Fiddleheads?

I found these up the hill behind my house. I saw an episode of Emeril and he was cooking fiddleheads. They looked like this. Anybody know if all ferns start like this?

Pretty much.

So how do you know which ones are good to eat?

The best strategy is during the growing season to find the locations where the species of ferns grow that you want to eat. Go to those locations in the following spring. Here is a link that you may find of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/08/travel/edible-ferns-of-new-england.html?pagewanted=1

Thanks for the link. Very interesting stuff.