THE OTHER DAY I ate a known carcinogen—a juicy char-grilled burger.
Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is also known to contain carcinogens, specifically a substance called ptaquiloside. Never mind that bracken has been a food staple of Native Americans for centuries if not millennia, or that the Japanese also have a yen for this common fern and consider it a delicacy of spring. In fact, we might just call out these two populations on purpose, since studies have suggested their higher rates of intestinal cancer could be linked to bracken.
On the other hand, there are plenty who are suspicious of inconclusive studies and the advice of nutritionists. In his book Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants, Steve Brill says: “I wouldn’t be afraid of eating reasonable quantities of wild [bracken] fiddleheads during their short season.” And on his web site, Florida forager Green Deane says: “I think nearly everything causes cancer and I am willing to risk a few fiddleheads with butter once or twice a spring, which is about as often as I can collect enough in this warm place.”
Most of us have seen bracken before. It’s a hardy fern that sometimes covers acres of land. Generally it emerges later in spring than other fern species. Its fiddleheads—if they can be called that, since they hardly resemble the typical fiddlehead form of the ostrich or lady fern—are claw-shaped, like a hawk’s foot. Collect bracken when it’s still tightly coiled, about six to eight inches in length (the picture at right shows a specimen that is just slightly past its prime for the pot).
How I Cooked My Bracken
My friend Jon Rowley passed along these instructions from Seattle’s premier sushi chef, who serves bracken at his eponymous restaurant, Shiro’s.
Salt a pot of water generously and bring it to boil. Stir in the bracken, kill the heat, and allow the water to cool. This will take a little while. Next wash off the bracken under cool running water before serving. For my dish I gave the bracken an additional stir-fry with spring porcini mushrooms, a little ground pork, and splashes of sesame oil, soy sauce, and Chinese cooking wine.
As with verpas, my opinion is the danger is overblown. While I agree that it is probably not a good idea to eat large quantities on a regular basis, I doubt these are much of a safety risk for people who don’t have a sensitivity/allergy to them and don’t overindulge.
Most years I eat a few meals worth. I find the taste much more assertive than you described, with some bitterness, but I’d guess that might be due to a difference in preparation. (I parboiled, but didn’t let them sit in the water until it cooled.)
On a related note, a friend found some snowbank false morels (gyromitra gigas) this weekend. That’s another area of extreme controversy in the forager world, although David Arora gives them the thumbs-up as a safe edible. I doubt our friends in Eugene share this view. 😉
I’ve been privileged to come across a plate of deliciously butter-laden bracken just once in my life — and it was a delight. Each spring I vow to have the experience again… though fiddleheads seem more difficult to come by here than you might expect! So, no, I’m not too frightened. Everything in moderation, I say!
I’ve eaten them in Japan and a few times in PA, where they are the most prevalent plant in the surrounding woods. As you say, it’s a short season and I feel safe eating a limited quantity.
Personally I see no point in eating something like that unless I have to. 2-3 weeks without food and I am starving, fine, eat the ferns, but otherwise why take the risk however small. Just makes no sense to me.
With respect and regards, Le Loup.
I like the idea of wild foods, but in this case why not grow some kale in your garden and eat that. Good for you and much safer.
Bracken is eaten just about every day in South Korea. Deelish. It always cracked me up that I was eating something that sounded like it comes from the bottom of a swamp.. I’m quite confident that the intestinal cancer rates in S.Korea and Japan are much lower than in the US, probably due to lower rates of meat consumption and higher rates of wild food consumption! I had many an amazing meal of ‘mountain herbs’ while living there.
I absolutely love fiddleheads, but given the variety of ferns available in my area, I won’t eat the bracken. Too much cancer running in my family to risk it. I also wouldn’t want them growing near my well.
We posted our thoughts on this same subject on our blog. We came to a similar conclusion. http://foragingfamily.blogspot.com/2010/05/bracken-fern-cancer-and-precaution.html
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a couple months ago i took a bike ride to my secret bracken addled greenbelt on mercer island and every inch of that acre had been picked clean; every nook and cranny. makes me wonder if those fiddleheads I bought at Uwjamaia were bracken and not ladies like I assumed
John – Good to hear from you again. I thought this post might roust you out of your spiderhole. I’m not ready to take the Gyromitra Challenge yet!
Lo – My problem is the moderation part…
Ellen – That’s what’s so annoying about all this–bracken is common to the point of being considered a weed in some parts.
Le Loup – As mushroom hunters say, when in doubt, throw it out.
Anonymous – But then I couldn’t stir the pot.
Claire – Swamp-eaters unite!
Flandrumhill – Some controversy about the groundwater issue. Bottom line is we need more data.
Thag – Thanks, will check out your post.
Seth – Bummer. Not sure which variety they sell at Uwajimaya. Bracken fiddleheads aren’t scroll-shaped.
Lang – predictable this one would bring me out of the woodwork! Been a busy year and I haven’t been able to get as much foraging in as I’d like to. I’ll send an email with some morel info (mostly on more places they aren’t, ha!)
Thag – thanks for the link to your post, you did an excellent job of addressing the subject of risk factors in foraging. Great blog as well, I will be following it!
SO WHERE’D YOU GET THOSE SPRING PORCINI?
Thanks for this post. I’ve been thinking about whether or not to start eating bracken again…I grew up eating bracken by the handful every spring, raw and cooked, not at all in moderation, until my parents heard about the carcinogen angle and made us all stop. I miss that flavor.
So glad you posted this – I had swapped messages with Jon about bracken fern we’d had in Hawaii in March and was a little freaked about it. We didn’t prepare it in the way you’d (or he’d) suggested, mostly because we didn’t know how to prepare it – but maybe if we get another chance we’d try it this way instead. Great, great article though. I think people see this all the time and wonder if it’s edible like a fiddlehead.
I recall the flavour of bracken fern as something like a slightly bitter almond. It kind of freaked me out a bit because that’s the supposedly the flavour of cyanide and bracken have a bad reputation for being cancerous. But then I consider car exhaust, cellular radiation, deodorant, cigarettes, alcohol, plastic, scented candles, etc etc etc which I’m exposed to almost daily and think: if I’m spending a day out in the wilderness and eating bracken fern, I’m still probably avoiding many other forms of cancer by getting out of the city and not using deodorant. At that point, all my concerns about it melt away and I munch the fern happily.
Rather than taking a risk of stomach cancer, we should enjoy the non-toxic Matteuccia struthiopteris, which is a native of vermont and can be easily grown in the NW! Almost too easily, as it likes to take over, but grows very well in the dry shade.
I do eat fern shoots a lot and I guess I’m not going to worry about it. My wife is Korean and I don’t know any Koreans who don’t eat it. We stir fry the fern tendrils that we buy in the Korean market in packets of brine with other vegetables much the way one would cook snow peas or snap beans. When I hike in fiddlehead season I often put a little salt water in a plastic nalgene bottle and pick the shoots as I walk placing them in the bottle. Later, even days later, I can pull them out of the bottle and peel the hairs or tiny leaves off of them and heat them like beans in a pot over a fire with whatever else I have as flavoring. I’ve never worried much about the toxicity but then again I’m not a botanist or an expert of any kind. The only time I ever even thought about the toxins was on a recent 10 day hike in the Pasayten wilderness where there were so many shoots that I began to worry that maybe ten days of bracken might push me over the edge into some super toxic category of danger. Happily that was not the case or doesn’t appear to be yet…
Carcinogens are found EVERYWHERE. Hell, even celery has them! Sure, it’s just another reason not to eat the evil celery but that just goes to show you that you can’t avoid them all, even if you’re trying your hardest.
I think the issue Sherry is how much of the Carcinogens are present. As you say, certain vegitables that we eat today contain something, but generally not enough to be a threat.
Regards.
http://livinghistory.proforums.org/
Definitely wouldn’t eat it. Thankfully, there are currently plenty of things to eat, in the Western world, without resorting to bracken.
Countries like Korea and Japan, where people routinely eat bracken, have far higher rates of stomach cancer (http://www.aicr.org.uk/StomachCancerFAQs.stm), so one cannot help but suspect a link.
Given the choice, most (other) animals avoid eating it, too, unless they’re literally starving and have no other alternative; so I think that should really tell you something!
I grew up eating bracken, boiled, fried, steamed, dried etc.. and being Korean it was almost a requirement. Every spring my parents hauled us off (my 2 brothers and I) up into the Cascades to forage for Bracken by the buckets.. This wasn’t so bad, but it was the processing of the ferns that always got to me. Traditionally the Bracken are boiled first to remove the “hair”, then set out to dry to preserve them because of their short season. This way it can be enjoyed any time. It was just the smell of boiled and drying Bracken during the 4 days was a bit much. My mother still goes out every spring into the woods where they live to forage and sells what she doesn’t have room for since there’s a market out there for Bracken in the Asian community who don’t want to go do the work themselves!
same here. Korean ancestry and we eat bracken ferns fried with onions in soy sauce and sesame seed oil–yum. Bunch of junk about all the cancer stuff–especially when you compare longevity along with obesity rates…anyhow, was wondering if anyone knows if the ferns can be transplanted so I can grow them. My mom picked them late March or so each year but not sure where. Since losing her, I would like to continue to pick them but not sure where to look for them. Haven’t had much luck…so anyone has info on where to look and how to grow them my self, please share. I don’t have an URL or account so submitting as yet another anynomous.
I live in Eastern Washington and middle of May to end of May is the best time to find Fiddlehead ferns, all depending on the weather how cool or how hot the weather. My mom is korean and she and I would go Gosari picking when I was a kid. I just went out last week and found a load of it. Today is memorial day and my husband told me he knows of another patch…must go out before it is too late. I boil and dry my gosari so I can make it last until next May. Brings back memories.We used a gas burner turkey fryer tall pot of water and do the boiling outdoors. So as to not smell up the house.