Ode to Fiddleheads

Thank you for sharing your Victoria Day weekend traditions with us in your comments on last week’s blog post. I loved reading through them and hearing about how you spend your long May weekend.

This coming Monday is Memorial Day, which means a long weekend for our southern neighbours!

Again, I would love to hear how you celebrate this holiday in your hometown. I imagine it’s similar to our Victoria Day, with barbeques or in honour/honor of our US cousins spelling barbecues and fireworks. I look forward to hearing about it.

Our restaurant is now open for the season with limited hours and a limited menu for a few weeks to get the season started.  Yesterday we were so happy to be serving both familiar faces and new customers alike. If you’re in our neck of the woods over the coming months, be sure to stop in for a bite. 

Speaking of Island dining, when I was at the grocery store this week, I spotted a seasonal treat that only sticks around for a short while… fiddleheads!

Though not a big crop here in PEI, fiddleheads harvesting is on a larger scale in our neighbouring province of New Brunswick, and you can find them in farmers markets and most grocery stores here for a couple of weeks in May.

Fiddleheads or Fiddlehead greens are the young or baby shoots of ferns. They get their names because they resemble heads of fiddles!

We enjoy them in the same way we do asparagus, which is plentiful in our garden presently. 

Trim and well rinse the young ferns, removing any damaged parts or brown leaves. In a pot, bring a small amount of water to a boil, place steamer basket in or above the water. Cover and cook until tender but still crisp. Drain, I like to put my greens back into a small frying pan with butter, salt, and fresh ground pepper to taste. 

If you wish to read more about the fiddleheads, Wikipedia has a more in-depth article on it. Its heritage is from our native the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, and Penobscot peoples of Eastern Canada and Maine introduced the vegetable to the Acadian settlers in the 1780's. 

I am curious, do you eat fiddleheads? Any family fiddlehead stories?

Have a great week and thank you for your time today.

Sincerely,

Bruce