Tales from the Outdoors: Fiddleheads

By Bob Chapin

I have put away my ice fishing kit and am looking longingly at my boat in the garage. As I watch the snow recede into the shadowy areas, I am getting eager for the spring gobbler season to begin. The males have been hanging out together in small flocks all winter and you may have seen some under your bird feeders or in your dormant gardens. They will soon disperse to chase the ladies. I did my first scouting trip for them yesterday and placed a number of trail cameras in likely transit corridors.

In fact, it was while scouting turkeys one year that I stumbled upon several clusters of ferns that looked like fiddlehead ferns. I harvested a hatful and brought them home, convinced I had found a treasure trove of wonderful eating. As I cleaned them something just didn’t look right. 

I called an experienced Mainer and he described what I should look for. There are many varieties of ferns and some are not edible. Some are even poisonous. He told me to look at a cross-section of the stem and I should see a pronounced “U shape”, kind of like celery. Try as I might, the shape was not there and staring longer at them did not make it appear.

I threw out the entire batch and went in search of the popular Ostrich fern whose tightly wound heads are encased in a brown papery cover which you can either pick off as you gather them or wait til you get home and wash them off. You have only a couple of weeks to gather them as they grow quickly and get woody. They will keep in the fridge for a week or two and can be frozen for consumption later in the year. What you are looking for are the tight little spirals of the frond before it expands. You find small clusters near water—streams and rivers, marshy bogs and lakes.

They are easy to see because they are a bright green color and contrast very well with the drab brown background this time of year.  Leave at least a couple of stalks in each grouping intact so they propagate again for next year. If you don’t know where to go, ask around.

Real friends may tell you where they found them, but many hold their locations tightly to avoid over harvesting. If this sounds like too much work, you can find them in season in Hannaford’s and Shaw’s as well as Smedberg’s for $6 to $7 a pound and up. When you get them home, soak them in cool water to help remove any brown husks remaining and let any hitchhikers escape.

Cooking

Simply boil them in water for 5 to 7 minutes or steam them in a double boiler with a perforated pan on top for 10-12 minutes then saute in a sauce pan in butter and a small amount of garlic shavings for a delightful vegetable accompaniment. Try not to overcook them.

There are lots of uses and pairings for fiddleheads and you can get good ideas from cookbooks such as Fiddleheads and Fairies by Nanette Sawtelle.

For general information about gathering fiddleheads, as well as other wild consumables, look for A Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer or A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants by Lee Allen Peterson. If you have any reservations about identifying the correct ferns, take an experienced harvester with you…it will be great fun. Good hunting! <