note (from the terpene limonene) that’s
especially prominent in the sparse foliage.
Fennel is eaten both raw, thinly sliced and
crunchy, and cooked, often braised or in a
gratin.
Asparagus Aromatics
Not only can people differ in their ability
to detect the product of asparagus
metabolism, those who can detect it differ
in their assessment.
[Asparagus] cause a filthy and disagreeable
smell in the urine, as everybody knows.
— Louis Lemery, Treatise of All Sorts of
Foods, 1702
...all night long after a dinner at which
I had partaken of [asparagus], they played
(lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the
fairies in Shakespeare’s Dream) at
transforming my chamber pot into a vase
of aromatic perfume.