INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

"It's shaped like the head of a violin, but it's the size of your curled
baby finger.  It tastes like a cross between asparagus, spinach and okra,
but in actuality, no other flavor...[quite matches] it. It grows wild in
damp areas - it is especially prosperous in New England forests - and it
turns up at specialty markets and the finest restaurants across the United
States.  A unique American delicacy, it's known as the fiddlehead fern.
"Butch Wells knows a thing or two about fiddleheads.  Wells is the largest
processor of fiddleheads in the state of Maine, probably in the United
States.  Last year, his company, W.S. Wells & Son of Wilton, Maine, handled
24 tons of fiddleheads.  His wares have been shipped as far away as Japan
and are served at prestigious restaurants such as the Four Seasons in New
York.
"The company was started in 1896 by Wells' grandfather, Walter Scott. 'The
neighbors would bring over vegetables from their victory gardens for
Grandfather to can,' recalls Wells.  For many years, creamed corn was the
big seller, but in the '50s the big canneries began to put the little guys
out of business.  Butch, whose real name is Adrian...got into fiddleheads
by accident.  It probably saved the business. Wells had never eaten a
fiddlehead, but his wife Jeanne grew up with them. In 1968, some friends
from Vermont asked Wells to can a batch of fiddleheads they had gathered.
That got him started and he put up three tons the first year; they sold
like proverbial hotcakes. He decided to specialize in vegetables overlooked
by the big canneries: dandelion greens, beet greens and fiddleheads. Today,
he averages 25 to 30 tons...of fiddleheads a year, depending on growing
conditions."
"The fiddlehead is the furled shoot of a freshly sprouted ostrich fern. It
resembles a bishop's crosier, or the head of [a] fiddle, which is how it
acquired its name.  There are dozens of varieties of ferns in the U.S.
'Some taste bitter; other will make you downright sick,' warns Wells. 'The
ostrich is the only fern that is safe for people to eat.'
"...the ostrich fern is easy to recognize.  It is covered with a papery
brown membrane, which Wells likens to onion skin.  (Nonedible varieties may
be covered with white, black, or cinnamon-colored fuzz.) Another feature
distinguishes the ostrich from inedible ferns: the cross-section of the
stem, when cut, resembles a horseshoe.
"The fiddlehead pokes it head above the ground in early May and is good to
eat for about three weeks.  At the start of the season, Wells puts the word
out to about 200 pickers in Maine and Vermont.  'We have young and old,
married and single, the unemployed and people working two jobs,' says
Wells.  Fifteen pounds an hour is the average but a good picker can bring
in 200 pounds a day.  The pickers are notoriously tight-lipped about the
location of prolific fern patches..."
"Fiddlehead picking is hard work: the ferns grow close to the ground, so
the picker spends most of the day hunched over.  It's best snapped off the
stem, not cut, and grows in clusters of eight or 10.  Wells has his pickers
gather them when they are about three inches high with one inch of stem.
'They're harder to pick that way, but the quality is better,' he says.
"The best weather conditions for fiddleheads are a lot of snow in the
winter and a good, long, slow-warming spring.  Wells hopes for two or three
nights of cold weather in spring to slow the unfurling process. The fern
must be eaten or processed before the frond unfurls.
"The ferns are processed in a brand-new facility in Chesterville, Maine.
The ferns are placed in a dry wheel tumbler where a fan blows away the
papery skin.  Next, the ferns are washed three times, then sorted and
blanched.  The canned fiddleheads will be cooked in a retort for 30
minutes.  'This makes the product softer than I would wish for, but it's
required by the FDA,' Wells says."
"Half of the crop is shipped fresh to produce markets across the U.S. (The
Boston-based supermarket Stop 'N Shop alone buys six to eight tons.) The
remainder will be pickled in vinegar and brine with a spice mixture
invented by Jeanne Wells.  'It contains garlic, bay leaf and red pepper,
and...is habit forming,' Jeanne says.
"When buying fiddleheads, consumers are advised by Wells to look for bright
green, fresh-looking ferns with tightly furled fronds.  'The browner the
stem, the longer the fern has been sitting around,' Wells says. The
discolored part isn't harmful to eat, but most people prefer to cut it off.
"The only hard part about preparing fiddlehead ferns is removing the skin.
Jeanne...suggests placing the fiddleheads in a lettuce dryer with a lid and
shaking them for 5 to 10 minutes.  Rinse them in a bowl of cold water
afterward and the chaff will float away.  'Or you can bring them to the
shop and we'll clean them for 20 cents a pound,' Jeanne says."
"Fiddlehead ferns can be prepared any way in which spinach or asparagus
would.  [And if fresh fiddleheads are unavailable, replace them with
asparagus rather than using canned fiddleheads, the author says.] The
Wellses boil them until tender, and then bake them in casseroles and
quiche.  When tasting fiddlehead ferns for the first time, try a simple
preparation, so you appreciate the unique flavor of the fern.
"The Wellses also pickle dandelion buds and string beans.  The demand for
these items and their fiddleheads far exceeds the supply..."
From Steven Raichlen's 05/02/90 "No Time to Fiddle Around: The Season is
Short for the Elusive Ostrich Fern Sprout" article in "The Washington (DC)
Post." Pg. E16.  Posted by Cathy Harned.
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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