What’s in Season: Wild Fennel

Wild fennel is a culinary forager’s dream. Regrowing each spring, these perennial plants offer something special all year long as they mature through their life cycle. The tall, intensely aromatic plant, which resembles dill, is native to the Mediterranean region but has spread to temperate climates throughout the world, including California.

As the weather warms and the days lengthen, new green stalks, topped with fine, feathery fronds, start appearing along our roads and hillsides. In Southern France, where I first learned to gather and use wild fennel, people use the licorice-flavored fresh stalks and fronds to make a bed for grilling fish, and a baton or two is an essential ingredient for fish soup and bouillabaisse.

Come late summer, the wild fennel plants, now up to four feet tall or more, flower with clusters of tiny yellow flowers. Now is the time to gather the plant’s pollen, a delicate yet pronounced seasoning for all things fish. Still later, in fall the wild fennel continues to reward foragers, this time with the aromatic seeds that are a hallmark of Mediterranean cooking, from pastries to sausages.

One thing the wild plant does not provide is the thick, round bulbous vegetable we also know as fennel. This actually comes from a different plant. Also known as anise or Florence fennel, the vegetable is cultivated as an annual, typically ready to harvest in late spring and stretching through early fall. It has feathered stalks like its wild relative, but they are shorter and considerably milder, as is the vegetable. The versatile fennel bulb can be eaten raw or cooked. When cooked, its anise flavor mellows and becomes far less pronounced than when eaten raw.

This spring, when the roadsides are lined with wild fennel, think about cutting a few to use in fresh fish dishes, or to season a soup or sauce. A little later, gather a handful of pollen to scatter over scallops or across a salad. When fall comes and seeds form, cut a few seed heads and take them home. Allow them to dry, then shake the seeds loose into a paper bag. You’ll be surprised how aromatic they are.

For the cultivated fennel bulbs, use them raw in a slaw, or thinly slice them to combine with oranges and olives as a salad, dressed simply with olive oil. You could also make a fennel and potato gratin, or quarter them to braise with chicken or to roast with other vegetables.

Spring is the perfect season to embrace fennel in all its forms.