Crisp Fiddlehead Pickles

foragerchef.co...
Fiddlehead pickles can be good-I used to serve them throughout the summer on a relish tray at my first restaurant. If you don't have a walk in cooler though, you can't cold-pickle them to keep them crisp. Water bath canning, just like ramps, will make them mushy, so I use the same trick here.
This recipe is for ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris). You can probably do it with lady ferns (Athyrium filix-femina) too, but I wouldn't do it with bracken fern.
You can flavor your pickles any way you like. I have two different recipes I use depending on what I'll use them for: one with salt only and herbs, and a sweet and sour bread and butter version that I demo here. Both recipes are linked in the comments.
If you're new to them, I'd try the bread and butters first. The spice blend and proportions I use here were given to me by my old sous chef who worked for an acolyte to the grand master of Southern Cooking: Chef Paul Prudhomme- one of the first and biggest celebrity chefs to come out of Louisiana.