Fennel in a jar of water — so the stalks don’t wilt

A bunch of fennel is already home — and the hand pushes it into a bag in the drawer “until the weekend”. Easy: by Wednesday the stalks are limp, the smell has gone, the fronds like a rag. I stand the trimmed stalks in a jar of water — white in water, green in the air, like flowers by the hob, not in a bag swamp.

Fennel in a jar of water — so the stalks don’t wilt. Celery in the cold is another note; spring onions in a glass its own; parsley in a glass another story. Here it’s the fennel after the shop itself: water, air, a jar — not a lecture about “anise vegetable”.

I change the water when it clouds. If a stalk is already soft or smells wrong — bin, not “still into a salad”. A cut fennel bulb — into the cold, like a half. I’m not reviewing a new variety with a tasting in this note — it’s about the bunch that already sits on our table.

I don’t need fennel that sweats in a bag and then tastes bitter. I need a jar from which tomorrow’s salad still crunches. At yours does fennel stand in water — or already wilt in the drawer?