The Hunt For The Wild Green

Foraging for fiddleheads — one of the world’s delicious delicacies.

My cottage neighbor just casually mentioned it in our conversation when he stopped to chat. He knows I’m a forager (he’s one too) and he saw me picking dandelion greens. My husband and I bought our boreal forest cottage a few years ago and this place makes my wild forager’s heart sing.

So when my neighbor said,

“Kim — have you picked fiddleheads yet? If you cross the creek there are a ton of them deep in the woods by the old beaver dam.”

I know I stared at him for a moment. My eyebrows shot up.

“OMG! There are fiddleheads here?? I didn’t know we had any wild ostrich ferns close by.”

He smiled and said, “Yes — there are pockets of them.”

Honestly, I could have kissed him.

There’s a few unwritten rules with foragers. We never take too much from any one plant. We respect the environment and leave it as we found it. We don’t waste what we’ve foraged. And we don’t Pick and Tell as my husband jokingly says. Sometimes it takes years for us to find a spot that richly delivers wild food every year. And we don’t want the masses trampling it down and abusing it.

So when a fellow forager gives you a hot tip to a secret location to find one of the world’s most delicious and expensive delicacies? Well — you act on it and you keep your mouth shut.

Fiddleheads are basically baby ferns that haven’t unfurled into feathery adulthood. They look like the head of a fiddle — hence the name. While all ferns grow fiddleheads, the ones that are edible only come from the ostrich fern. They have a crazy-short season of only two weeks.

They are edible and delicious once cooked. Similar to asparagus in texture and taste but also with a hint of nuttiness. My husband who considers brussel sprouts his ultimate vegetable — came over to the fiddlehead side as soon as he tried them.

“I don’t care if I ever eat another brussel sprout in my life. These are unbelievable.”

Fiddleheads are a tricky vegetable as you have to identify them and then clean and cook them properly. You can never eat them raw or under cooked.

Because our little wild green darlings can give you a serious case of food poisoning.

More on that in a minute. Let’s go back to the woods.

The next morning I dress in full forager’s gear: long pants and shirt, jean jacket, knee high rubber boots in my backpack, cell phone, a thick walking stick with a bear bell, and a knife on my belt as well as bear spray.

When you forage alone in the Canadian northern boreal forest in the spring — you prepare for everything from bugs to bears. My werewolf dog comes with me too.

I am so excited, I forget my cheese sandwich at home. My dog isn’t thrilled.

People sometimes look bewildered when they find out I am a forager. What can I say? I love high heels, lipstick, Paris, bubble baths and old rubber boots, walking in the woods, mud, and foraging for wild foods. I’m complicated. If you’ve read this far — you’re probably complicated too.

I ate fiddleheads for the first time when a friend invited me and another friend to eat the fresh fiddleheads his mother had picked and sent on the bus to him — 300 miles away. I knew they had to be seriously good if they were bus worthy.

He boiled them, and in a separate pot boiled the frozen homemade perogies his mom had also sent. He fried the bacon and then added the soft green fiddleheads, and perogies to the same pan and poured cream over the works and let it simmer. It was a holy hodgepodge of deliciousness and I’ve never forgotten that meal. It was one of the best meals of my life. (Yes — I’ve included the recipe at the end of this article.)

And from that moment, I was a fiddlehead convert. Now you know why I’m willing to slide 6 feet down a muddy riverbank, get bitten by bugs, tangle branches in my hair and carry bear spray. Yeah — bears like fiddleheads too.

I have a rough idea of where the fiddleheads would be. I know I have to slide down a muddy river bank first, cross a small creek and then climb back up another muddy riverbank. I manage it but there certainly isn’t much grace involved. I’m so happy you aren’t here to see it.

Along the way I stop and talk to these buttery cow lilies because I’m a little odd like that:

I keep walking along the side of the riverbank and follow it through the woods to the beaver dam.

These tall and elegant ferns are growing by the creek. I don’t pick them as at this stage they are inedible.

I continue walking deeper into the forest. A massive patch of dry, brown tall plants — last year’s ostrich ferns, reveals itself to me. Their rusty brown plumage is everywhere. I’ve hit the fiddlehead Fibonacci Sequence jackpot.

Before you pick any you have to identify some key factors to ensure it is an ostrich fern fiddlehead: 1) There are many of them coming from one root ball 2)They are 4 inches tall or less 3) They have a brown papery covering 4) They have a smooth stalk 5) The stalk is U-shaped like celery* ( Do your research.)

While I crouch and slice the fiddleheads at the base of the plant with the trusty knife my husband gave me — I can’t help but absorb the bird song above me. Millions of birds have come back to the boreal forest for the spring and summer. They are quiet when I first approach but once they get used to my presence, they harmonize around me.

The frogs croak their love songs to each other. I close my eyes and listen to my private wild orchestra.

And then a shimmering black raven flies a slow, low drive by to see if I have any food for him. His intelligent eyes give me a long soulful look. Sorry buddy, I forgot my sandwich.

Three hours later, I emerge from the forest like one of the wild things you’ve seen in a horror movie. My hair is full of twigs and leaves, the knees on my jeans are mud-covered, and unbeknownst to me — my face is covered with the light brown spore dust from the old ferns. But I’m not done yet.

Now here comes the essential part to fiddlehead foraging. You must pick off the paper-thin coating that lightly covers them. And then you give them two solid washes in cold water to wash any debris, dirt or bugs away. Thankfully, fiddleheads rarely have any bugs.

I picked about 10 pounds and they don’t keep well fresh. So they must be blanched in boiling water for 2 minutes, cooled immediately and then packaged into bags and frozen.

And after I had foraged, cleaned, blanched and packaged 10 bags of fiddleheads? Well, I did this:

And then the next day, I went back and did it all over again. But I brought my sandwich which made my werewolf dog and the raven quite happy.

Warning!

Even after they’ve been blanched and frozen, fiddleheads still have to be cooked at a roiling boil before you can eat them. Eating raw or improperly cooked fiddleheads can cause symptoms of foodborne illness. The cause is likely an unidentified natural toxin in fiddleheads. Symptoms usually begin 30 minutes to 12 hours after ingestion and may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and headaches.

I had it happen to me once the first time I cooked them. Let’s just say it was a long, brutal night.

Once you’ve boiled the fiddleheads for 5–7 minutes — you drain the cooking water (it will be a nasty brown color and isn’t edible) and either add butter or olive oil or you use them in a different dish.

They make unbelievable soup (but don’t use the water you boiled them in) and they are delicious in any kind of dish. Saute them in butter with onions or garlic. Or go crazy as my friend did all those years ago and make the recipe he grew up with.

Fiddleheads with Bacon and Perogies

Serves 4 people

1 lb of bacon

1 lb of fully-cooked fiddleheads

1 package of potato and cheese perogies (hopefully locally made or homemade)

2 cups whipping cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon until crispy and drain off fat. Crumble the bacon and put back in frying pan. Keep at low heat.

In a separate pot, boil the fiddleheads for 7 minutes. Drain. Add fiddleheads to frying pan with bacon.

Gently boil the perogies until they float to the top of the water. Drain. Add them to the frying pan.

Then pour the whipping cream over the works and let it gently simmer for about 8 minutes. Don’t put the lid on the pan — you want the cream to reduce a bit.

It’s not fancy but it is mind-blowing.

Author’s note: Under no condition is this article meant to be used as a guide for picking, cooking and eating fiddleheads. Do your research. And remember you always eat wild foods at your own risk. So there.

Thanks for reading! I have loads of food essays (delicious recipes too) and thoughtful and quirky simpler living essays waiting for you. (Well over 100 of them!) And this story caught the attention of NBC News In New York!