I was at a nice restaurant last week. The first item on the menu was a salad. And
the salad featured something called candied ramps. None of us at our table knew
what a ramp was. So I, in an effort to
constantly improve my food knowledge, asked the waitress what a ramp was. She
politely explained to me that a ramp was an onion. (None of us ordered that
item unfortunately, so I cannot comment as to the taste or presentation of the
ramps.)
My not knowing this vegetable troubled me, because, as many
of you readers know, I have a background in produce, plus my mother grew up on
a farm. So I know a bit about vegetables. I looked up “ramp” in the dictionary.
Sure enough, no sign of any onion. Well,
my dictionary is 40 years old, so I thought this might be a new breed or
something. So I did a search for “ramp” on google and, sure enough, some
pictures of some small onions came up.
OK, I thought, new stuff gets invented. There are always new
flower varieties being developed. And we have mini corn dogs now. And the
peanut butter Snicker – that’s kinda new. But if I was inventing new vegetables, I don’t think I would name it
“ramp”. I mean, that name is already taken, and it’s not a very pretty word anyway.
It has an unpleasant vowel sound and it ends abruptly. It’s an ugly word, even
if it’s candied.
I don’t really like the word “leek” either. What’s with
these onion words?
No comments:
Post a Comment