What’s for Dinner? Fiddleheads

When we moved to the country, hubby, who had climbed mountains and spent considerable time in the out of doors, was excited to find fiddleheads near our property.  As part of his out of doors training he’d learned about edible mushrooms and licorice root and which berries you can eat.  And fiddleheads–the curled, new growth of ferns.

Hubby excitedly harvested the fiddleheads, telling us they tasted like asparagus.  He boiled some up and offered us this new taste sensation.This was some years ago and I’ve forgotten what they tasted like. But I know it wasn’t asparagus.  Or anything else I would want to eat again.  We concluded that fiddleheads might be edible. But that didn’t mean they tasted good  And thus was born another page in our family lore.

Imagine my surprise when I read this paragraph in Peg Bracken’s Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book:

“There is a difference between the sexes where canapes are concerned.  C. S. Lewis once remarked that the middle-aged male has great powers of passive resistance.  But I’ve noticed that males of all ages are talented at not reaching for the marinated fiddleheads* and other nonappetizers.

“*Known also as cinnamon fern. You find them growing along shady streams or canned in big groceries.”  Page 71

Seriously?  Someone made marinated fiddleheads?  (You will notice that males of all ages do not eat them.) You can buy them canned in grocery stores?

Google here I come. And what did I find?

Pickled Maine Fiddleheads (1 pt.) Edible gourmet delicacy Wild hand picked fresh.  $8

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/106735/sauteed-fiddleheads/

Who’d have thunk it?  People actually eat fiddleheads. They can and sell them.  They post recipes for them.

Let’s just keep this between you and me.  Hubby doesn’t need to know.

I Hate to Cook, too, Peg Bracken

Sometimes I wonder if I was deposited in the wrong century.  Or if those children, to whom I gave birth and raised, really aren’t mine. There are some things about which we have nothing in common.

Take food.  I love to eat.  And that is what food is for.  It’s something to eat. I do not want to spend hours getting it ready.  I do not want to use ingredients I do not recognize and cannot pronounce. I have no interest in slicing and dicing in fancy shapes with special tools. Should I have a moment of weakness and decide to try something new I will not travel to parts unknown to find some obscure item. I want to make something good in a reasonable amount of time and eat it. Then get on with meaningful things.

But food is taking on a life of its own.  TV is full of cooking shows featuring competitions between adult chefs and little kids. My magazines are full of recipes I cannot pronounce and have never tasted. I get together with friends and they tell me about their latest experience at some upscale restaurant I have never heard of, eating something I have also never heard of.

And my kids are right in there with them.  They talk about the latest recipe they made that has an “essence” of this and a “hint” of that. They talk about cooking techniques I do not understand and about which I do not care.

Is this a defect in my character? Am I carrier of a gene that bypassed me?  I have begun to feel inferior and out of step with my world. Then I found her.  I was in an old book store and there, on a stack of free books, was Peg Bracken and her book, Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book.  I snatched her up, took her home, and greedily read her. 

Oh, Ms. Bracken, I wish I’d found you sooner. You saw into, and understood, my heart.  I am not the only one who has better things to do than spend hours in the kitchen fussing with gadgets and food stuffs. As you so beautifully said, “..the food minded person sniffs an out-of-the way herb, like costmary, and thinks in a flash, Braised moose hocks! But the rest of us are not similarly talented.  While our reflexes are dependable–if you say Fried Chicken, we think Mashed Potatoes; say Baked Beans, we think Brown Bread–they’re hardly inspired.  If we get a sniff of costmary, we’ll only think, with mild surprise, For goodness’ sake.”*

For goodness’ sake, indeed.

Thank you, Peg.  You are my hero.

* Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book, 1966, Page 107

Nothing Like a Road Trip