Not to be sniffed at

Whatever its name–ramsons, gypsy’s onions, bear leek, snake’s food, stinking Jenny–wild garlic makes for a perfect (and pungent) vivid green pesto, eulogises Tom Parker Bowles

- Tom Parker Bowles

WILD garlic. Allium ursinum. Ramsons. Gypsy’s onions, bear leek, snake’s food and stinking Jenny. Call it what you will, this is the first glorious whiff of spring, a heady, pungent and intoxicating odour that gets the sap rising and the taste buds priapic with lust. Forget honeysuckle, roses and jasmine. Nope, this is a scent to truly stir the senses, primal, ancient and powerful, the essence of damp dells and shady bowers, of ancient woods and hidden streams. It’s a smell that doesn’t so much whisper as roar.

Yet the flavour of the leaf belies the power of its pong, more coy maiden than throaty harlot. Sure, eaten young and raw, wild garlic doesn’t lack power. But that power is soft, warm and relatively subtle. Especially when compared with its domesticated cousin. Once cooked, things become rather more gentle, the taste a mere shadow of its former self, albeit a sweet, delicate and lovely one. If it’s a true allium kick you’re after, however, try those tight buds, just before they explode into lacy white flower, some time towards the end of April. They kick like a bee-stung mule.