Orange Fennel Crunchy Salad

As the famous quote goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single fennel bulb.

For far too long, I lived my life without fennel. I was poorer for it. When fennel was introduced, a whole world opened up. I’ve already done an ode to oranges here and here so now, before we turn to the orange fennel crunchtime salad, it’s fennel’s turn.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, excerpt The Goblet of Life (Poem in the Public Domain)

Greek fennel facts

• the Greeks and Romans used it as medicine, food and insect repellent
• the Greek name for fennel is marathon, or marathos. Fennel grew in the fields of the Marathon plain, the site of the Battle of Marathon between the Greeks and the Persians 490BCE, and was the place from which Pheidippides set out to run 40 kilometres to Athens to deliver the news of victory for the Greeks, before he died of exhaustion
• Proving that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single fennel bulb
• I HAVE DRIVEN THROUGH MARATHON!

More fennel facts

• botanical name: Foeniculum vulgare.
• like carrot and celery, part of the Apiaceae family
• eat its shoots, leaves and seeds
• fennel is part of the Nine Herbs Charm, recorded in “The Lacnunga (Remedies)” manuscript, a 10th-11th Century collection of 200 remedies and prayers. The Nine Herbs Charm is a Pagan and Christian incantation (they weren’t taking chances, invoking both Christ and Woden) which addresses the herbs and includes a recipe for a medicinal salve. You sang the charm three times over the herbs, then into the mouth, ears and wound of the patient, and then applied the salve.

Fille and Finule, felamihtigu twá,
þá wyrte gesceop witig drihten,
hálig on heofonum, þá hé hóngode;

Chervil and Fennel, most mighty two,
those worts were shaped by the witty Drighten,
holy in the heavens, where he hung

-Nine Herbs charm, link