Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 12 : Spring 2012 | Page 49

Spring’s Green Dreams

The Fanciful Fiddlehead
by Jan Grieco

on behalf of the Central Aroostook Chamber of Commerce
Winter, especially in northern Maine, is long and cold.
By the end of February, tempers and patience are short
and palates are jaded. But as the days lengthen and the
ragged snow along the roadsides melts away into rivers and
streams, thoughts turn to one of Maine’s most unusual and
elusive spring delicacies, the fiddlehead fern. Few things
say spring as much as the young coiled heads of the ostrich
fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) that Mainers have gathered
every spring from the banks of rivers, streams, and brooks
for generations. Little else is so much a part of the quicksilver
melting of snow and the greening of the Maine landscape
as is foraging for the tightly curled, bright green fronds. For
Brock Kingsbury of Bridgewater, gathering, selling, and
eating fiddleheads is a part of life.

“I must have been about eight or nine the first time
that I really remember going fiddleheading with gramps,”
the twenty-four-year-old Bridgewater resident said. “I
probably went before, but that was the first time I really
remember.”

The art of fiddleheading seems to be one of those
things passed down from generation to generation. Although
Kingsbury earns his living at the family business, Burtchell
Truck, in Mars Hill, he never abandoned gathering the
green tendrils as he did as a boy, and he is not alone in his
passion for this spring delicacy.

In recent years, fiddleheads have seen a surge in
popularity. Although there are no hard facts on how many
pounds are picked and eaten each year, some say that more
than fifty tons make their way to markets and х