My spring is almost complete. I checked trout off my list of things to eat in spring a couple weeks ago, now I can put a big check mark beside baby ferns. I have eaten fiddleheads this year.
Fiddleheads are one of those things like mushrooms. You really wonder who figured out they are edible. And maybe even how they figured it out. I have a picture in my mind that it was kind of like the poison scene in Princess Bride, only a few more choices. You know, here we have ten different types of baby ferns. Surely at least on is edible. Give it a try and lets see. Whoever was left alive or at least not terribly ill had the right fern.
But that’s the thing. There are a lot of different types of fern. The ostrich fern is the one we eat.
Not too long ago, you could find fiddleheads any time of year. They were available frozen. They probably still are, although I haven’t seen them in a long time. Looking online, you can find frozen fiddleheads from the west coast. And you could probably freeze them yourself, if you wanted to. But for me, they are more of a spring thing. Although I do like my fiddleheads.
I have eaten many fiddleheads in my life. I really do like them, but I have been disappointed in one way. As many as I have eaten, not once have I become invisible. Really. That was supposed to be a thing. Shakespeare even said so. In his play Henry IV, there is a thief who claims that fern-seed, or fiddleheads, made him invisible. Never worked for me. There are also those who believe that eating fiddleheads can result in a higher than average birth rate. At my stage of life, I’d rather the invisibility thing, thank you.
But fiddleheads are one of those things that each year I have to have at least once. Many more times if I can get my hands on them. It’s one of those things that just tell me that spring is truly here.
Now, if I can just work it so I can have trout and fiddleheads at the same time, that would be just about perfect.
