Ramps were hard to explain to those from outside West Virginia. They were a wild, onion-like root found on hillsides, and pretty much every poor family in the state had subsisted on them at one time or another. They were not particularly palatable at first, but one got a taste for them, especially when there wasn’t much else. The problem with ramps, however, was that they began to make everything else smell like them, too. Those who ate ramps smelled like ramps. Clothing and bedsheets stored near ramps smelled like ramps. Hair, skin, breath, everything ramps. Garlic thought it was powerful
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