Fennel Pollen

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

Fennel pollen is the carefully harvested pollen of the fennel plant. Fennel is a flowering plant species in the carrot family whose leaves, seeds and bulb are also used in the culinary arts and herbal medicine.  Fennel pollen is a super-premium aromatic because of the delicacy of harvesting it.

EXPERIENCE

Fennel pollen an aromatic porcelain-fragile aroma that is a rich, mildly anise-ish odor and a mellow toasted anise taste. The flavor comes from anethole, an aromatic compound also found in anise and star anise.

CULINARY GEOGRAPHY

Fennel is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean but has become widely naturalized in many parts of the world. It’s especially prosperous in dry soils near bodies of water like coasts and riverbanks.

TRADITIONAL USES

• A finishing topping for pastas with mild sauces, such as a lemon cream;
• An aromatic dusting for salads;
• Milk-based salad dressings;
• Herbal medical applications

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• Lavender-Fennel Pollen Dressing
• My Fennilla Bean Pudding will make you swear off Jell-O’s.
• A dusting on a roasted double-cut pork chop
• Finish for a cold tomato-paneer salad
• Poppin’ topping for butternut squash ravioli in a basic butter sauce
• Added to crushed pistachio nuts as a topping for ice cream

THE BACKSTORY

Longfellow‘s 1842 poem “The Goblet of Life” repeatedly refers to the plant and mentions its purported ability to strengthen eyesight:

Above the lower plants it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers;
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers
Lost vision to restore.

AKA

• Finocchio
• μάραθον (Marathon)

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