First, a friend arrived back from Halifax, Nova Scotia, bearing unfamiliar vegetables. "Taste like asparagus," he said. But what were they called? He said something like fiddlehead ferns. And, indeed, they were the tops of a kind of fern, like a crook, or, as he put it, the handle end of a fiddle. (You may see bracken looking similar in its earliest days. Don't touch.) These are, apparently, popular and safe and Halifax supermarkets had piles of them. They tasted like fresh vegetables, not indeed unlike asparagus.
Interesting that Halifax, though on the same latitude as Bordeaux in Europe, is well behind in flower and other growth. Daffodils and tulips were just beginning to flower at the end of May.
The other unusual edible was pig nut, conopodium majus, a local. You find its small white flower often among the wild parsley. Its blossom is similarly white, but very small. It stands at only about a foot or 15 inches high. And you have to dig for it. You hear or read of people pulling it but of the ground. In this dry weather a spade was needed. And, sure enough, underneath this thin plant, with sparse, thready foliage rather than leaves, was a warty thing about the size of a small walnut.
You need to wash it and peel it, and it tastes just like a hazelnut. It is officially described as a tuber. Other names for it are cat nut and ground chestnut familiar names, that is, not official. A long time ago when a question was asked here if truffles had not been found in the southern counties, a man from the West said he and his friends used to pull them up on the way to and from school. Probably these were pig nuts. Be careful rooting in the ditches; some of these lovely white flowered plants are dangerous to eat, we are told in the books.
PS: A late fax from Halifax says that the fiddleheads are the curled form of the ostrich fern, found in marshy ground in early spring. They are quickfrozen and available the year round. "Be sure to remove the paper outer layer and wash the fiddleheads well." And, from this column: don't experiment with Irish ferns.