News Flash: Mother was Right!

Like many kids, I thought my mother was the best cook in the world. From my middle aged perspective, I see that food was an important non verbal conduit of affection and comfort in my family. When I left home, I discovered that there were other ways to eat, and even more revolutionary for a kid brought up in a forest isolated Irish-Catholic community, spices beyond salt, stale pepper, cinnamon for apple crumble, the faded ancient bottle of Tabasco sauce, and that mysterious green bottle my mother kept on the lazy susan called "Poultry Seasoning".

Eventually, I realized that Mom had been overcooking most everything. No wonder I had never really taken to lamb or chicken breast. When she caught the low fat bug, about the time she first started Weight Watchers, her previously panfried hamburgers were now oven baked on a rack until they became dark shrunken pucks. If flung, they easily could have taken out an eye.

Bless her, Mom was a product of the Depression and iceboxes, and meat had to be cooked until every evil bug was long gone to its maker and the chops themselves cried for mercy. Even her specialty, baked whole salmon, had such a saliva absorbing quality that it begged for --- now, don't scream too loudly--- ketchup. It took me years to adjust to properly cooked salmon, but I now down salmon sushi with impunity, occasionally wondering if Mom's coffin has spun itself all the way through to Tasmania yet.

And vegetables... well, you know the answer to that. They weren't done unless Gran could happily chow down on them without her teeth in. I don't remember how she coped with the beef pucks.

Mind you, in '70's Maritime Canada, green vegetables out of season inevitably came from the freezer, and bless them, my parents did grow and freeze their own green and yellow beans, peas, and a local delicacy, fiddleheads. The tightly furled, immature fronds of the ostrich fern, fiddleheads are picked for a brief time about now every spring, usually from the slippery banks of shallow, fast flowing, frigid thawing streams, accompanied by the constant risk of falling in the stream, that is, if it isn't already raining, which it was the few times I actually accompanied them on a picking expedition. They were always a devil to clean, covered in a brown papery covering requiring soaking, scrubbing, then trimming, but they were tasty. By the time mom was finished with them, I could hold one above my mouth and it would unfurl in a long spiral, like a noodle.

With a season of under a month, you rarely find them in the stores in this part of the country, but last week I stumbled on some fiddleheads in excellent condition, (ie not half unfurled) reasonably clean, and gathered up a pound for dinner. I informed Fuzz that it was my birthright to eat the lion's share of them but I would share a few with him. He was fine with that as long as he got extra ham to dull the crushing disappointment...

Like Proust, as I was steaming the fiddleheads I caught a whiff of spring forest, and was whisked back 30 years and 600 miles and knew I would have to overcook them in order to complete the experience. Besides, these are a rather bitter vegetable, a bit like asparagus crossed with swiss chard, that may actually taste better with a little extra steaming. They were great with just a touch of kosher salt and some butter.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a newspaper article this morning that said that the Centers for Disease Control and Health Canada both recommend boiling or steaming fiddleheads for 12 to 15 minutes. The research isn't conclusive, but there is a suggestion from several reported cases of mild food poisoning that fiddleheads contain a thermolabile (heat sensitive) toxin that is destroyed by longer cooking. No chichipoopoo flash saute for these little guys.

Thanks Mom. Sorry about the sushi. Now that I think of it, you might have been right about the hamburger too.