Foraging in the Forest Pantry

Around this time each year, my inner bear awakens to the thought that there is food to be found in the forests. Sprouting up from the damp floor of the sun-speckled woods of North America are edible stinging nettles, fir shoots and that holy trinity of wild springtime eats: fiddleheads, ramps and morels.

Fiddleheads, or ostrich ferns, are typically the first to appear, poking their graceful green heads up in April or early May. They spring from the moist, fertile earth along stream banks and at the edges of swamps and marshes where foragers harvest their tightly coiled fronds quickly before they begin to uncurl and lose their culinary appeal. In flavour, they have a nuttiness similar to asparagus or artichoke.

Following not far behind fiddleheads are ramps, or wild leeks, an intensely flavoured member of the onion family with long elegant leaves and a garlic-shaped bulb. Ramps can be found in pungent clumps, usually near maples and other hardwoods, their flat, unfurled leaves covering the forest floor like a carpet of emerald quills.

In the Appalachian communities of the eastern United States, there are several festivals held to celebrate this rare treat. Including one, held annually in Bradford, Pennsylvania on the first Saturday in May, that is simply and aptly named Stinkfest. Their smelly scent aside, ramps are a delicious delicacy. Their garlicky, sharp taste and short harvest season of around five weeks have earned them an almost cult-like status among food lovers.

The bulbs can be cooked slowly in butter over low heat to caramelize them and bring out their sweetness but are equally tasty eaten raw in vinaigrettes, salads and with pasta.

Morels are considered by many to be the most elusive of Mother Nature’s spring treats. These mysterious fungi reveal themselves six weeks after spring thaw when the sap has finished running. Their reluctant appearance signals the start of the mushroom hunting year for mycophiles. I know from experience that stalking these wrinkled thimble-shaped ‘shrooms can be, by turns, an exasperating and exhilarating search.

What I can say with certainty is that a large part of the morel’s enigma lies in the fact that they are most often found thriving under dead fallen trees, in abandoned orchards and in areas scarred by forest fire. They feed on decay in the forest’s darkest, most secluded spots until some lucky forager plucks them from their hiding place. Once unearthed, their meaty texture, complex subterranean smell and earthy taste more than make up for their necrophilious nature, not to mention the challenge of finding them.

While I didn’t have time to do my own foraging this year, on a recent trip to Ottawa, I picked up a bag of fresh fiddleheads and a dozen bunches of ramps at the city’s historic Byward Market. Before I could get them home to Calgary, I got stopped at the airport security checkpoint where a puzzled officer sifted through the bag of fiddleheads and sniffed suspiciously at the ramps. (It is illegal to pick ramps in Quebec where they are a threatened species.) Luckily, he allowed them through but, unfortunately, after a four-hour flight, the ramp leaves were a bit worse for wear.

Back at home in Alberta, I knew I had to act fast to make the most of these seasonal ingredients from the forest pantry. It didn’t take me long to settle on a Chicken Fricassee with Fiddleheads and Morels paired with Spaghetti with Ramps. Both quick and easy dishes to make.

For the chicken recipe, fresh morels proved too elusive for me this year and I had to substitute them for regular brown mushrooms. I adapted the recipe from one I found on the Olson Foods Bakery website, the cyber home of celebrity chef Anna Olson of Food Network Canada fame. The spaghetti side dish comes from Epicurious and was originally printed in the April 2000 issue of Gourmet magazine. The only adjustment I made was adding some chopped parsley to the dish.

Wine Note: In the spirit of serving a truly Canadian spring dinner, I paired these dishes with a 2006 Pinot Gris from Tinhorn Creek Vineyards in the Okanagan Valley.

Chicken Fricassee with Fiddleheads & Morels
Serves 4

1 lb 450 grams diced boneless skinless chicken breast
2 Tbsp 30 mL butter
1 Tbsp 15 mL oil
1/2 cup 125 mL diced onion
1/2 cup 125 mL diced celery
2 Tbsp 30 mL all-purpose flour
1 cup 250 mL morels, well cleaned and thickly sliced

(or brown or cremini mushrooms)
1 cup 250 mL low-sodium chicken stock
1/2 cup 125 mL 2 % milk
1 cup 250 ml fiddlehead greens, blanched 4 minutes
1 Tbsp 15 mL chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper

Heat a skillet over medium high heat and melt butter and oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the foaming butter, sautéing lightly for 4-5 minutes. Remove to a dish. Add onion and celery and cook approximately 3 minutes until the soft but not browned. Add the mushrooms and stir, cooking, for 2 minutes. Add the flour and stir for 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken stock and milk and bring to a simmer. Return the chicken and add the fiddleheads to the pan. Simmer 5 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the fiddleheads are tender and hot. Check the seasoning and add parsley.

Spaghetti with Ramps
Serves 4

1/2 lb ramps*

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 lb spaghetti

2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan
1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Trim roots from ramps and slip off outer skin on bulbs if loose. Blanch ramps in a 6-quart pot of boiling salted water, 2 to 3 seconds, and transfer to a cutting board with tongs. Coarsely chop ramps and put in a blender with zest and oil.
Add spaghetti to boiling water and cook a few minutes, then ladle out 1/2 cup pasta water and add to blender. Purée ramps until smooth and season with salt. Continue to cook spaghetti until al dente, then ladle out about 1 cup additional pasta water before draining spaghetti in a colander. Return pasta to pot with ramp purée and toss with parmesan over moderate heat 1 to 2 minutes, thinning sauce with a little pasta water as needed to coat pasta.

*Both the ramp bulb and leaves are edible. If the leaves are too damaged or old to use (as mine were this year), trim off the unusable ones and use only the bulb and any tender, green, unbruised leaves remaining.