Wild fennel is frequently used in Sicilian food to add a particular aniseed taste to many dishes. It can be cooked (see recipes for Pasta con le sarde and Ministra di finocchio e patate ) or added raw like any chopped herb, for example as in an olive or an octopus salad. The seeds are also used, for example scattered on bread before baking or to flavour marinades and preserves.
These photos of wild fennel were kindly sent to me by one of my readers who lives in Philadelphia.
She has travelled to Sicily several times and has also attended cooking classes there. She is aware about the differences in flavour between wild fennel and the bulb fennel. Since coming back from Sicily she has found a good source for wild fennel seeds and they are sprouting well in her North American garden in an apartment complex.
She writes:
The gentleman in the blue work suit is holding wild fennel. We picked lots of it. My understanding is that you never eat it raw and that the “frilly” part at the top has tons of flavor unlike the typical fennel I find here with the large bulb where the frilly part has almost no flavor at all.
I don’t think wild fennel has any bulb at all. It appears if anything, more like celery in that it is a simple stalk except with the frilly parts at the top.
m9cvn5863j
It has a tight many stalks bulbous shaped base.
I’m in the Philadelphia area…where can I get wild fennel/seeds? Has anyone ever used Bronze fennel?
My Dad is 100% Sicilian, he eats ate raw as a kid and until the wild fennel here in CA disappeared!!