Fennel
Fennel is the largest of the fragrant seeds of the parsley clan—bigger than its cousins cumin, caraway, and anise. Like anise it has a sweet licorice tang, but possesses a chemistry that holds up better when cooked. So that is the reason it features in apple pies and seed breads, and has been a favorite complement for fish, baked, poached, or broiled since antiquity.
Neat freak cooks have taken to using the seeds whole in preparations. But traditionally the seeds have been crushed immediately before using, to volatilize the oils in the sees.
There are actually a number of plants that bear the name fennel. In many a vacant yard “dog fennel” (Eupatorium capillifolium) sprouts frothy feather fan leaves. It is, however, a poisonous plant containing alkaloids that disrupt liver function in humans. The true fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a perennial herb Native to southern Europe. Italian farmers by centuries of seed selection created plants with swollen bulbs at the base of the stem. “Florence Fennel” or finocchio has become in the past half century a popular garden vegetable in North America, the bulb shaved and served in salads, or boiled, broiled, or braised.
Fennel loves the sun, and its yellow blossoms look decidedly sunny. It is the one plant in my garden upon which honey bees outnumber the native bumbles and wasps by substantial margins. I have never tasted the rare and reputedly sumptuous fennel honey.
During that era from 1950 to 1970 when tableside infernos were considered the height of food presentation in fine dining establishments, serving a whole roasted bass on flaming fennel stalks was considered drama. Less incendiary establishments toasted fennel seeds in Armagnac, lit the mixture and poured in on the sea bass.
Fennel came with the first European colonists to the Western Hemisphere. In Massachusetts Puritans chewed the seed as a breath freshener during Sunday meeting when one was packed in the pews with neighbors. It was called “meeting seed.” Fennel seed cookies were a nineteenth-century treat in Pennsylvania. For reasons that are not entirely clear it became associated with weight loss and was adopted as a diet food by flappers in the 1920s seeing a sleek moderne physique. Fennel seed tea? Supposed to be good for one’s eyes.