Get into a pickle with fleeting fiddleheads

Quick, before they’re gone, get some fiddlehead ferns to pickle and marinate. Since I am not privy to one of those wonderful places where the fern plentifully pokes up its delicate, dark-green, curled little self, I get mine at a local produce store. Fiddlehead hunting is one of those things that requires the taciturnity that comes naturally to some Mainers. Fiddleheads are as nice as some other fresh stuff is this time of year. They aren’t wicked flavorful by themselves. But if green were a flavor, it would taste like fiddleheads.

I wanted a nice pickling recipe, having admired the specimens I spotted at a specialty food shop. Lois Baxter of Orrington came through with the recipe she adapted from dill pickles, and Rosalie Tripp in Dumas, Ark., (formerly of Orrington) sent a Web site link to the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Internet site’s “Facts on Fiddleheads Bulletin No. 4198” (www.umext.maine.edu/

onlinepubs/PDFpubs/4198.pdf) full of good-sounding things to do with them.

Then other cooks sent along some sensible ways to marinate fiddleheads. Edith Munson of East Machias sent a recipe adapted from “Down By the Sea and Farm,” and Shirley McGill, in Grand Bay, New Brunswick, provided a couple, one an old family recipe. Edith’s, which I tried, is a vinegar and salad oil dressing with garlic, paprika, and dry mustard added in moderation, poured over cooked or steamed fiddleheads. Very nice. Shirley’s was more elegant, with the fiddleheads simmered in olive oil, wine vinegar, lemon juice and salt, with parsley, thyme, peppercorns and rosemary tied up in a little bag, and garlic and shallots added. Lovely. Both recipes say we can keep fiddleheads at least two weeks or more in their marinades.

Mary Lucas of Lincoln reminds us that fiddleheads cleaned and blanched in hot water are good tossed with a bottled zesty Italian-style dressing. I bet they’d be good in the balsamic vinaigrette made by that famous actor, too.

Lois’ mom and husband thought she should send her pickle recipe to Taste Buds. She had sent some off to her brother on a ship, “and he got raves from sailors who had no idea what fiddleheads were!” Lois came up with the recipe one year because she had so many fiddleheads and simply couldn’t eat them all. I think we’ll feel sorry for her the same way we feel sorry for the lady with too much lobster.

Looking for…

Lucy Johnston who works in Greenville, wrote, “I would like to find a really good recipe for home baked whole grain bread. I have one that, after many trials and tribulations, comes out pretty well, but I’d like a really palatable, fool proof if there is such a thing, whole grain bread recipe.”

And Perley J. Thibodeau, stuck in New York City, asks for the recipe “for sugar, or coconut covered chocolate doughnuts? You know, the devil food cake type made with cocoa powder that are so plentiful in Maine, but not sold down here. I had a recipe given to me by a former Bangor neighbor who is gone now. I made them once, and lost it.”

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.

Pickled Fiddleheads

Yields 6 to 7 pints

3 pounds fiddleheads, washed and free of brown scales

6-7 sterilized pint jars

Add to each jar:

1 teaspoon dill seed (or one head of fresh dill if you can get it)

1 bay leaf

1 clove of garlic

1 piece of dried hot pepper

1/2 teaspoon mustard seed

In a stainless steel or enamel pan mix together:

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup canning salt

1 quart white vinegar

1 quart water

3 tablespoons pickling spice tied in a cheesecloth bag

Bring to a boil and simmer together for 15 minutes. Ladle over the fiddleheads in the jars, leaving 1/4-inch head room. Tap to remove air bubbles. Adjust caps and process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath.