I wasn’t planning on writing another post before I leave for Mexico, but this soup came out so well, and its ingredients are so fleeting, that it would be shameful not to share it. It was inspired by a cup of spinach, parsley, lemon soup with sour cream that I tasted at Soup’s On, my local soup stop in Baltimore. The flavors were fresh and bright, a perfect blend of acidity and umami, and I couldn’t wait to try to recreate it at home.

My version has the spinach, parsley, lemon juice and sour cream. But! It also has some heat from the addition of curry, a little funk from a dollop of chèvre, and and a bit of a bite from a cluster of ramps, those much-beloved garlicky cousins to the leek and the onion that grow wild in the mountain forests of Appalachia. If ever a food were a tonic for chasing away the ghosts of winter from the body, this would be it.

But an important note on ramps: Due to their recent surge in popularity over the past several years, ramps are at high risk of over-harvesting at their current rate of harvest and consumption. The problem is exacerbated by the way ramps are harvested. Virtually all of ramp reproduction is not from seeds but from rhizomes, a web of underground stems that connect multiple ramp shoots together, which are uprooted along with the bulbs and leaves. When harvesters pull up the plants, they are also diminishing their potential to reproduce. As if that weren’t enough, a 10 percent harvest of ramps will take 10 years to grow back – and that’s a liberal estimate. You can read more about ramps in an article I wrote for NPR last year.

So. What is a ramp-loving cook to do? Eat them sparingly. Eat them lovingly (preferably sautéed with butter and mineral salt). Ramps have deep roots in Appalachian and Native communities and are interwoven with local traditions and ritual. They are one of the first foods to surge through the soil in the spring, staving off starvation, replenishing the winter body with green life. They are medicine, they are sacred. Treat them with the honor and respect they deserve. As for this soup, ramps are a worthy ingredient here. Of course, you can also substitute the ramps for green onions or a couple garlic cloves. The choice is yours.

spring goddess soup

1 pound spinach, rinsed, tough stems removed
1 small bunch of green onions, both white and green parts, roughly chopped
1 bunch ramps, cleaned well with the rough parts of the bulbs removed, roughly chopped (or substitute with green garlic or crushed garlic cloves)
1 pound yellow or Yukon potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes
1 bunch parsley, stems removed
7-8 cups homemade vegetable broth
1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon chèvre
juice of 1 lemon
sea salt
1/4 cup sour cream per serving

Combine all of the ingredients, except the chèvre, lemon juice and sour cream, in a big witchy pot. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until the bulbs of the green onions and ramps are completely soft. Using an immersion blender, or a normal blender in batches, quickly puree the soup until smooth. Don’t over-process the soup, or you risk making the potatoes gummy. Add the chèvre and stir it in to melt it. Add the lemon juice. Taste for salt, adding more if needed.

To serve, put 1/4 cup of full fat sour cream in the bottom of a bowl, and pour a ladle of soup over it. Blend the sour cream and soup together with a whisk. Top off the bowl with more soup, and stir to combine with the sour cream. Enjoy immediately.