Ramp Feast Canceled

Organizer says access to park is main issue

Morgantown Dominion Post
22 April 2014
By Ben Conley

For the first time in nearly a quarter century, Mason-Dixon Historical Park will not hold its annual Ramp Feast.

The yearly celebration was scheduled to take place from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“The former volunteers at the Red Barn at Mason-Dixon Historical Park regret that for the first time in 24 years, there will be no Ramp Feast/Buffet at the park due to new Monongalia County management policies ... it has been cancelled,” Betty Wiley said in a press release.

Monongalia County Director of Programs and Services Anthony Giambrone did not wish to comment other than to say every effort was made to have the event.

Wiley said the issue pertains to having access to the park in order to be able to prepare for the event.

“This isn’t something you put together in a couple of hours. It takes a week,” Wiley said.

Wiley is a former Mason-Dixon park board member and county advisory board member, but chose to resign her position.

Last summer, the county began a reorganization of the county park system, first making the Mason-Dixon, Chestnut Ridge and Camp Muffly managerial boards into advisory boards, then scrapping the advisory boards in favor of one advisory board over the three-park system.

In years past, volunteers would have access to the park after hours in order to prepare for the feast, Wiley said.

“The county’s new management strategy for public parks now makes it impossible to have unsupervised, 24-hour access to park facilities in order to do the labor-intensive preparations for the popular, annual ramp feast,” Wiley’s release stated.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the Mason-Dixon park is in between superintendents.

Also known as ramson, buckram, wild garlic or Allium tricoccum, the annual ramp feast saw the plant prepared in a wide variety of edible options from ramp burgers to ramp wine.