This is where I confess my true city-girl roots. I grew up in a “small town” of about 130,000 people on the west coast. There was nary a fiddlehead to be found in my neck of the woods. My mom is a bit of a health nut, so I thought I had encountered every vegetable known to modern man. I was quite surprised when I first encountered those funny curled-up green things in a Vermont store. But, the idea was intriguing. So, one day I was out on a walk and saw some fiddleheads poking out. Fortunately I didn’t do something silly like try to eat them raw on the spot. Apparently, the only edible fiddlehead is the ostrich fern fiddlehead and the other varieties can cause all sorts of uncomfortable health problems. And according to the CDC you should fully cook the ostrich fern fiddlehead to protect against food-borne illness. Oh geez! The trouble this city-girl could have gotten herself into!

Fiddleheads have become a yummy seasonal treat for me. I’ve included a recipe here for fiddlehead, wild leek and bacon risotto. Fiddleheads and wild leeks are both wild-harvest goodies, but if you don’t trust your safe food harvesting abilities, you can pick them up at the farmers market this Saturday from someone with a trained eye. And if you’re giving this recipe a try, you can make it dairy free by skipping the cheese, or make it extra creamy by adding 3 oz of Fat Toad Farm’s chevre to the mix at the very end. Mmmm nummy..


Fiddlehead, Wild Leek &
Bacon Risotto

15 wild leeks, leaves and bulbs sliced and separated
6 pieces of bacon
1 cup white wine
1 cup Arborio rice
3 cups vegetable broth, warmed
1/3 lb fiddleheads, boiled 5 minutes and chopped
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1) Cook bacon over medium high heat to taste in a large high-sided frying pan or sauce pan. Remove the cooked bacon from the pan and set aside.
2) Cook the chopped wild leek bulbs in the bacon fat for about 1 minute. Add the white wine and scrape the yummy bits from bottom of the pan.
3) Add the rice and stir until almost all the liquid is absorbed by the rice. Add one cup of warmed broth and stir the mixture often until most of the liquid is absorbed.  Repeat for the rest of the broth, adding the fiddleheads and wild leek tops right before the final cup of broth.
4) Remove the risotto from the heat and mix in the cheese and black pepper. Enjoy!

(as seen in the 5/14/09 column of "Our Food" in The Montpelier Bridge)