A Love Letter to Fennel
The Sophia Loren of vegetables
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, everyone. Sending big hugs to you and yours. If you need some hope (don’t we all?), I recommend reading/listening to Heather Cox Richardson’s latest post, if you haven’t already.
I spent the weekend at home in Brooklyn with my mom, who visited from Massachusetts. We explored Chelsea galleries with Teo’s mom, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, ate steaming bowls of pho at Mắm, saw a riveting production of Sunset Boulevard on Broadway, and talked (and talked and talked). One-on-one time with a parent is a special thing, and I never take it for granted.
Today, I have another ingredient love letter for you, this time to one of my favorite vegetables: fennel! Keep reading for various thoughts on fennel, and loads of ideas for how to cook with it — as well as its seeds, one of my most-reached-for spices.
On Fennel
When I cooked at Hart’s, a small restaurant in Brooklyn, my friend Hayley, who worked front-of-house, would often stroll up to the pass during quieter moments of service to ask us questions — sometimes silly, sometimes serious. We usually needed a moment to mull over her questions, so we’d return to steaming clams and frying milanese, then answer her when she came back to the pass.
One of her sillier questions was: “If you were a vegetable, what would you be?” For some reason, it stuck. We discussed it at great length, and whenever we onboarded someone new, we’d ask them the same question. We pretended their answer held great significance, fancying ourselves experts at personifying produce.
As for my vegetable, I vaguely recall claiming fennel, but in retrospect, I disagree. I’ve determined that fennel is far too glamorous to be my spirit vegetable, and that an Italian movie star like Sophia Loren would be a much better match.
Hear me out: Fennel, like Sophia Loren, is statuesque, elegant, and always has the most fabulous hair. She (fennel) doesn’t cower in the corner, but stands tall with her voluminous, feathery fronds and bold licorice bite. When called upon to assume a different role, she does so seamlessly, from bright anise zing to soft sweet mellow. And of course she’s quintessentially Italian — as ubiquitous and beloved in Italy as an espresso. A salad of fennel, orange, and olives is a ticket to Sicily, while dipping a crisp wedge of fennel into hot bagna cauda transports you up north.
Are you with me?
Anyhow, before I came up with my Sophia Loren theory, and before I knew fennel as a gateway to Italy, I knew it best from a pasta recipe my parents would make. It was a simple, elegant pasta with braised fennel, sweet Italian sausage, and pecorino. I always liked the dish, but now that I know how to cook, I have a new appreciation for the recipe and the way it embraces fennel in different forms — four, to be exact. Braised fennel, ground fennel seeds, sweet Italian sausage (flavored with fennel seeds), and fennel fronds. One, two, three, four.
Braised fennel is almost its own vegetable — soft and yielding, with a caramelized sweetness. Ground fennel seeds bring the sharp, licorice-like flavor of raw fennel. Sweet Italian sausage has the same assertive fennel seed taste, but it’s tempered by the richness of the pork. And the fennel fronds, thrown in at the end with some fresh parsley, are delicate, with a subtle anise flavor.
You see, fennel is many vegetables in one (dare I compare it to the many faces of an actress?). Really, I could write an essay about each of its forms. Instead, I’ll share a list of ideas for cooking with fennel, along with another for fennel seeds.
Lest you think I forgot the fronds, let me tell you that if I had to choose the most precious form of fennel, that would be it. Fennel fronds are so often hacked off the bulb before reaching American grocery stores that when I get my hands on a bulb of fennel with abundant fronds, I consider myself a lucky woman.
While living in Rome two years back, my Roman friend Giorgia commissioned a menu from me for a charity dinner she was cooking. On the menu, I drew a fennel frond in my signature skinny black pen, and later, to my delight, Giorgia got the image tattooed on her back. I’m biased, but it’s a beautiful tattoo. Light, feathery permanence.
I love the idea that she carries a fennel frond with her wherever she goes.
As for my current answer to Hayley’s question? I think I might be an artichoke. You?
These ingredient love letters are fun (and challenging!) to write. I start with an empty page, and am always unsure at the beginning of how I’ll conjure enough associations to the ingredient to fill the blank space. But then I gradually discover old memories and new, unexpected connections, and bit by bit, something emerges.
Thank you for reading The Dish, you beautiful people! More from me soon.
x Phoebe
What a sweet ode to fennel! I love to roast slices of fennel and carrots together (the flavors pair well) and toss with a lemon-fennel seed-pistachio dukkah post-roast. Yum!
Love this. Fennel is glamorous isn’t it. I’d never thought about it 🙆♀️