by Tim Billbrough
Introduction
With an unusually large burst of Awen this past January, though, I set upon a quest to feast the Wheel of the Year with a special food item for each of the eight festivals. In these dishes, I try to capture the spirit of the specific festival, my own native land, and the ancient Celtic culture we derive from.
I do not hold these dishes as special in and of themselves, but I try to make them special through the consideration, intent, and symbolism that goes into choosing what to make and the ingredients that go into it.
I have four rules that I try my best to follow in pursuit of this goal:
1. The dish must represent the festival in question, its themes and what we revere about it. This is how I honor the festival.
2. I must use only ingredients I grow myself/can source locally, or are native to my home in New Hampshire, USA. When I can do both, that is preferred. This is how I honor the land I live and practice on.
3. The ingredients must be seasonal to my own land, either through ripeness or appropriate preservation. My climate is slightly different than that of the Celtic Isles, so this is how I honor the Wheel of the Year itself.
4. The dish must be an interpretation of what our Celtic ancestors would have eaten around the time of festival. This is how I honor our Druid traditions.
Using these rules, I seek to channel my own self into my cooking and seek deeper connection between myself, my practice, and my land.
Symbolizing Beltane
Beltane, the first of the summer festivals, and the first of the year that is truly warm. Its main theme is fertility and many of the traditions that our ancient ancestors, and the traditions of our increasingly less ancient ancestors, focus highly on it. In fact, only within the last 150-200 years has the significance of Beltane, or rather the May Day festival it became, begun to fade. Being one of the most well-preserved festivals we have in terms of continuity of traditions, Beltane makes fascinating research. That is not the heart of what I am here to speak about today, though, but if you’re interested in the topic, I highly suggest the Tasting History with Max Miller’s episode on May Day, which can be found on YouTube.
Unlike the Imbolc and Alban Eilir, when I went about trying to figure out what our ancient Celtic ancestors would have eaten around this time, the answer was actually quite easy to find: whatever they could find growing and edible. Less than helpful, though, really.
So I looked at what would be new and green in my area and the answer was also easy to find. In fact, I have memories of going down along the marsh on my father’s farm as a kid picking the very forgeable I decided to cook as my Beltane dish: Fiddleheads.
If you don’t know what fiddleheads are, I’m not overly surprised. They’re a classic foraged food in the northeast of the US and southeast of Canada, but efforts to grow them commercially have failed, so they remain a local dish, getting less well-known with each generation. Fiddleheads are the newly sprouted heads of a species of Ostrich Fern that come up, along with Ramps (also known as wild garlic) as some of the first green things to show after winter in my area, with their season starting in late March, peaking in early May, and quickly ending.
Not only are they seasonally appropriate, but they symbolize the facets of Beltane perfectly as well. As one of the first greens they symbolize renewal, but when picked in season, they resemble upright sprouts that curl into spiral shaped heads, rather phallic in appearance. When left to mature into the full fern, the spiral unfurls into a lacy triangle of delicate hairs that resembles the growth of hair of a woman’s pubic region. Perhaps it is these qualities that fueled the local folklore that calls them an aphrodisiac. Fertility indeed.
What to Make
Now that I knew what I wanted to make, and a few phone calls to my dad to keep an eye out so I would know where to get these rather hard-to-source veggies, I still had to come up with a dish to symbolize Beltane.
Normally, I would wash them thoroughly (they are much like leaks in that they hide dirt and sand in their layers) and then give them a quick blanche in boiling water for just a few minutes (this step must be done to deactivate a toxin they contain naturally) before I would then coat them lightly in oil, season generously with salt, and roast at a very high heat for a very short amount of time. Fiddleheads have a very delicate flavor, comparable to asparagus, that is easy to destroy or overpower. That doesn’t leave much room for symbolism in my dish, though.
My grandparents actually preferred their fiddleheads pickled and would preserve them that way. That has potential, but I don’t make my own vinegar and while our Celtic ancestors would have had access to it through trade, it is not a native ingredient to my area. The First Nations of my area did a lot of brining and fermenting, but pickling didn’t come until the Europeans did.
Ultimately, I found a recipe from The Forager Chef for lacto-fermented fiddleheads that would be the base of my recipe. It is close to pickling and I could work with the ingredients to include what I grow myself or what I can source natively. As a plus, there are studies that
suggest that fermented foods can help with healthy sexual biology and even increase libido. Spot on for the Beltane fertility connection, right?
Making the Fiddleheads
From here it was a pretty simple process. I collected my fiddles from my dad’s farm, gave them a thorough wash. I blanched them for a couple of minutes and put them into some ice water. While they were cooling, I assembled the rest of what I decided to use. Though not native, I grow classic chives in my garden and they are sprouting now too, so I cut a healthy handful of those. I used a poblano pepper from last year’s garden that I dried last fall and rehydrated it, before cutting it into strips. Finally, a bunch of salt, which I didn’t source myself but is native and was used my indigenous people, and a close f garlic, again from last year’s harvest, if not native. Once again, I don’t have a native substitute for black pepper, so I am leaving that out. The base recipe from Foraged Chef uses grape leaves, but while there are native grapes, their leaves are not ready to use yet and I do not have any stored in any way. I don’t usually use them. The only ones available to me are non-native ones from the grocery store, so I omitted them. They are supposed to help keep the fiddles crunchy, so I will expect them to be softer than usual.
Once the fiddleheads had cooled down, I put my mason jar on my scale, zeroed it out, and then put all of my ingredients in it and then filled it with water. I noted the weight in grams, multiplied that by 0.03 (for a 3% solution) and added that amount of kosher salt to the jar. I put the lid on it and shook it up and kept it out at room temperature, but in a dark place, for 4 days.
When I tried them I was pleased to see that, while not crisp, they were still firm and not mushy. The fermentation adds a bit of zing that would want from a pickle, and the other flavors were present, if only barely. Far from overpowering, the other flavors were only just detectable. When I do these next time, I think I might use one of my dried jalapenos to kick things up.
Conclusion
All that said, they really were good, the salty funk of the fermentation went a long way to making these foraged goods a unique treat for the season and while my wife hates them, so my Beltane blessings probably won’t be helped by them, having a cool, tangy taste of spring is quite welcome. I encourage all of you to learn about safely foraging in your area. Learn not just from books, but going out with a reputable teacher and learning what might be in your neck of the woods, quite literally, and have a blessed Beltane!
Recipe
A special Note and Thank You to The Foraged Chef for the original recipe I based this on.
Ingredients
Enough fresh and tightly packed fiddleheads to fill a pint jar.
One clove of garlic.
A small handful of fresh chives
One dried pepper (mild or spicy, your choice) rehydrated and sliced into ribbons.
Kosher salt
Fresh water
Method
Wash your fiddleheads thoroughly and cut stems to equal length. I used just the heads, but you can use both. Bring a pot of water to a boil and have a bowl with ice water nearby. When boiling, blanche your fiddleheads for two minutes and then scoop them out and place in ice water bath.
On a scale, place a pint jar and tare out its weight. Once cooled, dry the fiddleheads thoroughly and place, with the remaining ingredients except the salt and water, into the jar, making sure to mix the pepper slices and chives among the fiddleheads. Fill with cold fresh water and read the weight in grams. Multiply this weight by 0.03 and add the resulting number of grams in grams of salt to the jar. Put a light on finger tight, shake well to dissolve, and place in a dark but room temperature place for 3-4 days.
Please consult your local regulations and food health department on safely fermenting foods at home.
