Fiddlehead Fern Pickle
Photo: Ajna Jai / Contributor
Of all the wild edible plants that grow in our country, the ancient fiddlehead ferns are the most unique and flavorful. They are the unfurled new leaves of a fern. Reproducing through spores, not seeds of flowers, these ferns have been on our planet a hundred million years before dinosaurs walked the Earth.
With a flavor that crosses between artichoke and asparagus, fiddleheads are packed with antioxidants, omega acids, potassium, iron and fiber. Like most other ferns, they grow all over the country but like cool, moist and forested areas. In India, where they grow wild in the northern mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh, fiddleheads are often turned into a sabzi (cooked vegetable) or a pickle.