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I LOVE fennel, always. i buy it just to snack on raw.

I think your husband has a strong case. Most Americans I've met are disgusted by fennel/anise/licorice in virtually any incarnation. I had to deliberately train myself to accept it, and I'm now very fond of fennel seed.

I can do very thinly sliced raw fennel and like it. My husband juiced some the other day, though, and i don't think anything has ever even remotely revolted me so instantaneously and dramatically as that juice.

I tried cooked fennel, not crazy about it.

With raw fennel, and with pastis, I enjoy the first few tastes of it (so refreshing) but get fatigued toward the middle/last 1/3, and by the end I start to resent it.

I never met anyone who genuinely liked licorice, and if something is described as such, everyone I know makes an icky face and dismisses the thought.

Hated as it is, though,, fennel or its cousins appear in some of my fennel-averse family and friends' favorite foods: Italian sausage, and ]I believe] root beer and Dr. Pepper.

I don't mind fennel seed, particularly in sausage, or fennel bulb. I do hate licorice candy - I think it is levels of intensity (don't like ouzo either). If fennel were the only flavor in a dish then I would probably avoid it.

More to answer your question - my husband likes basically ALL food. And he loves meat beyond almost anything else (chocolate wins). Once in a brunch place he tried my turkey sausage which had quite a bit of fennel seed in it and didn't like it. I think he got scared. It can be very strong, I agree that fennel disclosure on menus would be nice.

I love love love fennel, but licorice (or ouzo, or sambuca) absolutely repulses me. I guess the licorice-like taste is subtle and refreshing in fennel, but overpowering and oppressive in candy.

mmm fennel ravioli...

I'm with your husband - I hate fennel, anise, and licorice. Let me revise that - I can tolerate small doses of thinly sliced fennel, but nothing beyond that. Keep the Sambuca away from me, please.

@frederika - I grow tons of herbs too, but the tarragon is like mint - takes over! I grow them where my tractor won't fit and they choke out the weeds - haha. I've never grown fennel though. I love cooking with tarragon, but sprinkled raw it does retain more of a licorice flavor. Will he eat it that way?

Basil, oh how I miss thee! Soon, soon, soon, soon..............

I'm with him- I love so many foods but fennel is yucky. Some thinly sliced braised fennel is the most I can do. I hate tarragon.

@Perky - I totally had the same situation with the Russian tarragon. It has these runners that really want to go in your neighbor's yard. It has no flavor, anyway and it's mostly ornamental. Fortunately, they are really easy to pull up (not my experience so much with mint - but I've licked that problem!). It's the French tarragon that I love so much and is quite tempermental. I always plant it in pots and bring them in the garage before winter. A plant seems to only last me two years, but the one from summer '07 has it's buds all set for this spring. Any time now!!!!

I use tarragon in sauces, mostly. It's a must for hollandaise on eggs benedict, but it must be sparingly. Before it goes down for the count in the fall, I usually cut a bunch and dehydrate it in the microwave so I have enough for the looooong winter here. It isn't the most recommended method for drying herbs since a lot of the essentail oils are lost in the process, but for our purposes it works well enough and the potency is somewhat subdued for the SO.

BTW, Perky, do you have Japanese beetles where you live? I never had more than a few in OH, but in MI this past summer the buggers dined quite well on my basil crop. They wanted to decimate it! I think I need to raise my basil in a greenhouse! They got more of it than we did.

Hate anise. Hate fennel, unless it's very, very mild, then it's barely tolerable. Hate licorice. Tarragon is usually okay in small quantities.

I really like anise-like flavors in savory foods, like Italian sausage, or meats braised with star anise. I never seemed to care for it in candy, such as licorice, and other sweets.

I like fennel seed. But try as I might, I can't tolerate fresh fennel. It seems to overwhelm the flavor of everything else on the plate.

Oh yeah, and I forgot about the star anise and Pernod aversions, also. And Chinese 5 spice!
I'll never forget the road trip when I had a bag of jelly bellies to munch on. I wasn't paying attention and popped a black one in my mouth. We had to open the windows and stop for gas to air the car out. I felt so mean.

@Perky - that is what I did at the new house last year. We just moved in the spring and were landscaping until Nov. I took my mint out of the terra cotta pot on the porch and transferred it to a big plastic one and sunk it in the ground in the herb garden in Oct. That has worked for me pretty well before.

Fennel is one of those things like cilantro - you either love it or hate it, there's rarely a middle ground.

I am Italian and we had it after every holiday meal, served with the fruit and nuts, as a digestive aid. Later in life, I discovered that some people actually cook fennel! Wow! That was a revelation. I now make it baked with cheese in a type of gratin dish, and I like to mix it with other veggies but the truth be told, it's an overpowering flavor.

I think Frederika may be on to something; liquorice is very popular in northern Europe, and most Americans I know dislike it, apart from, perhaps the red stuff, which isn't liquorice anyway (they're plastic cherry or strawberry flavour, and liquorice isn't a colour/texture, but a flavour). Although my mother, who never cared much for sweets at all, always liked liquorice as a child.

I've always liked liquorice very much (although I'm not always up for salmiak), and fennel and anise, too, although I really don't like fennel in sausage. The combination seems wrong, and it smells like a wet dog, to me.

i like fennel both raw and cooked, albeit in small amounts, and i adore fennel seeds in sausage and on bread. i have never cared for licorice.

i'd guess that your husband's strong aversion is an allergy or sensitivity.

cybercita, I think it could be plain loathing, even without a sensitivity or allergy... I cannot stand cooked eggs in any form (scrambled eggs can make me sick on the spot), but can swallow a raw one without flinching (but seldom do, what with salmonella running rampant).

I am beyond addicted to fresh, delicious raw fennel. I think it all staretd with cravings for celery - which I was never a huge fan of before. For a few months I couldn't get enough af fresh celery every day. Then one day I picked up some fennel instead, and now that's all I want. I now go through 2-3 bulbs a week, and I stalk the poor produce people at the supermarket. I seriously know what day they restock fennel on, and I get seriously perturbed if their is none or it is in bad shape when I visit. I really hope it doesn't go out of season b/c I don't know what I will do. I have heard that there is some compound in fennel that can give a euphoric effect, but not sure ifthere is any truth to that? I do really feel addicted.

BTW, Hubby won't even try it, not that he has a specific aversion to it. More for me! I just love the fresh juicy taste.