Wild Garlic – the Ambassador of Spring

Taking a walk through a Spring forest, and you can smell the fragrant, fresh sprouting wild garlic that fills the air. Some parts of the woodland are covered like a carpet and the delicate white flowers and the bright green look just beautiful.

Allium ursinum – wild garlic is also known as ramsons, buckrams, broad-leaved garlic, wood garlic, bear leek or bear's garlic. It is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the lily family. It is a wild relative of the onion, native to Europe and Asia, where it grows in moist woodland. The leaves, bulbs, and flowers are edible; but mostly the leaves are used in salads, as a herb, boiled as a vegetable, in soup, or as an ingredient for a pesto sauce.

I enjoy cooking with it because of its soft garlic yet prominent flavor and its versatility. And a bonus, I can pick it for free in the nearby forest. In the following recipes I have used wild garlic:

Egg Raviolo, asparagus and morels

Asparagus soup with wild garlic