For hay fever sufferers, pollen is generally a bad thing, bringing on sneezing, coughing and runny noses.
To cooks, though, certain types of pollen are an intensely flavoured ingredient. Bee pollen is touted as a super-food but, when it comes to cooking, the pollen found in the flower of the fennel plant is far more useful.
Fennel pollen is a yellow powder that's very expensive: you need a lot of flowers to harvest just a small amount. A little goes a long way when seasoning a dish, however, and the sweet, fennely flavour is a great accompaniment to pork, chicken, seafood and vegetables.
Cooks use the pollen in spice blends (for a simple one: mix with salt and sprinkle over dishes at the last minute). The powder is an essential ingredient in the roasted pork dish known as porchetta. In Italy, this is often made with a whole pig, but home cooks can use a large piece of skin-on pork belly.
Combine plenty of chopped garlic with salt, pepper, fennel pollen, finely grated lemon zest, olive oil and chopped fresh herbs such as rosemary and oregano. Rub the mixture over the flesh of the pork belly then roll the meat and refrigerate for several hours (a day is better) so the seasonings have time to penetrate. Roast the pork belly so the skin is crisp and crackling, then slice. Porchetta makes a delicious sandwich filling - be sure to dip the bread into the delicious pork drippings before adding the meat.
If you don't mind harvesting your own, you can buy fennel plants inexpensively at the Prince Edward flower market, where they are used as "filler" in bouquets. But make sure they are free of pesticides.