macarons with white chocolate ramp filing. We had dinner plans so we needed to be strategic about our ramp delicacies. Being a creature of habit I ended up at The Pierogi Lady.



Dave and I split one order of Ramp Potato Parmesan Pierogis and a Ramp Spaetzle + Wild Mushroom Bowl (finished with ramp butter). We were obsessed with both, Dave preferred the pierogis but just this once I might have preferred the spaetzle. 


 

  

Once you have eaten ramps to your heart's content and purchased some for later, Blue Hen Falls is a 7-minute drive away from Ramp Up Peninsula and it's only a 1/6 of a mile hike to the falls (not to mention the extensive trails and scenic drives throughout Cuyahoga Valley National Park). 

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