Fiddlehead Feasts

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Late in April, ostrich ferns pop out of the ground in the woods behind our house.  They start off tightly curled and slowly unfurl into magnificent fronds.  While they are still curled up they are a gourmet delicacy, among spring’s earliest wild foods.  Our grocery store sells them in season for an outrageous price so we had never tried any, but this year I sent the children off to pick some where we had noticed adult ferns in previous years.  I used my field guide, Edible Wild Plants, to double check their identity, although the distinctive green spiral is hard to mistake for anything else.

Then we tentatively broke off a bit of the stalk and nibbled it.  The fresh summery flavour, similar to freshly picked green beans, was so delightful that we decided to eat them raw at supper time.  Unfortunately, the spiral itself was not as appealing as the stem, mostly due to its texture.

The next time we tried the fiddleheads in a basil and vegetable stir fry that my husband loved.  The children also appreciated them lot more this way.

A few days later, I gave in to begging and pleading.  Yes, they could go off to pick fiddleheads one more time, but we would only eat the ones that were still tightly curled up.  That time I microwaved them, drizzled them with butter, and tossed them with parmesan cheese.  Yum!

Next year we will start picking sooner and we definitely plan to repeat both the stir fry and the buttered parmesan fiddleheads.  We might also look up some other recipes.  Now that we know we love fiddleheads, we will have to be careful not to over-harvest them or there will be fewer left for subsequent years.

This post is entered in Canada Girl’s Tightwad Tuesday event.  If you have any interest in frugality, do check out some of the many creative ways of enjoying more for less.

Now I’m off to take my oldest for her first official on-road driving lesson!

Even though I don’t normally post on Wednesday,  please check back tomorrow, when I will tell you about a wonderful, one-day-only freebie most home school families would love to have.