Fern Fixation

I love living in KL, really I do, but .... where are all the darn fiddleheads??!!

Perhaps I should explain.   A few months ago, shortly after I learned that a relocation to KL was in our future, I came upon this thread on pucuk paku (fiddlehead ferns) in Malaysia on foodcentric site egullet.  "Eureka!" I thought to myself.  "Yet another reason to anticipate with growling stomach the upcoming move."

Dave and I had just returned from a stay in a small village in north-central Bali, where one morning we and our guide Nyoman scoured the forest around Lake Tamblingan for fiddleheads and wild mushrooms.  Though we came up emtpy on the fungi front, we (OK -- Nyoman, primarily) scored fairly fantastically in the fern department, and that evening we dined on pakis urab, a cool dish of fern tips in a spicy coconut dressing. 

   

That meal reminded me how much I adore the slightly asparagus-y, woodsy flavor of the tightly coiled, several-inch diameter fiddleheads available with the rains in northern California and parts of the American north and northeast.  With a few morels and a sturdy green like escarole they make for a lovely warm salad.  I devoured that egullet thread and rubbed my hands together with glee, visions of mounds and mounds of cheap (those babies go for approaching twenty dollars a pound in the States) green fiddlehead coils heaped upon my kitchen counter -- awaiting their inclusion in a warm salad with oyster mushrooms, or in a Balinese urab with coconut and turmeric, ginger and garlic and nutmeg, or maybe roasted with salmon and garlic in the oven -- dancing in my head.

Well, I have to say it's been a bit of a bust.

What I've found so far in KL are pucuk paku alright, but a slighter, more delicate variety than the thick-stemmed Balinese fiddleheads pictured above, no thick coiled tips in sight.  Don't get me wrong. They're delicious in their own right, leaves stripped from stem and tender tips snapped off, all to be lightly sauteed with a bit of olive oil and garlic or briefly stewed with coconut milk and spices. 

But where are the BIG FAT COILS?

It's not that I haven't looked: I've been to KL markets, scoured Carrefour (you never know -- there are some interesting and -- to an American -- exotic items in those aisles), asked and inquired, even put Dave to work interrogating his colleagues.  The other day a Malay taxi driver told me he was certain the big fat coils are around, somewhere (where?! he couldn't -- or wouldn't -- say).  Yesterday evening Dave and I hit the twice-weekly market in Kota Kemuning, where the resident population is heavily Malay (fiddleheads make more of an appearance in Malay, than Chinese-Malay, dishes).  Not a single coil, not even a slender fern stem.  I felt the slow, sinking feeling of defeat.

But I will press on.  Perhaps to Temerloh, a town a couple hours' drive from KL, and its legendary Sunday market where villagers come to sell foraged produce.  Closer to home, maybe to a small night (late night -- it doesn't get going till 1am) market in Chow Kit known for its kampung (village) veggies.  Those big fat coils are beckoning.

Comments

[RST]

Girl, you're on a roll! You're posting at the rate of one terrific piece a day! I could barely keep up with the reading! ;0)

The word pakud in Thai, and pako (generally with a circumflex ^ over the o to indicate accent on that syllable) in the Philippines also refer to fiddlehead ferns, but I suspect that they refer to different varieties and possibly even different species of ferns. I hope to hear more from you about this. About 5 years ago, I visited my dear friend Tina in the city of Davao (island of Mindanao, in the Philippines) and was served a lovely salad of pako that had been simply blanched and then marinated in palm vinegar. Yes, I agree that they probably do not figure in Malay-Chinese cooking.

[RST]

Put up the previous comments late last night and want to add a few more thoughts.

The last sentence should read: "Because of the proscription in "high" Han culture of "wild" and "raw", I agree that it is unlikely that pako figure in Malay-Chinese cooking.

The late Dr. Doreen Fernandez, who was a contributor to the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Food and the doyenne of Filipino food writers (there was an article on her work in an issue of Gastronomica from two years ago) listed Atyrium esculentum as the scientific name for pako. In the Philippines, pako could also be simmered (perhaps with young bamboo shoots or tomatoes) in coconut cream for ginataang pako.

Regarding the question of possible toxicity (discussed at some length on egullet), I was told that pako should never be eaten raw, but should always be blanched quickly. This should be the case even with the pakud/phakut being prepared along with other raw vegetables to be dipped in nam phrik.

[Robyn]

Thanks Richard -- yes, on a roll now but I've probably got a choke waiting for me around the corner. Will have to dig through my old gastronomicas to find that article. So -- the pako in the Philippines you are referring to are the coiled fiddleheads, or the ferns?

[boo_licious]

Maybe the only place to get them so big are near Frasers Hill or Cameron Highlands where there are lots of ferns growing? The ones I got from the farmers market in Section 17, PJ were tiny miserable ones.

[Robyn]

Thanks Boo ... will keep in mind. Maybe for a future road trip?

[RST]

The correct name is Athyrium esculentum.

The Winter 2003 issue of Gastronomica has the long article on Doreen as well as one of her pieces on Filipino cuisine.

The fiddleheads I had at Tina's were delicate little tips just slightly larger than a thumbnail. They were tightly-curled miniature croziers and not as baroque and wildly flaying as your flamboyant Balinese ferns. My understanding is that smaller is usually snappier and that tinier specimens are preferred for brighter/greener (+ less bitter/muted?) flavor. But then again I suspect that there are actually many very different species of ferns (with very different flavor/textural attributes) that have been lumped togther under the general heading of paku/pako/phakud.

[Ee]

hi.. do anyone know any medicinal benefit of this type of paku-pakis? anywhere to search for the info?
thanks

[Robyn]

Ee -- I googled "edible ferns medicinal qualities" and came up with this link:

http://www.anbg.gov.au/fern/ferns-man-ng.html#medicine

It's about medicinal uses for wild ferns in Papau New Guineau (conclusion seems to be that most 'benefits' are imagined rather than real). There were a few other links as well.

Hutton's "A Cook's Guide to Asian Vegetables" (Periplus Editions, 2004) has this to say about 'nutritional and medicinal properties' of fern tips: "...rich in beta-carotene, iron and phosphorus". That's it. They're also a great source of dietary fiber and carbos.

Hope that helps!

Good luck!

[Ee]

Thanks a lot robyn..