Lola at the Coffee House, Cafe 101

Well, I know you prefer rubber hose 'cause they're stretchy and comfy but you can keep wearing them instead of using them as a weapon.

Thanks, We found similar reports for cooking up these little treats. We served em in a butter and cider vinegar dressing , just fairly plain , unadorned so that the flavor of the fiddlehead was poking through.
I was told that fiddleheads, like nuts, acquire the taste of their substrate. Its possible to have ferns of widely varying flavors from hardwood forests v piney woods.

Good morning -- I'm cooking up some strawberry Belgian waffles with toasted pecans and whipped cream. The strawberries in season here are as big as a house.

Cripes--do you have to cook for yourself in the land of enlightenment and rationality? Who does the thinking?

It's not to be eaten by trolls -- it turns them into fairy princesses and I do mean fairy.

What in the name of all deities is a fiddle head?

I thought it was a kind of turtle?

It's a young lady who likes to make it last all afternoon.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. A fiddlehead fern is one of the plants in my patio garden:

You EAT a fern?

Oh lordy, I see you do:





Marinated Fiddlehead Salad

¼ cup olive oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar or lime juice
2 tsp yellow curry paste
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cardamom
3 cups fiddleheads
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Chopped fresh coriander

1. In a shallow dish, whisk together oil, vinegar, curry paste, cinnamon and cardamom. Set aside.
2. Remove brown papery scales from the fiddleheads and rinse several times under cold running water. Drain well and trim off ends. Steam in a rack over boiling water for 7 to 9 minutes or until crisp-tender.
3. Drain well and add to the dressing in the dish. Toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or for up to one day, shaking dish occasionally to stir. Before serving, bring to room temperature and sprinkle with coriander.

Serves 4 to 6 as a vegetable side dish

From Food and Drink Magazine, Early Summer Edition, 2005

http://www.theheartofnewengland.com/food-FiddleheadFernsSauted.html

Looks like eating baby aliens.

Tastes something like brussels sprouts.

Well! Why all the fuss, then?

I LOVE brussels sprouts, but I have always thought myself alone in this.

Do these stink when cooked, also?

The trubbles with most California produce is that its grown for looks and not taste. I used to live in STockton, Needlles, Bakersfield and Walnut Grove. I can say that Ive always had the biggest, prettiest most tasteless strawberries while out there. You do have great artichokes though.

Around PA we have a strawberry SEASON which allows us to gorge ourselves on the juicy sweet delicate berries until e puke. Then w e dont look at em for another year. All that **** thats "flown in" dfrom Fla, Cal, or South AMerica might as well be produced by LEGGO.

Fiddleheads have their own "cole like" flavor but milder than Brussels sprouts. Another good way to make em is with a sweet sour bacon dressing like the kind thats used to serve dandelion or other bitter greens. As someone earlier said DO NOT serve fiddleheads with oil, it just makes the flavor less intense, and since the fern heads are relatively mild, youd lose any flavor at all.

Wanna know bout cookin RAMPS and SHAD ROE?

Not much is grown in the state now except wine grapes. The last time I bought artichokes, they were from Central America and the strawberries were from Mexico. The old strawberry fields and stands around Orange County have all but disappeared. Strawberries are finicky as to the proper ripening for the best flavor -- they're just right for a day or perhaps two. I do put them in the crisper that has a disc which absorbs the ethylene gas.

They s till have this huge artichoke farm near Vaccaville. BIG ONES. Thats one veggie that can be picked and shipped , but it, like corn, is still best when the silks turn brown as if the flowers are getting ready.(They are, after all, just a big thistle)

No more strawberries grown in CAl? well,thats not good because anything from Central America is even more picked at the green state.
I just remembered, I bought a dozen kiwi fruits and they were really green (Sour flavor) I let em in the fridge to ripen and they went right from green to rotten. I shoulda packed them in a bag with an apple to hasten a real ripening.

Fruit is such a waste of market anymore. The apples we get in the supermarket are usually crisp and tasteless or mealy and flavorful. We have AMISH groves around here that pick and sell from the orchards and these fruits are superior in flavor to those picked and shipped green.

Even the troll was preferable to the stalker who followed him in here in quick succession - and nothing, NOTHING, could turn that one into a fairy princess. Btw, ferns aren't poisonous to us, but some of them are dangerous to horses and other animals.

I don't. But if somebody does I'm content to sit here and read through what I have no doubt will be another riveting spiel of mindless drivel.

Did you see my Bose science on the landscaper's thread. They have all ignored it except dys.

. Well, dys used to raise mules too.