How to forage for wild fennel seeds Follow cookbook author Rosetta Costantino's harvesting tips for a unique treat

A bee alights on the flower of a wild fennel plant in Oakland. Wild fennel is considered an invasive plant, and foraging can help keep the species under control. A bee alights on the flower of a wild fennel plant in Oakland. Wild fennel is considered an invasive plant, and foraging can help keep the species under control. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close How to forage for wild fennel seeds 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

If you think of fennel just as that big white bulb you buy at the store or at the farmers' market, it's time to try a new gustatory delight: wild fennel. It is the rogue version of the cultivated variety, a.k.a. Foeniculum vulgare, and it's found all over the Bay Area. It has a big, tough root rather than a bulb; instead, you clip the fronds and harvest the seeds. But the naturalized fennel also has an intense licorice flavor that the domesticated plant lacks. And by foraging it, you will be helping to keep an invasive species in check.

In Italian cuisine, the feathery fronds of finocchietto (as opposed to the bulbs of finocchio) appear in pasta sauces, soups and fritters, and its seeds are used as a robust flavoring.

"Nobody in Italy buys fennel seeds, they forage them," says Rosetta Costantino, Oakland author of the cookbook "My Calabria" (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). Growing up in Calabria, the southern "toe" of the boot-shaped Italian peninsula, Costantino remembers her parents harvesting wild fennel seeds in the summertime.

"The flowers are like open parasols, and they would clip them off while the seeds were still green," she recalls. The seeds go into jars of pickled eggplant, wild mushrooms and olives, and also play a prominent role in fresh and cured Calabrian sausage. Extreme foragers may want to try their hand at harvesting wild fennel pollen, a delicate golden powder with a licorice tang that can be used in all sorts of gourmet preparations. Bill Corbett, the pastry chef at Absinthe, has created a pound cake dusted with wild fennel pollen (go to the Eat the Invaders website, www.eattheinvaders.org, for the recipe).

Because the drought is causing plants to bolt earlier than usual, wild fennel has been flowering for the past month, but there should still be time to gather pollen. The seeds should be ready for harvesting later this month and through August. To try the tender green fronds, spring is the best time; but in the summer, you can also find fronds from plants that have been cut back.