finocchio means fennel in Italian

How do you say fennel in Italian?

Finocchio!

In Italy the bulb of the finocchio, fennel,  is eaten in delicious salads, and the green stems and leaves lend a lovely anisette aroma to dishes.  Semi di finocchio, fennel seeds, are also used in Italian cooking.

Il finocchio è croccante.
The fennel is crunchy.

Extra credit, make pronunciation fun:

Finocchio sounds just like the puppet, Pinocchio!

The first syllable of the word sounds like "fee"

The second syllable gets the emphasis and sounds like "NO"

The third syllable sounds like "key"
The fourth syllable sounds like "oh"

fee-NO-key-oh