I must be honest here, I haven't even heard of fiddleheads until this year. I just saw everyone asking about them and saw them on The Organic Box when I was making more order and thought I would check them out.
A quick little bit of research lead me to find out they grow naturally in Canada. They are mostly found in Eastern Canada, hence why it seemed like all my friends originally from the east coast where the ones posting about them! My mother's side of the family is from Ontario and Prince Edwards Island so my mom helped me figure them out a bit.
If you google them quickly however, you may come across a few articles telling you to be careful cooking them because they can make you sick. Apparently you need to cook them thoroughly to cook off the toxins they have in them. Boiling for 15-20 minutes is needed before cooking them any further. (My mom suggested butter in a pan).
Soooooo... after I boiled them for actually like 25 minutes and cooked them in butter I was ready to try them. I was a bit scared. But I figured hey, they have to be pretty yummy in order to risk getting food poisoning right?
WRONG.
Okay they weren't bad actually, but I didn't think anything to special. Sort of a nutty taste. In my opinion probably not worth all the prep and worry. However, I imagine if you grew up eating them they probably taste pretty special. My mom seemed a bit nostaligic about them
Sooooo that's what the F$#% A Fiddlehead is.
If you're curious you can still get fiddleheads at The Organic Box. And you can use the code ORAGNICBUNCH20 to get $20 off your order of $50 or more. (so you can get lots of FREE Fiddleheads!)