66 A GARDEN OF HERBS 



" Above the lowly 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. 

 It gave new strength and fearless mood ; 

 And gladiators, fierce and rude. 

 Mingled it in their daily food ; 

 And he who battled and subdued, 



A wreath of fennel wore." 



Longfellow, The Goblet of Life* 



We only use fennel in fennel sauce, and that far too 

 seldom, for it is a most wholesome herb. In the Middle 

 Ages the poor folk used it not only to relieve the pangs of 

 hunger, but also to make unsavoury food palatable. It 

 was also used in large quantities in the households of the 

 rich, and Miss Amherst points out that from the Wardrobe 

 Accounts of Edward I's household, it may be seen that 

 eight and a half pounds of fennel were brought for one month's 

 supply. Finnochio is a popular Italian dish, and this sweet 

 fennel is now becoming more common in English gardens. 

 Fennel has always been renowned for its power of restoring 

 the eyesight since Pliny's days, and one herbalist tells us, 

 " A serpent doth so hate the ashtree that she will not come 

 nigh the shadow of it, but she delights in fennel very much, 

 which she eates to cleare her eyesight." Formerly, the 

 seeds used to be coated with sugar and eaten like Coriander 

 seeds. The young stalks were peeled and used like celery, 

 and the tender tufts and leaves were an ingredient in. Salads. 



FENNEL can be raised either by sowing the seed in the 

 spring, or by dividing the roots at any time excepting when 

 the plant is in flower. 



FOR TO MAKE ONE SLENDER. Take fennel and seethe it 

 in water, a very good quantity, and wring out the juice 

 thereof when it is sod, and drink it first and last, and it shall 

 swage either him or her. T. Dawson, The Good Housewife's 

 Jewell, 1585. 



A SALLET OF FENNEL. Take young Fennel about a span 



