{"id":8188,"date":"2016-05-13T05:09:21","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T05:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=8188"},"modified":"2016-05-13T05:09:21","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T05:09:21","slug":"spaghetti-with-garlic-chili-ramp-tomato-mint-fennel-pollen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/food.hoggardwagner.org\/?p=8188","title":{"rendered":"spaghetti with garlic, chili, ramp, tomato, mint, fennel pollen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spaghetti_ramp_etc\"<\/p>\n

What to say about this simple assemblage? It was improvised, and\u00a0almost anyone could have put it together. There was however, one exceptional ingredient, and it made\u00a0the dish itself exceptional.<\/p>\n

I was in Chelsea Market yesterday,\u00a0browsing the platforms and shelves of\u00a0Buon Italia<\/a>, one of my favorite food shops anywhere.\u00a0Counterintuitively, inside this emporium of Italian cookery I had\u00a0actually been looking, with\u00a0no\u00a0success, for mace, preferably\u00a0whole blade mace (it sounds like I know what I’m talking about, but that’s not altogether true).<\/p>\n

Then I spotted it<\/em>. The small plastic container was one of about a dozen arranged on a shelf some distance from all of the other dry herbs and spices, and the label read, in part, “Organic Wild Fennel Flowers”. I live in Manhattan, which would seem to make it as\u00a0likely as also impossible to come across it; in any event, I\u00a0had never expected to be able include this almost legendary ingredient in my modest home larder.<\/p>\n

It was pretty\u00a0pricey, but I bought one.<\/p>\n

I think it’s going to change my life.<\/p>\n

But first of all, I want to correct the misconception that this very precious herb can be described as fennel flowers. <\/em>What I brought home, in spite of the print\u00a0on the label, is\u00a0<\/em>fennel\u00a0pollen<\/em><\/a>, hand-collected in Italy from common wild fennel. \u00a0Second, I’m putting myself on notice right now, in the range of\u00a0anyone able to read\u00a0this post, that I will resist the temptation going forward of incorporating a pinch in every dish I put together.<\/p>\n

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