They're a wild, onion-related veggie eaten mostly in the South U.S.: http://main.nc.us/yancey/Ramps/ramps_or_wild_leek.htm

I still like some of my girlfriend's parents insults, both to me and her :-)

I thought it was "Cutty Shark" instead of Cutty Sark" scotch whiskey and my girlfriend and her father never let me forget that.

My favorite though is my girlfriend who had never heard of a trousseau or hope chest until she went to a wealthy friend's house to visit. She came home and told her mother she wanted one and her mother replied, "You have about as much hope for a hope chest as you do for your own chest" (my girlfriend was delicately bosomed :-)