A Guide To Late Spring Produce in the Northeast
5 ingredients to snatch up at your local farmer's market
By Grace Roberts
With warmer weather slowly settling into the Northeast, farmer’s markets dot nearly every small town and major city, and it’s one of the best seasons to incorporate unique produce into your home cooking routine. Spring foraging is particularly rewarding at this time of year, yielding sought-after produce like ramps and morels, while more typical rhubarb and asparagus make their yearly debuts. We’ve rounded up five ingredients to seek out the next time you visit a farmer’s market, a tote bag (L.L. Bean or Land’s End, of course) in hand, and a couple of ways to use your newfound goodies in the kitchen.
#1 Rubarb
Rhubarb is the gem of spring produce. While the glowing pink stalks are going to be most commonly peddled at farmer’s markets, there are many varieties of rhubarb that produce light green stalks, which are often more tart than their rosy counterparts. Early season rhubarb is usually forced, meaning farmers simulate warmer, darker growing conditions to produce a plant that is sweeter and more tender.
In England, farmers actually harvest the plant by candlelight (it’s a major contestant on my bucket list) so as to keep it as tender as possible. Rhubarb is best in desserts—pies, crisps, ice cream, compotes, and roasted with sugar—but it can also be eaten in savory grain salads to provide a tart bite. If you imbibe, rhubarb cocktails are wonderful, or it’s easy to create a rhubarb garnish by slicing and baking thin, pink-hued ribbons.
#2 Ramps
My most treasured spring produce (the internet’s too—every influencer, chef, and normie on the planet seems to be obsessed), ramps are part of the allium family. Their stems and leaves can be used in a variety of ways: Roasted, on pizzas (my favorite!), in butter and spreads, in pesto, and even grilled.
It is essential to harvest ramps sustainably, which means cutting them off before the bulb and never pulling the whole plant out of the ground. Often, chefs and culinary professionals want the whole plant for completely cosmetic purposes; they’re a beautiful plant. Ramps cannot be cultivated and take years to grow, which is why they are both rare and expensive, but they can be found in forests all over the Northeast. If you’re taking a walk through the woods and happen to stumble upon some, be sure to harvest sustainably!
#3 Morels and Other Mushrooms
Similar to ramps, morels are a foraged crop that pops up in the woods along with other mushroom varieties like sorels and hen of the woods. Morels, with their honeycomb-like texture, add flavor and depth to soups, sauteed as sides with steak, and in savory quiches or frittatas. They have a nutty, earthy flavor that makes them ideal for pairing with everything from light pasta dishes to other springy ingredients like peas and goat’s cheese.
When searching for them at markets, make sure to avoid any mushrooms that are slimy, discolored, or losing their shape. If you’re foraging yourself, beware of false morels, which are “free-hanging,” meaning the cap does not connect to the stalk. Read up (there are plenty of online resources, like this one) before you head out to make sure your bounty is safe to eat.
#4 Asparagus
Though it’s a divisive vegetable, asparagus makes a light, flavorful accompaniment to almost any dish. It’s wonderful grilled, sauteed, or roasted, and is superb in a quiche with gruyere, bacon, and scallions. Asparagus is an easy vegetable to grow at home and produces easily, which means it’s essential to cut it back each year—or it may take over your garden bed. When browsing the market stalls, be on the lookout for purple asparagus, which has the same flavor profile as its green counterpart but looks particularly beautiful on the plate.
If you’re on the fence about asparagus, try roasting just the tips, which are much more tender than the woody stems. Season with salt and pepper and grate a generous amount of parmesan. It might just change your mind.
#5 Fiddleheads
The last foraged item on this list, fiddleheads are baby fern fronds, typically of the ostrich fern variety. Tightly curled and usually no bigger than a half-dollar coin, fiddleheads are easy to find at the market, but can also be found on a walk through the woods in May, before the plant grows to an adult fern in early June.
They’re quite nutritious—full of healthy fats, iron, and potassium—and surprisingly crisp, much like a green bean. They also retain their bright green color best when blanched before cooking, which means boiling them until tender and immediately dipping them in an ice bath. Fiddleheads are a great spring green to incorporate into your repertoire, especially when sauteed in a cast iron pan with morels and plenty of butter.