Like most moms, mine had the eye of a hawk. You couldn't sneak anything past her. So, it was no surprise that as we blazed down an Oklahoma highway at 70-plus mph, she'd slam on the brakes, put on the hazards and roll to the shoulder.

She'd spotted a patch of wild onions.

That meant unloading shovels and spades from the car trunk and filling empty Folgers coffee cans with wild onions that would be the primary ingredient for a meal that is part of my American Indian culture.

To my mom, it was best to identify your wild onion source before anyone else. You didn't want to give away the location of your favorite stash.

A member of the Muscogee Creek tribe of Oklahoma picks wild onions. Wild onion dinners are a benefit for American Indian tribes in Oklahoma and the Dallas United Indian Methodist Church has scheduled its own on March 25. (Chelsie Rich / Special contributor)

A spring celebration

That was decades ago. Today, picking wild onions and preparing them for special dinners continues to be a tradition among southeastern U.S. tribes.

Wild onions, which are a part of the allium plant family, start sprouting in February and early March and grow abundantly in Texas and Oklahoma.

For tribes in eastern and central Oklahoma (I'm of Muscogee Creek-Menominee-Potawatomi descent) and many non-Indians, wild onion dinners celebrate the beginning of spring at social and religious gatherings.

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In North Texas, a wild onion dinner is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at Dallas Indian United Methodist Church in Oak Cliff. Proceeds will be used for church activities.

Growing up, I didn't appreciate the dish like I should have. Maybe it was because of the work you had to put into digging up wild onions.

My parents would tell me that wild onions were of cultural significance to the tribes that were forced from their homelands in the southeastern U.S. to Indian Territory during the Trail of Tears in the late 1830s. They told me that people who were on the miserable march to Oklahoma picked wild onions along the way for sustenance.

As a kid, I didn't listen. But I can see why my friends and relatives embraced wild onion time.

1 / 2Pauline LongFox cracks eggs to combine with a wild onion dish in the kitchen at Dallas Indian Mission United Methodist Church in Dallas. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 2Pauline LongFox pours whisked eggs into a skillet of wild onions in the kitchen at Dallas Indian Mission United Methodist Church. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer)

Simple preparation

Preparing a wild onion dinner seems fairly simple. Rinse the plants, remove the tips and outer skins, chop them into 1-inch pieces, and boil them for about an hour. Pour cooking oil into a pan, then sauté the onions with scrambled eggs.

The key is making sure the scrambled eggs don't become lumpy. Add salt and pepper for seasoning, and serve the dish hot.

Pauline LongFox, 70, of Pleasant Grove, is a full-blood Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian. She's been preparing wild onion dinners for the past 10 years at Dallas Indian United Methodist Church.

She understands that getting the proper wild onions is a matter of timing. Depending on weather, they must be picked by the end of March, she says.

"Warm weather makes them grow big, fast," she says. "When they stop blooming on the tip, that's not going to be any good because that makes them bitter."

LongFox travels to Oklahoma for wild onions, but she doesn't pick them herself. Pickers start the harvest as soon as they're first spotted, then seal them in containers for personal use or for sale.

Will Texas-grown wild onions do instead?

"They grow here, but it's a different kind," she says. "I just usually get them from Oklahoma."

Daniel Cunningham, horticulturist at Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, says about 13-14 different species of wild onions grow in North Texas. Wild onions also have a toxic look-alike known as "crows poison," so it's important to know the difference. Foraging Texas is a good resource for learning about wild, edible plants.

1 / 2Wild onions are prepared in a skillet in the kitchen at Dallas Indian Mission United Methodist Church. The onions are boiled for about an hour and then sauteed with egg. (Rose Baca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 2Wild onions at Dallas Indian Mission United Methodist Church in Dallas on Monday, March 20, 2017. (Rose Baca/The Dallas Morning News)(Staff Photographer)

A ceremonial way of life

Wild onions, poke sallet (made with this poisonous pokeweed) and lamb's quarters are edible plants that American Indians counted on historically, said Dr. Devon Abbott Mihesuah, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma who runs the American Indian Health and Diet Project at the University of Kansas.

"After a long and cold winter, the people were ready to find fresh foods," she says. "So, a main reason for their importance is that they have been picking them for a long time -- even prior to removal in the 1830s."

Sterlin Harjo, a Creek-Seminole filmmaker who has produced documentaries on American Indian culture, says several tribes claim they brought the tradition of wild onion harvesting with them during the Trail of Tears. To him, it's about celebrating the harvest and the "ceremonial way of life."

"It's the one thing that we really have that connects us to our traditional way of harvesting food and growing food and making events and ceremonies based on food around the harvest," he says.

Wild onion dinners have plenty of accompanying sides. Besides poke sallet, dishes can include red beans, fried pork, stewed beef, fry bread, sweet and sour hominy, coleslaw, cobbler and corn bread. Some of those sides will be available at the church dinner.

That diversity of sides is a good thing because LongFox says not all American Indians like wild onions. She has noticed that Kiowas, Comanches and members of other tribes tend to pass on the dish. "They'll help us cook it, but I noticed some won't eat it, and some don't like it," she says, laughing.

If you go

Wild Onion Dinner: 10 a.m. 2 p.m. March 25. Dallas Indian United Methodist Church, 1203 Hollywood Ave., Dallas. Adult plate $8, child plate $5. Proceeds benefit the church Contact: facebook.com/DallasIndianUnitedMethodistChurch