The Season When Local Chefs Go Wild

At Purdy's Farmer and the Fish, a vinaigrette of puréed grilled ramp leaves, and their pickled stalks, accompanying soft-shell crabs.

In early April, a supermarket flier trumpeted: "Burst into spring!" Featured in the ad were imported blackberries, California strawberries and salad mixes in plastic clamshells from a corporate farm out West. That blackberries, strawberries and baby greens grown in distant climes had been available right through the winter here in Westchester County, for a price, seemed lost in all the enthusiasm.

Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Chef Michael Kaphan, of Purdy's Farmer and the Fish, in his hoop house.

Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Shad and shad roe ready for the pan at Half Moon.

Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Vincent Barcelona, the corporate chef at Harvest on Hudson, in Hastings, and Half Moon, in Dobbs Ferry.

What's a locavore to do? Early spring is the sort of barren stretch that farm-to-table restaurants have in mind when they print disclaimers on their menus saying that they use local, organic, natural, biodynamic, sustainable products "whenever possible." In our northern suburbs, tradition calls for seeds to be sown after Mother's Day, to avoid the risk of hard frost. So even the earliest row crops, that frisky food group of English peas, fava beans and little lettuces, is, for most of us, still weeks away.
But the minute the crocuses bloom and shad run headlong against cold currents, the pressure is on from diners weary of root vegetables. "They have to have asparagus," said Vicky Zeph, the co-owner and chef at Zephs', in Peekskill. "So we have asparagus, but it's from Mexico."
"Chefs are looking for local," said John Magazino, of Baldor Specialty Foods, a wholesaler in the Bronx that sells springtime morsels, including morels from Turkey and miner's lettuce from the Pacific Northwest, "but it's a very late spring this year because of the long winter."
Chefs who want to stay faithful to local sourcing can head into the wild. Right now, in the suburbs north of New York City, nature is delivering a precious group of edibles, among them fiddlehead ferns, dandelion greens and blue violets.
Jeremy McMillan, the chef at the Farmhouse at Bedford Post Inn, in Bedford, sought help this month from a professional forager, Steve Brill, who with Mr. McMillan and his kitchen staff explored the 100-odd acres surrounding the inn. "This spring's been a little rough," said Mr. McMillan, "but we found ramps, wild watercress, garlic mustard, trout lilies - whole blankets of them."
New on the Farmhouse menu is a forager's salad, made with Mr. McMillan's trove of handpicked wild treasures and stepped-up with a brisk lemon vinaigrette. Other dishes inspired by the wilderness are mushroom minestra with nettle pesto; asparagus with fiddlehead ferns, bacon and spring onions; braised snails with bone marrow; and morels with wild garlic and grilled sweetbreads.
Forsaking woods and streams for her backyard, Ms. Zeph practices what she calls "weed patch-to-table cuisine," gathering armloads of nettles on her property in Kent, N.Y., and blending them with garlic shoots, sorrel and lovage - "basically whatever is taking over the garden," she said - to make a pungent soup that is a favorite with her customers. By Mother's Day, she'll have enough black peppermint - a pesky invasive species - to make mint chip ice cream.
Every foodie knows by now that a ramp is not just a way to access the Thruway. The folks at Polpettina, in Eastchester, captured the exultant mood that the wild leeks inspire on their Facebook page in early April, when a single word accompanied a photo of four slender, scallion-like plants: "Ramps!"
"We try to put them in everything possible," said Mike Abruzese, who owns Polpettina with Kyle Inserra. "We do a cured salmon with a fingerling potato and ramp salad, which comes with pickled mustard seed and a little mascarpone. We also put ramps on a pizza with clams, some shucked, some in the shell, and a little ricotta, garlic and lemon breadcrumbs."
At Purdy's Farmer and the Fish, in North Salem, the chef and co-owner, Michael Kaphan, said that his manager and his sous chef had gone trout fishing last week and come back with a couple pounds of the coveted alliums. "They were tramping through the woods and found a nice patch of them," said Mr. Kaphan. He purées the grilled leaves to make a beautiful, bright vinaigrette, and pickles the rosy-hued stalks, then uses both as accessories for pan-fried soft-shell crabs.
Mr. Kaphan, who studied agriculture at SUNY Cobleskill, has built a hoop house - a marvel of steel and plastic sheeting - which gives him a head start on spring crops. In mid-April, he was already harvesting big, sweet spinach leaves and small heads of tender romaine. A simple salad of pretty, six-inch pea tendrils, fresh lemon juice and good olive oil was just what diners were looking for: "Customers, they're like, 'Ah,' " said Mr. Kaphan. "They're so excited spring is here."
One of the cherished harbingers of spring, the migration of American shad up the Hudson River to spawn, is imperiled, and the season is now closed to all commercial and recreational fishing.
But shad from mid-Atlantic rivers still come to market, and Vincent Barcelona, the corporate chef at Harvest on Hudson, in Hastings, and Half Moon, in Dobbs Ferry, treats them with the respect they deserve. "Very traditional," said Mr. Barcelona, who serves the delicate shad and its roe side by side. "Just a little brown butter and a squeeze of lemon."
Of all the foraged foods of spring, morels are a particular favorite of chefs. Mr. Barcelona likes to tell a story about a customer who mentioned he had mushrooms growing in his backyard. "He brought in a few to show me, and it turns out he has a few thousand morels growing on his property," said Mr. Barcelona, laughing. "You come across these things in the Hudson Valley."