Fiddleheads are a delicacy to some, and to others like me, just fun to pick. They lie in damp ground in a small green hummock of tightly curled tops that resemble the curved end of a violin, just waiting to be plucked.The trick to picking fiddleheads is to make sure you’re picking the right fern. Fiddleheads are deep green with a U-shape stem on the inside of the curl. The fern has no hair or fuzz on it, but it does have the golden paper on the sides of the curl. They will be Ostrich Ferns when their curls straighten out.

It doesn’t take long to pick a few cups for supper and there’s no sense in cooking more than you’ll eat because the leftovers just don’t taste as good as the fresh ones. When I pick them, I pick them with no more than one inch of stem, and try to take off the golden paper that clings to the side of the curl. Once I get them home, I lay a sheet out on the deck and dump my basket of fiddleheads on it from chest high. This easily separates the golden paper from the fiddlehead, even when there’s no breeze.

I rinse them and put them in a pot and cover them with water, putting them on the stove and bringing them to a boil. As soon as they boil, I dump them into a colander and rinse them until the water runs clear. Then I put them back into the pot and boil them for at least ten minutes. It’s not advised to eat them raw or undercooked as they will usually bring on a case of the green-apple quickstep. According to the Center for Disease Control, there’s some kind of food-borne toxin in undercooked fiddleheads, so take heed if you stir fry or saute them.

My husband pours a capful of vinegar on them and declares them the best part of spring. I, who picked said fiddleheads, use the vinegar to put the fire out on all the blackfly bites that cover every inch of skin that I didn’t cover with clothing.

Blackflies are the worst part of spring. You wouldn’t think that a few little black flies could drive a person to distraction in just a few minutes, but they can. They can bite through denim pants. They can get into your ears and up your nose. They can leave a line of welts all around the top of your stockings and the waist of your pants, and can manage to find areas around your hairline where you can’t feel them and they sit there and fill their bodies with your blood. We call them teeth on wings. Fortunately they last only a few weeks; unfortunately, so does spring.