Buy your breath mints now—ramp season is back. The wild leek will be the guest of honor this weekend at a Cherokee festival featuring music, horseshoe throwing and a trout-and-ramps feast. Cherokee’s Enterprise Waters—30 miles of stocked streams and ponds—open for trout fishing on March 31, one day before the season begins elsewhere in the state. The annual Ramp It Up Festival starts Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Indian Fair Grounds. For more information, call (828) 497-8128.
It takes tremendous patience to produce truffles—and perhaps a few acres of good Tennessee soil. Tom Michaels of Chuckey, Tenn., a 59-year-old plant pathologist who travels to Asheville every few weeks for a meeting of the local Scrabble club, has spent the last seven years tenderly farming a stand of hazelnut trees inoculated with Tuber melanosporum, better known to gourmets as the Perigord truffle. Most American efforts to grow true truffles have ended in spectacular failure, with millions of dollars lost to the pursuit. But on Jan. 3, when the first three of Michaels’ lovingly grown truffles poked through the ground, he began to suspect he might have done something right. Michaels arranged to share his truffles—which were soon bubbling up by the bucketful—with chef John Fleer of the Inn at Blackberry Farm. New York Times food writer Molly O’Neill, who was staying at the inn, sampled the truffles and penned a Feb. 28 story calling them “the first American-grown black truffles to excite some of the country’s top chefs.” O’Neill quoted Daniel Boulud as saying “This is it,” and Michaels told the Greeneville Sun he’s hoping for a bigger crop next winter.
— Hanna Rachel Raskin
Before you comment
The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.