Fiddl'lin

I was invited to go Fiddlehead picking last weekend.
High boots and cold weather clothes were suggested.
We drove to a secluded field and started a long hike near the creekbeds and streams.
The fields were green with rye grass and other grasses for summer hay. The sun was out but the wind blew cold. 

A loyal Border Collie, Queen, galloped around the fields and swam through the streams while we searched for the ever elusive Fiddleheads.

I started to feel a bit like Euell Gibbons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euell_Gibbons

There were miles creekbed to search. Most of the places we went to the fiddleheads were not ready yet.

We found lots of Fiddlehead clumps, but nothing coming up within the clump.

We kept walking as we headed North.  It was getting colder.

Then we hit the Mother Lode.   Little green heads were emerging from fiddlehead clumps.

We started picking 1/3 of the heads in each clump.  You never pick all the fiddleheads that are emerging from clumps. You must leave the majority of them so you will always have a crop to return to in future years.

They smell like spring. And they are easy to pick. We found thousands of clumps hidden on the embankment of a stream.

 These are a bit too long to pick if they are longer than your finger.

These have gone by and will escape the pickers bag for now.

 The coolness of the past week has kept the majority of the fiddleheads from opening all the way up.
Lucky us.
It was a good day for picking if you came dressed properly for it!

The fields were green but there was still fresh snow on the mountains and it was 28 degrees in the field.

By the time I got home I had a good 15 pounds of Fiddleheads.

A good reward for an hour of picking!

Now they had to be soaked in cold water to get the brown leaves off.

And then steamed, like asparagus, before you can really eat them.

NEVER eat Fiddleheads raw. Never.  

After you steam them you can marinate them in Italian dressing.  Very delicious. They are even better on the 2nd day.

I had some with scrambled eggs for breckfast. A little sprinkle of salt and butter pump up the flavor of the Fiddleheads.

There are lots of great ways to eat fiddleheads.  Here is a good resource for more information:
 http://umaine.edu/publications/4198e/

If you don't have a good place to go Fiddleheading, then consider picking Dandilions.
They are plentiful and delicious!!!
I like them steamed with a bit of butter on them, but I recently had them steamed and then I tried some vinagar on them, and that was wonderful too.

 Great in salads, or as a steamed spinach and some folks make a smooth dandilion wine out of them too!
Photos, recipes and good info:
http://www.squidoo.com/taraxacum-officinale
http://www.organicvalley.coop/recipes/features/wild-edibles/dandelions-the-edible-weed/

If you really feel brave and adventurous you can also go pick Stinging Nettles and cook them up as your "Spring Tonic" against allergies.
http://honest-food.net/2010/01/28/grasping-the-nettle/
http://www.organicgardening.com/cook/6-best-vegetables-you-re-not-eating?cm_mmc=facebook-_-OrganicGardening-_-Content-LearnGrow-_-6veggies
I love foraging for good eats.

Next adventure will be hunting for wild ramps next weekend and more fiddlehead picking!

Tell me about your adventures eating weeds.  Got any good recipes or good links to read more info?
~

Edible Adventures

Last night was the annual Seed and Plant Swap held at the local village library.

The ever patient librarian, Peggy, had invited me to this special event last week.    That kind woman is always trying to socialize me.

I unpacked all my 40 packages of various seeds from 3 years of "over ordering" and swapping with other obsessed gardeners, plus I bought some flats of tomatoes, yellow peppers and brussell sprouts at the local grain dealer to round out my possibilities for a good swap.

I was the first to arrive and laid out my goods on the big library table.
Each person who came had a box or two of carefully packaged flowers, shrub branches and envelopes of seeds to swap.

One smart man brought nothing except homemade brownies, a huge bowl of cut up watermelon and orange juice for us all to indulge in while we explained our numerous seeds and plants.   He went home rewarded with heritage seeds and blue poppies.

As the hour of swapping grew near, there were 8 of us.

But...there was also a woman in a different room, using the computers who, unbeknown to us was listening attentively to our conversations about plants and seeds and soon bounced over to our group, grabbed envelopes to put seeds in and later went home with much seed and a big smile.

While waiting for a few others to show up I took some photos of this
happy, diverse group.

As the swap began each person explained what they brought, what that particular plant or seed needed (sun,shade, acid or clay soil, etc)

I brought 2 pods of Dr Rowe's rare heritage shell beans to share with everyone. Each person took a few bean seeds and promised to save some seeds from their harvest.       You can not buy these seeds anywhere on the face of the earth.  They are the last of a 97 year old country doctors family collection of seeds that spans 3 centuries.

By the end of the night, 70% of my seeds had new homes and I had a nice box full of various plants, including a rare Moonbeam flower (only flowers at night) and some delicata squash seeds.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, one of the women offered to take some of us out in the woods the next day to look for "ramps" and find other spring time edible plants.      
I wasn't going to miss out on an opportunity to play in the woods and see new sights so I said I'd go.

The next morning after I checked on the herd, I got picked up by my wonderful librarian and we were off on a woodsland aventure!

First stop was a swampy area where we found marsh marigolds, which are also

known as cowslips.      Edible!

And bears, coming out of hybernation, look for these first in the spring as they are full of nutrients!

Trout Lilly

Stink'n Benjamin

I forget what this is........ a spring beauty ?      (It's a red trillium)

Dutchmans Underware..or somethink like that.......

Finding wild ginger was really interesting.

Peggy and our tour guide, Linda, point to it.

Wild Ginger has a very ugly little red flower at the bottom of it.

Very edible.

Finally we found what we had been searching for:  RAMPS

A delicacy.  And only available for a short time until the trees leaf out.

Ramps are also called wild leeks and taste like an onion.

They carpet the floor of the woods on most steep slopes.

We picked a few small bags of the leaves as we walked along the woods scanning the area for these tasty treats.  We only picked 2 or 3 leaves per bunch so as not to denude them.

I can't wait to make a whole wheat and Miracle Whip sandwich with these nice flat yummy leaves. ( I did and it was DELICIOUS!  I also put some leaves on my grass fed beef and emu burgers! FABULOUS! )

This is actually squirrel corn.  It only looks like the Dutchmans breeches, but it is different.

When you pull up its roots it has these nutty corn looking things on it.

Edible.

I don't remember what this one is......

Its edible.

We climbed the steep hills where there was a nice sugar bush (where maple syrup sugar sap comes from. Its like being amongst the Royals..)

So many different trees, so many different colors and ohhhh so many different smells!

The smell of the spring earth is one of my favorite aromas.

As the morning wore on, we found a nice carpet of fiddleheads near a clean running mountain stream.   The sound of this water rushing by, while the birds in the woods were chirping, was just wonderful.

There were still some immature ferns that had fiddleheads asking to be picked.

Plenty still left for lunch!

We learned about the different kind of stems and what to look for.

I am going to go look for some Euell Gibbons books.

 He is the author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus.

He was a woodsland "gatherer" and the first person to really live it and write about it.

On our way back home we passed some very scenic hillside farms with trees in bloom.

Consider having a seed and plant swap in your own library or at your house.

Invite some friends.

You just never know what it will lead you to or what great information you will garner.

Enjoy.