What’s in season: Tightly wound, foraged Fiddleheads

Anne "Nancy" Kronenberg with some some foraged fiddlehead ferns. Amy Sowder photos

By AMY SOWDER

On a sunny, 72-degree April morning, Anne “Nancy” Kronenberg stepped out the front door of her Bedford Corners home in her salmon-colored baseball cap, popped periwinkle collar, waterproof shoes, gardening gloves and shears. 

As Kronenberg strode into her back yard, she toted her hod, or trug, a type of small handheld harvesting basket made of wood and wire to carry her plucked plants and tools.

It was time to forage for dinner. On the menu? Fiddleheads.

“Fiddleheads taste like spinach,” Kronenberg said as she veered toward a woodland corner of her 5 1/2-acre property where a couple yards of ferns fluttered in the slight breeze. “Everything is early this year.”

In the world of foraging for food in northern Westchester, fiddlehead ferns, which look like the curlicue tip of a violin, are a harbinger of spring, along with ramps and dandelion greens. Trickier to find, morels — mushrooms with a pockmarked texture resembling coral reefs — often come later in May, but only after a good rain.

A longtime gardener, Kronenberg is a member and past president of the Bedford Garden Club. The club isn’t just about foraging or native plants. Pretty flowers, shrubs and trees play a big role too. Kronenberg isn’t sure why she likes to forage, but she did get a taste of it as a child, for good or for bad.

“We were always made to pick dandelion leaves as kids, for salads. I hated them then,” she said with a chuckle, squatting down to inspect the curled baby fern. 

When fiddlehead ferns are mature and tall with straight, unfurled leaves, they’re called ostrich ferns. They can grow 3 feet high or more. “They look like they’re growing from a pineapple,” Kronenberg said, peeling back the base to reveal a jagged mound.

“They’re thugs, and they’re fast-growing,” Kronenberg said, because ostrich ferns can take over an area like an invasive species can, but they’re native to the U.S. and not harmful to our local wildlife and plants. They can be a good cover crop to provide lush, dense ground cover in shady, moist woodland areas, prevent soil erosion and battle unwanted invasive plants. 

While they’re still young and curled, the fiddleheads of ostrich ferns are also considered “edimental” plants, because they’re edible and ornamental, wrote Alan Bergo, a James Beard award-winning chef, on foragerchef.com. Even better, they’re perennial, so they return every spring with no effort on our part.

Identifying edible fiddleheads

But first-time or even somewhat experienced foragers can get confused when trying to identify the correct fern for their culinary needs.

— Fiddlehead is the term used to describe any young, curled frond of a fern plant, so not all fiddleheads are edible. For culinary purposes, you want the ostrich fern with the scientific name, Matteuccia struthiopteris.

— The edible ostrich fern has a U-shaped stem, Bergo notes. Other ferns that can make you sick have a solid, cylindrical stem.

— Make sure you’re only choosing fiddleheads that are tightly coiled, Kronenberg said. “You want the babies. You have to get them in the early spring,” she said.

— An ostrich fern has a single brown frond resembling a bird feather that releases spores in spring. The papery covering should also be brown, and you should peel it off before eating it.

— Don’t take every fiddlehead growing on a fern crown. Think of it as “thinning” the plant, rather than “clear-cutting” it, Bergo writes.

— True for all wild edibles, don’t forage on land that isn’t yours or that you haven’t been given permission to forage on.

— To prepare the fiddleheads in the kitchen, don’t eat them raw. They always need to be cooked for food-safety reasons.

Cooking fiddleheads

Kronenberg likes her fiddleheads boiled, with butter, salt and pepper. Some people compare the flavor to asparagus, and they add a little garlic.“You need a lot of them, because they cook down, like spinach,” she said. “It has a nice taste.”

To prevent a mushy texture, Bergo suggests blanching fiddleheads by boiling them for 1 to 2 minutes and then letting them cool without an ice bath to preserve the green color.

As long as you don’t overcook them until they’re really mushy, fiddleheads are delicious in salads, soups and stews. They can also be dried or pickled if you use a crunchy pickling method.

Other people steam fiddleheads until al dente so they’re cooked but still a bit firm, and then sauté them in butter for only a minute or two. Fiddleheads grow wild in other countries too and are used in some Japanese soups, in Korean bibimbap, as well as Indonesian, Thai and Indian dishes.

Like many plant-based foods, they’re nutritious. Fiddleheads are a good source of vitamins A, C, and some K, plus omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Fiddleheads are also high in iron and fiber.