FENNEL: DESCRIPTION AND USING
Garden, or sweet fennel, is a perennial, a tall rampant-growing plant some 3 to 4 feet in height. It closely resembles dill in appearance, and the two should never be sown close together; they will cross-pollinate and their flavours intermingle and deteriorate. Fennel is best planted on its own, in calcium-rich soil, away from the formal herb beds, in a spot where its gangling leggy growth will not overpower other plants, and with space all around it, not cramped by shrubs or trees. It thrives best in rather rocky, sandy soils, being undemanding of extra feeding. Overfeeding can make the herb more susceptible to aphis attack, and to young snails, which find shelter in the leaf stem junctions. Plentiful water in the early stages is essential. After this period, ordinary watering should suffice. The plant may need staking or tying if exposed to strong winds.
Harvest the seeds when they turn from green and plump to brown and dry, and save them for pickles, chutneys and flavouring borsch soup. You can also do as our grandparents did; chew fennel seed to allay hunger pangs. The seeds were often carried to church and prayer-meetings; and when little Willie’s stomach started to rumble during the sermon, fennel seeds were an unobtrusive way of damping down his need for Sunday dinner. So gain a twofold benefit from fennel: if you want to slim, chew some of the seeds not with but instead of lunch.
Leaves of fennel are sometimes placed on the bottom of the pan when baking bread in Italy. A few seeds sprinkled on the top of pastries or bread rolls before cooking give a delicate aniseed flavour and a delectable aroma.
A traditional recipe for fennel is to use it with any oily fish, as in the following recipe. Fennel grows naturally near the seashore round the Mediterranean, once again showing Nature’s provision for counteracting the disadvantages of one food by ensuring its opposite or complementary ingredient is near by.
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