When the cool breezes turn warm and the spring sunshine cheers our spirits, that is the right time for fiddlehead season. Depending on the weather, the fiddlehead fronds begin to appear around late April or early May. They can often be found growing on moist fertile ground along river and stream banks, in open woodlands or at the edges of swamps and marshes. Attempts at cultivating fiddleheads have failed, so they are picked from the wild. Fiddleheads have become more popular in recent years, showing up in produce departments of larger grocery stores across the country, and can sometimes be found frozen. Wild Canadian fiddleheads are also exported to Europe as a specialty item.
What exactly are fiddleheads anyway? Fiddleheads are one of Mother Nature’s first and finest treats of the spring season. Fiddleheads are the uncurled deep green fronds of the ostrich fern, so called because the fern resembles the finely crafted head of a fiddle. They grow throughout North America and are plentiful in Ontario woodlands. The native people introduced fiddleheads to the settlers and since then they have been a popular delicacy especially in the Maritimes. The fiddleheads are at their best for eating while young, firm and tightly curled. They tend to lose their table appeal as the fern stalk reaches about 6-8 inches and the frond begins to uncurl. Fiddleheads are delicate in flavour and tastes like a cross between asparagus, green beans and okra.
Fiddleheads are rich in iron, potassium, niacin, riboflavin, magnesium, phosphorous and vitamins A and C. Fiddleheads were highly prized by the native people as a medicinal plant and were said to act as a natural cleansing agent, ridding the body of accumulated impurities and toxins. It was also said that fiddleheads were regarded as an old-time treatment for high pressure and used to ward off scurvy.
There are many varieties of fiddleheads including: Bracken (found worldwide), Ostrich Fern (the one found in Canada and northern regions worldwide), Cinnamon Fern or Buckhorn Fern (found in the Eastern parts of North America), Royal Fern (found worldwide), Zenmai or Flowering Fern (found in East Asia), or Vegetable Fern (found throughout Asia and Oceania). Of course, here in North America the one we eat most is the Ostrich Fern variety. Although other ferns produce fiddlehead-like shoots, some can be toxic and inedible so it is important to identify the correct variety if you are picking fiddleheads in the wild. Also, Health Canada advises that fresh fiddleheads must be properly cooked before being eaten. In 1994 several instances of food poisoning were associated with raw or lightly cooked fiddleheads. No definite source of the food poison was identified, but authorities recommended the thorough cooking of fiddleheads to counteract any possible unidentified toxins in the plant.
If you do choose to go fiddlehead hunting, here are a few tips to aid your search. Fiddleheads grow in clumps and should be picked in a “thinning-out” fashion. By taking only a few fronds from each clump, this allows the plant to grow for the following season. Maintaining sustainable harvesting methods is important especially in this particular food species that is not farmed. You can use a small knife to cut the heads at the base, but it is also quite possible to break off the heads easily by hand. A good tip is the always try to harvest the fiddleheads away from roadsides or other areas where they may have been contaminated by pollution.
No comments:
Post a Comment