Tuning the Fiddle

I've never once succeeded in preparing fiddleheads to my liking. I lived in New Hampshire and Vermont for roughly six years, and each spring I marked the advent of fiddleheads with tremendous curiosity. And each spring I would buy a few handfuls, and then fail to cook them properly.

Yet this only augmented their mysterious appeal. Were these peculiar little snail-shaped vegetables overly subtle, or not subtle enough? What was it that made them resist my advances?

In theory, they taste like a cross between artichokes and asparagus. Their most pronounced quality is their quickly-oxidizing astringency. It is this cynarin-like bitterness that lingers on the palette, and which causes the cut ends to discolor so quickly. The ferns also bear a leafy, wild-plant flavor reminiscent of asparagus. And indeed, treating them like asparagus is the traditional rule of thumb. In theory, they're nothing short of delicious: sauté them in pancetta, with a bit of lemon juice and chicken stock, and you've got a marvel. Or steam them and toss them, chilled, in a vinaigrette.

In theory, it's a delicious pact with nature. But for me, there has been nothing but disappointment, year after year. Somehow the thrill of bringing home a pint or two of fiddleheads always sputters out as soon as they arrive on my dinner plate. I have overcooked them and undercooked them. The worst version involved onions: a chemical disaster. But I refuse to give up hope.

It was only fairly recently, after all, that I found a way to prepare asparagus to my liking, thanks to H.: drizzle them with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then roast the hell out of them.

So perhaps it's time to end the cycle of futility for fiddleheads as well.

Indeed, I've continued the pattern now for over fifteen years, only with ever-declining specimens. I now buy fiddleheads at the supermarket, where they've been shipped in from more northern states, either in plastic bubbles or in overpriced "wild produce" stock bins. I only pick them up, of course, if they're near the top of the bell-curve of decay; but they're a far cry from a hearty basketfull of fern tips foraged from the local woods. Not that I've ever done this; I consider foraging a metaphor.

Tonight, back from the supermarket with yet another produce baggie stuffed with fiddleheads, I may have taken a step in the right direction. Indeed, not only was H. willing to try them again, having found them creepy and undelicious in years past, but she actually enjoyed them this time. Nothing fancy, of course: a quick sautée in butter, and then a 5-6 minute braise in chicken broth, with a half-lemon's worth of juice to complement their astringency. Online recipes suggest blanching them first, which would dispel much of their bitterness, as well as to neutralize any number of alleged toxins. But the astringency is the very thing I want to retain, and this quick preparation husbanded it well.

Not there yet, of course. But a step forward. Tonight's experiment yielded merely a small plate of sautéed ferns: a side-dish without a meal. Time for something a bit less modest, I think. Next step: fiddlehead pie.

Here is an anecdotal recipe cited from American Food: The Gastronomic Story, by Evan Jones:

A fiddlehead pie, as served in Maine, is much like a quiche. To prepare one, beat a cup of milk, a cup of cream, two egg yolks, a teaspoon of salt, a half-teaspoon of sugar, and four teaspoons of minced green onion. Chop enough fiddlehead greens to make about one and a quarter cups, add them to seething butter, and cook for about three minutes; then combine with the milk-cream mixture. After it has set for about a half-hour, pour the fiddlehead custard into a partly baked pie shell, baking at 350°F. about thirty minutes.

I imagine that this minimal recipe could be aided greatly by "setting" the custard over a stove, since custard tends not to firm up by itself merely on principle. The green onion seems like a clever addition, though, lending the custard a savory and spring-like air. And I'm especially keen on the idea of chopping up the fiddleheads, which would give their unusual texture a bit more flexibility. Perhaps a bit of cooked bacon might also be amusing. Or would I be veering once again toward the path of disappointment?

More foolproof still, here is a recipe for fiddlehead pickles from the Alaska State Public Assistance web site. No joke! Can't get much more official than that.

The other option would be to roast the fiddleheads like asparagus: drizzle them with olive oil and salt, place them in a 400° oven, and overcook them profoundly.

Serve with trout.
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Coda: Sunday, May 18

We just polished off a fiddlehead pie made more or less according to the recipe above. Only I added sautéed pancetta along with the fiddleheads, and made the custard with a combination of half and half and whole milk, rather than with cream. To compensate I added two extra whole eggs.

A success, I think. Indeed, I recommend trying this out, if and when you have access to fiddleheads. A fiddlehead pie is, as David Letterman says, something.