Pasta with Fresh Fennel and Sardines

This dish sums up what is best and most interesting in the cooking of Sicily. Sardines and wild fennel, typical foods of the ancient Romans, are softened with raisins and toasted pine nuts to dress the most contemporary of Italian foods, pasta. The dish is subtle, playing the soft, saline Mediterranean sardines against the pungent fennel from the mountains. Like most pasta dishes with fish, this does not get topped with cheese.