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The time of year Mainers go absolutely bat shit crazy over a tiny unfurled fern frond.
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The season is short and anxiously awaited. Foraging sites are secret and passed down from one generation to another.
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Cleaning methods are also hotly debated.
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Personally? I can’t stand the slimy little things… I don’t care how you cook them, they taste like swamp. But that’s okay, it just means there are more for you.
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Dang, another reason to visit your fine state.
People are like that with morel mushrooms here. Picking spots are guarded as if someone were stealing a child.
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Morels! Be still my heart….. I’d sell my husband for a prime patch of those.
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So give me a comparison for the flavor.
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Between morels and fiddleheads? No comparison! Morels are rich and earthy, woodsy, slightly nutty. Fiddleheads taste like swamp ass.
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Yep, around here it’s squash blossoms, and they are delish!! I bet those fiddlehead ferns taste like cactus, like swamp water with slime.
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Never having tasted cactus I can’t say…. but affirmative on the swamp water.
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… there is something to be said for not culturally appropriating things. Unless they be tacos, of course.
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Perhaps a southwestern fiddlehead…?
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… around these parts one may be fit as a fiddle, tighter than a fiddle, or be as useless as a fiddle stick. You can fiddle around, speak fiddle faddle, and have a horse that is fiddle strung.
We have a few Cajuns, but they be weird folk … and have fiddle and squeeze box dances.
But we don’t be eatin’ no fiddles … that I know of.
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I doubt they grow there, too dry and hot. And for that… you can be thankful.
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I’ve seen them growing at various gardens we have visited over the years – I didn’t realise they were intended to eat!
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Only when they first appear, before they unfurl. It’s a very, very short season.
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Do you think they serve them at The Lost Kitchen? Have you and hubby eaten there? Mona
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I’m dying to eat there…. but they’ve been closed due to Covid. I heard they’ll open this summer but the only way to get a reservation is to send a postcard with the reason you want to go. They get 29,000 a year and pick a few hundred.
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I think you should hold a contest with your readers about who can come up with the most creative or outrageous reason why you should eat there. Then you should send that reason off on a outrageously “pick me, pick me!!!!” postcard that they can’t refuse. Go when fiddle fronds or whatever the hell they’re called are out of season! 🙂
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You might be on to something there… but they chose the date and time. It’s a very limited menu so with my luck the entree would be kale and fiddlehead soufflé.
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Still, I bet it would be the best kale and fiddlehead souffle you never ate! But, my oh my, the pictures you would take! DO IT!
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I guess this is like our equivalent of picking wild mushrooms (a no no) but without the chance of dying from accidentally eating death caps.
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Non lethal food is always my preference…
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Yeah no living on the edge for me..
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I’ve heard you can eat pretty much all parts of a day lily. And I just recently found out that the first shoots of hosta are edible and, supposedly delicious. I haven’t partaken of either of those, either. I’ll file them all away for if/when shtf and I have to go foraging.
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Hmm. I’ve had nasturtiums and dandelion greens in my salad, but that’s about it.
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I don’t recall ever having them—how did that happen!?!?–but if it is food I will eat it at least once!! The only food I have never repeated and don’t want to is oyster plant!!
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I saw some at our store…and I like them if they’re not overcooked. 🙃
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You have inspired me to remain blissfully unaware and dutifully uninterested in both fiddleheads and swamp ass.
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Then my work here is done…
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I used to come across fiddleheads all the time when hiking in the PNW forests. Never thought to pick ’em and cook ’em, though. If I’d known they were that coveted I might have filled a backpack or two and tried to make an extra buck.
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People go crazy for them up here.
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People go crazy for chanterelle and morel mushrooms out there.
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As would I. But swamp grass? No…
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