Well Monday night Rose cooked a great meal of burgers, mac & cheese and a salad. The salad had pea pods, tomatoes, carrots, and fresh fiddleheads. Wow fiddleheads? I haven’s seen these in years, not since my dad used to pick and cook them back in Stratham. “Can you eat them raw” I asked her, “sure” Rose said. I’ve personally never had them raw but I like trying new things and my sample tasted really good. So I heaped up the salad and mowed it down. It was excellent, so much so i went back for seconds, particularly the fiddleheads.

Well an hour or so later my stomach began to sour and after our company left I went to bed. It wasn’t very long I was up and headed to the bathroom, then up and down all night. I was so unbelievably nauseous and the diarrhea just wouldn’t stop flowing. I ended up not getting any rest and missing a day of work to recover. I hadn’t been this ill in a very long time.

Today after telling my Mom of my ordeal I find out that my uncle Louis Johnson had eaten raw fiddleheads a couple years ago and had become deathly ill. I’m not sure what happened but the Stadig grapevine didn’t reach me on this one.
Hannaford Supermarkets sold the fiddleheads packaged just like strawberry’s, but i really think they should have put a warning sticker on them to cook them. I did a little research and found this article printed in a couple places that speaks of an outbreak of food poisoning back in 1994 attributed to fiddleheads. It didn’t help that the day I’m sick is also the hottest day of the year so far, super high humidity and almost a 100 degrees.

So beware of the fiddlehead…unless you cook it thoroughly. If you choose to collect you’re own fiddleheads you need to know how to properly identify them since picking the wrong kind can also be cancerous, again see the article link up above. You can also check out this Wikipedia article that explains how some types contain Shikimic Acid. Shikimic Acid is used in pharmaceuticals and is commonly referred to as Shikimate.
So in closing if you would like to make you’re intestines evacuate like the energizer bunny eat you’re fiddleheads raw.