divaqs's Blog

Asparagus Ferns
Jun 6, 2007 | 7:49 AM PST
Tags: Asparagus , Fern

A couple of months ago I wrote about asparagus, in which I mentioned that it is a fern. I’ve mentioned this to other people, which seemed to really surprise them. I think I can understand why, since I believe that in our day it is easy for us city folk to lose touch with where all the food in the grocery store comes from, and the natural order of things.

Here is a picture of some of the asparagus now growing in my yard

 

As you might be able to see in my less than professional picture, it is a rather nice delicate fern. This year it has reached over 6 feet in height in my yard and has as intended to some degree obscured view of my neighbor’s ugly fence.

Most growth of new shoots happens in the spring time, but it hasn’t stopped completely yet. So, I am still able to occasionally get a couple of asparagus spears from the garden.

I’ve been thinking about using some fishing line to help hold the ferns up in an upright position. On the left side of the picture you can see that some of the ferns are leaning, which can happen, partly due to the density of the asparagus ferns pushing on each other. I guess I didn’t thin them enough in the spring. I hopefully will remember that for next year and will eat more asparagus.

The Edible Ostrich Fern
Apr 15, 2007 | 3:12 PM PST
Tags: Ostrich Fern , edible , preservation , canning , fern

I like ferns. I think they add a nice softening affect to landscapes. With my eccentric vision of only having edible plants in my tended yard, I worried that I would have to do without any ferns, that is, until I learned that Ostrich ferns are edible.

During April and May, Ostrich ferns grow new fronds, which as the frond uncurl form a shape kind of like a fiddle. Cut the tender little rolls of fern almost as soon as they appear within a couple of inches of the ground. Carefully brush out and remove the brown scales. Wash and cook the “heads” in a small amount of lightly salted boiling water for ten minutes, or steam for 20 minutes. Serve at once, the quicker they are eaten, the more delicate their flavor.

A couple of years ago, in my exuberance of discovering an edible fern, I went to a nursery and bought one. Only to then discover that I already had more than 20 large plants of them growing all over my yard. In fact I was surprised to learn that they grow all over the northern hemisphere of North America, Northern Europe, and Northern Asia. I've been told by one of my Korean co-workers that in Korea they are considered something of a delicacy. I've also heard that they are considered a delicacy in the U.S. Northeast and can be seen on the menus of some really nice restaurants. Ostrich Fern fiddleheads are the Vermont State vegetable.

Here is a picture I took today of an Ostrich fern in my yard

In the picture, note the fronds that look like they are uncurling at the top. These are the ones you want to harvest before they exceed something like a foot in height. Like asparagus, you don't want to over harvest or you will damage the plant so much that later years will have less or no fronds. This particular plant I harvested a handful of fronds from last week, though you can't really tell.

There are at least 3 look-alike varieties that have cancer-causing chemicals in them and are not recommended for consumption, so you need to be careful when identifying them to make sure you get the right ones.

Characteristics of Ostrich Ferns are:

• It grows from a completely vertical crown, favoring riverbanks and sandbars, but sends out lateral stolons to form new crowns.
  (Grows in a clump, often in wet areas)
• The fronds are dimorphic, with the deciduous (die back in winter) green sterile fronds being almost vertical, 100-170 cm tall and 20-35 cm broad, long-tapering to the base but short-tapering to the tip, so that they resemble ostrich plumes, hence the name. The fertile fronds are shorter, 40-60 cm long, brown when ripe, with highly modified and constricted leaf tissue curled over the sporangia; they develop in autumn, persist erect over the winter and release the spores in early spring.
  (In the fall they grow some brown fronds, but are green in spring and summer. In winter the fronds die back, and then grow back in spring.)
• IMPORTANT: There is a groove that goes down the middle of the stem of the frond

As a landscape plant, they do well in moist or boggy areas and seem to do well in partial shade. Their root balls can form dense colonies resistant to destruction by floodwaters. I find the ostrich ferns to be a bit more delicate then most other varieties of fern that grow wild in my yard, in that the stalks tend to break much more easily, so I wouldn't recommend putting them in high traffic areas.

I've personally found the cooked stalks to be somewhat bland in taste, but that was due to how I've attempted to prepare them before now. The stalks might be good with a sauce, but they are not the thing to eat, but rather the actual fiddlehead.  I had been trying to eat the stalks and not the fiddleheads. I guess if I had ever lived on the east coast, where these are a delicacy, I would have known that. The fiddleheads may be served, like asparagus, on toast. Cooked, chilled fiddleheads can be also served as a salad with an onion and vinegar dressing.

 To freeze fiddleheads, blanch a small amount at a time for two minutes. Cool and drain. Pack into moisture- and vapor-proof containers and store them in the freezer. Fiddleheads can also be pickled and canned. 

 Back in the 1990's a few people got sick on the east coast after eating ostrich fiddleheads that had been "under-cooked" in restaurants, so a recommendation was created that you need to boil them for at least 10 minutes. Personally, my suspicion is that they had been served look-alike ferns (i.e. cinnamon fern), since people have been eating these all over the world for a long time.