The naming of spices is clear in most cases, but there are many exceptions, perhaps many friends did not think that fennel as a spice that we are very familiar with, the specific spices that its name refers to, has also experienced a long period of confusion, and it is still not very clear in many places today.
Mention fennel, I believe many friends will naturally think of star anise, in fact, in history, star anise is not our native fennel, our original Chinese fennel is actually only what we now call cumin one, the original very clear name refers to, but after the emergence of star anise and artisanal chaos. The octagon landed in Guangzhou from the Maritime Silk Road around the Ming Dynasty and was introduced to China. Also around the time of the Ming Dynasty, fennel was introduced to the ningxia area of present-day Xinjiang through the overland Silk Road. Star anise and fennel are both foreign things, and the chaotic battle over the name of fennel begins.
When we first entered China, the star anise was called 'fennel', and after the name 'fennel' was introduced to the north, in order to distinguish the two, the people in the north called the original fennel 'northern fennel', and the star anise was called 'southern fennel'. After the introduction of onion to the Ningxia region of Xinjiang, because its shape is very similar to the original fennel, but slightly larger than our original fennel, the onion is called 'big fennel' in order to distinguish, and the smaller fennel produced locally is called 'cumin'. The name cumin also began to be associated with fennel.
The name of the fennel has been circulated, but into the south that is good at trade, the merchants at that time thought that the fennel refers to their more popular star anise, because the size of the star anise is indeed larger than the cumin, originally there was the name of 'star anise' as a distinction, but the Cantonese context and daily use habits, 'star anise' is more tongue-twisting, so the name of 'fennel' has gradually become popular. The two different fennels in the north and south have shared the name of fennel for a long time, and to this day there are still star anise called fennel. It is very interesting that in our Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau regions of China, because they are deeply influenced by the West, they also have a spice called 'big fennel', but the big fennel in their mouths is neither star anise nor artichoke, but kudzu, so many times we say that fennel is not the same thing as the big fennel in the mouths of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan masters.