they are cooking do not stir them
or let them stop gently boiling or
they will never get soft. They will
take about 6 hours to cook; an
earthenware or enamelled cast-iron
pot of chick peas can be left
simmering overnight in the slow
oven of a solid-fuel cooker.
FENNEL
This is the Florentine, or sweet
fennel, much cultivated in southern
Europe for its thick and fleshy leaf
stalks, as distinct from the common
fennel, which will spread like a
weed in any English garden, and of
which only the delicate little leaves