Q: Is it safe to eat ferns?
A: Brilliant green, delicate fiddlehead ferns are a welcome sign that spring has arrived. Despite a shroud of confusion — even danger — and a very short season, these tasty greens are increasingly popular among chefs in fine restaurants, farmers markets, and home cooks.
Rather than a variety of fern, fiddleheads are the young, tender shoots of the fern frond, which is coiled at the tip like the scroll atop a fiddle. There are three main species of edible ferns — ostrich fern, lady fern, and bracken fern. The ostrich fern is the species most referred to as fiddlehead, and is most common on menus and in markets….