Instead I'm turning to nature to feed me my early spring vegetables and one of my favorites just poked it's head out of the ground. In the woodland swamps the ostrich fern fiddlehead is popping up from it's mound-like cluster. Fiddlehead have been a favorite food for many people for generations. There are fancy eateries that charge good money to serve this wild edible to their more affluent customers. Some people make a few extra dollars harvesting this spring delicacy and selling it to restaurants in the cities. And those restaurants pay good prices to trusted sources.
With all of this going on someone new to the game of fiddlehead hunting might believe that all fiddleheads are safe to eat. Not quite so. In fact the list of "safe" fiddleheads that restaurants want to buy is getting shorter and shorter. For the most part it has come down to the bracken fern fiddlehead and the ostrich fern fiddlehead, though many of us ignore modern safety standards and eat the fern fiddleheads we were raised on. And now even these two come with a warning that, despite the fact I don't believe it, I should offer to pass on. That is, don't eat fiddleheads raw. Some people say that eating any fiddleheads raw will make your body not be able to absorb your B vitamins. Diseases like pellagra can come from a vitamin B deficiency. Okay, now that I warned you I just want to say that I have eaten many a fiddlehead raw and my skin has yet to break out in black pustules. Still, you have been warned.
Ostrich fern are probably my favorite fiddlehead to eat, mainly because they are so plentiful here, but also I like their flavor. For me it's not quite as "woodsy" or gamey as other fiddleheads. They are also very easy to ID (but then, so are bracken ferns fiddleheads). All one needs to look for is the fertile "plume" of the last year's fern cluster and you know you have ostrich ferns. This plume is how the fern got its name, old timers thought it looked like an ostrich feather, though where the old timers saw an ostrich may be up for debate.
Ostrich ferns tend to grow in mounds. The ferns, as well as the fiddlehead have water troughs, or grooves that run down the inside of the stem that directs rain water to the center of the mound. Before the green fiddleheads emerge the mound seems to grow higher from the leaf litter until the first tender green shoots appear. This is the time of harvest, because once those fiddlehead begin to unfurl, they should not be eaten. You want to harvest them when they are small (less that 5 inches tall) and when the tops are still curled up.
Harvesting and preparing OF fiddleheads is pretty easy. With a sharp knife cut the fiddlehead as close to the ground as you can while still staying in the green part. Because ostrich ferns tend to grow in colonies it is best to only harvest one fiddle head per mound. This assures you that you will have years and years of yumminess to harvest in the early spring. Then take your treasures home to be cleaned and cooked. Rub off any papery hairs that may be on your fiddlehead. Some OF fiddlehead may be lots of these hairs, others may not have any. Then wash them in cool water to get any swamp dirt off of them.
From there you can do so many things with them. If you had a good year and you harvest more than you can eat, they can be lightly steamed and frozen for eating all year long. Many people like them steamed and then covered with their favorite butter or cheese sauce. Sauteing them in a stir fry is a great way to use them and will blend their flavor with all the other goodies in your wok or frying pan. Fiddlehead pie is another backwoods favorite. My mother use to bake this main dish in a wood burning kitchen stove and even modern day convenient stoves can not take away that old timey taste you get with this pie. The recipe I most often use is:
2 cups of cleaned fiddlehead
1/2 cup diced onions
1 cup of favorite mild cheese
3 eggs
1 cup cream
*1/2 cup flour
*1/2 cup milk
*1/4 teaspoon baking powder
*1/4 cup butter or shortening
1/4 teaspoon salt
grind of black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
*all of so marked ingredients can be replaced with 3/4 cup of Bisquick. Yes, I have been known to cheat this way too, so you don't have to be a purist.
Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a standard pie plate. Heat a pot of lightly salted water to boil. Once boiling add fiddleheads and cook for 10 minutes. Drain, then plunge into cold water to stop cooking. Dry.
Sprinkle onions into bottom of pie plate. Arrange fiddlehead over the onions to your liking. Sprinkle evenly with cheese.
Cut together flour, milk, baking powder, and butter to make a crumbly, mixture. Put this into a large bowl with all the remaining ingredients and whisk this until smooth. Pour this mixture over the fiddleheads and onions. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 35 minutes. An inserted knife in the center should have no liquid egg on it. Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes and serve. Best served warm.
Mmm, just writing this down makes me want it. I think I know what we're having for supper tonight.
The simplest and wildest way of cooking fiddlehead though is to find some wild ramps as well. Those two spring wild edibles were meant for eat other. I scrub them both up really well and trim off the root end of the wild ramps. Then I drop a good chunk of my fresh, sweet, homemade butter into a frying pan over low-medium heat. When it gets melted I toss a handful of fiddleheads and about 1/2 as many ramps into the pan and cook them slowly. Ramps aren't like other members of the alum family, if they get a bit brown they actually taste better. I cook them until everything goes slightly limp, scrape them onto a plate and eat a delicious dish that came from the wildlands that surround me.
It is also wonderful if this whole mixture is stuffed into the cavity of whatever fish you caught in the stream that day, then wrap it in foil and put on coals near the fire for about 15 minutes one side and 10 minutes the other. As wild foods go, this is one of the best. Sitting by the creek as night falls, listening to the frogs singing their spring chorus, waiting for the moon to rise and listening to the geese flying overhead, smelling your dinner cooking. Add to that fact that your connection to nature and not your slavery to the grocery store is what will feed you and it makes the feast all the better.
Freedom has a wonderful flavor!
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