By Joel Denker
Fennel was not on our dining table growing up. I knew vaguely of fennel seeds but nothing of the aromatic plant. You probably had to be of Greek or Italian extraction, not someone of Jewish-Yankee background, to be conversant with fennel. Much later, after moving to Washington, I noticed that fennel began appearing on the menus of sophisticated kitchens. I was perplexed by the vegetable’s unusual appearance and had little idea of how to use what food writer Mark Bittman dubbed “licorice celery.”
I began my fennel education at Viareggio’s, the now-shuttered Italian delicatessen, which occupied the space that had long housed Larimer’s, the venerable Connecticut Avenue grocery. I remember my reaction when proprietor Chris Niosi, whose father was Sicilian, offered me a slice of house salami. The wonderfully sweet fragrance of the fennel seeds in the meat balanced the strong spiciness of the pork. Chris introduced me to his fennel wares. The store sold fennel seeds and fennel honey as well as herb-laced snacks. Birellis, fennel bread sticks, were named for their resemblance to the pins used in an Italian game similar to bowling. Tarallis, cousin to birellis, were circular bread sticks redolent of fennel. On a back shelf, Chris showed me a can of fennel based sauce for preparing the classic Sicilian dish, pasta con le sarde. Imported from the island, it was a blend of raisins, pine nuts, olive oil, tomato sauce, sardines, and “young fennel” greens.
Fennel, I was to learn, was more than a fragrant herb or vegetable. Through the ages, it has been invested with awesome curative and invigorating power. Its aroma and flavor may have been so alluring that people could not resist imagining that the plant had an even greater potency.
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To learn more about fennel, see The Carrot Purple and Other Curious Stories of the Food We Eat, coming in October from Rowman & Littlefield: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442248861/The-Carrot-Purple-and-Other-Curious-Stories-of-the-Food-We-Eat.
