A tale of two ramp celebrations
?Two different ramp celebrations were celebrated last weekend at two parks situated on each side of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia state line.
One event was held on Saturday at the Mason-Dixon Historical Park in Core, W.Va., while another was held at a park with a similar name, the Mason-Dixon Park, in Mt. Morris, on both days.
The events featured a wide variety of foods cooked with ramps – which are wild onions found in the area – and the Mt. Morris festival also provided live entertainment and many arts and crafts vendors.
Ramp Festival in Mt. Morris
The Mason-Dixon Park in Mt. Morris, located just north of the state line, hosted its 21st annual Ramp Festival April 16-17. The beer-battered deep fried ramps remained the crowd’s favorite.
Connie Ammons, park vice-president, prepared the beer-battered ramps for crowds standing in the cold rain. Despite the wind and rain that permeated the event all weekend, Ammons said the event was well attended.
“It’s been great,” she said. “We had rain on Saturday, but we still had a big crowd.”
Walter Danna of Washington, along with his friends, brought 25 bushels of ramps to be used for the festival.
Earl Wayne Lemley, a resident of Core, W.Va., was one of the volunteers that helped clean the ramps for the event. Lemley used a water hose to wash the ramps and other volunteers cut the roots off each ramp.
Lemley said the preparation was exhausting.
“It took six to seven hours this year which was much longer than usual,” he said.
There were 15 volunteers that helped get the ramps for the event. Lemley said, “We could use all the help we could get. We had 15 people, but we needed more.”
The Taylortown United Methodist Church was involved in the festival this year, holding their annual fundraiser at the event. Pastor Gail Cobb said he was pleased with the fundraiser’s success, despite the weather.
“It’s been really good,” he said. “You can’t control the weather which has admittedly been a hindrance. We have now made friends with our neighboring vendors and have begun promoting each other’s wares.”
Pat’s Ramp Butter, also called Beurre de Ramps, is made by Pat (he was not willing to give his last name), a resident of Morgantown. He made the ramp butter and dip for friends. Connie Ammons called him and asked him to come to the festival. He has attended for the past two years and has only been making the butter for three years. One of Pat’s friends found the ingredients for Mrs. Dash’s seasoning salt. Pat said, “Instead of using dried onions, we changed it to dried ramps. We used the recipe to make Ramp Dip. It sold out.”
Raffle tickets were sold at the event each day to help raise money for the 29th annual Frontier Festival, which will be held Aug. 27-28. The raffles that were sold, but will not be drawn until Aug. 28, included a powder horn by Earl Wayne Lemley, a knife by Harold Haines, and a turkey call by Roy Scott.
Food items sold at the event include a spring tonic menu, in which visitors were able to taste ramp wine along with a ramp cheeseball.
The festival also offered beer-battered deep fried ramps, ramp burgers, fried potatoes and ramps, ramp sampler platters, ramp soups, ramp kielbasa, sassafras tea and other items.
Visitors were also able to see a demonstration by Lippencott Alpacas and chainsaw sculptures by Ricky Rhodes of Smithfield. A church service was held on Sunday.
Ramp Feast at the Big Red Barn
The Mason-Dixon Historical Park at the Big Red Barn held its annual Ramp Feast on Saturday, April 16 from 8?a.m. to 2.p.m. A ramp buffet breakfast and lunch were provided for the event. Rain did not dampen the spirits of the crowd for this event.
Ham and bacon was donated by Mike Kelly, amember of the Monongalia County Board of Education; Chesapeake Energy; Longview Energy; Longview Power Plant; John Howard Motors; and United Bank.
There were 12 to 13 garbage bags filled with ramps that were picked on the Mason-Dixon Historical Park property, both in Greene County and Monongalia County, W.Va. Dave Bohand and his daughter Ashley, Mark Sullenberg, and Dave Helmick picked the ramps for the event.
There was a variety of food with ramps, including ramp chili, ramp cake, mashed potatoes with ramp, fried potatoes with kielbasa and ramps.
The sassafras tea is a popular item every year.
Many have requested food without ramps, so there were three dishes that eliminated the ramps: kielbasa, rigatoni, and homemade noodles.
James Haas brought trout from an anonymous donor that so they could stock Dunkard Creek for the first day of trout season. This activity has returned to the event the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources requested that the Park not use the activity last year because of the experienced fish kill.
A tagged trout was put in the creek worth $100. The trout is in honor of Blackie and Nellie Lemley, past board members who passed away this year. As of Wednesday, no one had turned in the trout.
Asel Kennedy, a commissioner for Monongalia County, W.Va., collected admission money at the door and welcomed guests. The proceeds from the buffets and fundraisers raise money to furnish the park.
The Greene County commissioners also donated $10,000 and the Monongalia County commissioners donate $15,000, which is used to be used for park advancements.
The Ramp Feast is the largest fundraising event of the year for the park, along with the park providing rental services during the year.
The whole ramp feast lasts for eight hours for the volunteers to prepare the dinner and clean-up afterward. There is a lot of work behind the scenes that people do not see to put on this six-hour event. Betty Haas is the main volunteer who organizes the event. D.R. Forquer and Richard Allen are in charge of all the advertising that is done for the event. Six cooks prepare the food for the event: Betty Haas, Doris Forquer, Beverly Haas, Jerry Shellinberger, and Cathy Forquer. Betty Wiley alone does all the grocery shopping for the event.
Six waiters and one waitress spent the whole day waiting on tables.
They were all students from the Clay-Battelle Junior-Senior High School. The students were always checking how they could help and willing to do anything asked of them.
Wiley brought along her eight-year-old granddaughter to the event. She was complimented by many for doing an awesome job.
Haas said, “We have a large amount of volunteers that puts on an event like this. Everybody had a job and they did it. Some could only stay a couple of hours, but someone else would jump in to fill that position.”
Many of the volunteers had been doing this fundraiser for years, but they always appreciate anyone new that would like to volunteer.
Haas had hoped that this feast would be the best ramp dinner ever.
Haas said, “After a slow start, the event really picked up steam and was wonderful. It was definitely a good year.”