Caraway
Caraway (Carum carvi) is cultivated throughout most of Europe and is native to Europe and Asia. The plant is biennial, ranges up to 1m in height and has a thick tuberous rootstock.
The fruits (commonly referred to as seeds) are about 3–6mm long, ridged, and have a pungent, slightly minty aroma that resembles a mix of anise and cumin with a slightly bitter taste. A slight citrus note is also characteristic. Caraway seeds have been mainly used as a condiment for flavouring food preparations, in certain savoury dishes, in desserts and as an addition to breads. The roots can be used as a vegetable in a similar way to carrot or parsnip.Caraway was grown on Sumerian field margins in the Ur III period (c. 2300 BCE).48 Caraway, like anise, appears on the Ebers Papyrus and was part of several dubious remedies for ailments including constipation, indigestion, smarting in the anus (used as a suppository with antelope fat), trembling in the fingers, ear discharge, disease of the tongue, and growth in the neck. The spice was well known to the ancient Egyptians: as well as its use as a medicine and a food, it was believed to ward off evil spirits. Archaeobotanical remains recovered from the Urartian site of Ayanis in eastern Turkey (from 685–645 BCE) included caraway fruits (as well as coriander and parsley).49 It was also very familiar to the ancient Greeks, and Dioscorides described caraway as quite commonplace, good for the stomach and pleasant tasting, with similarities to anise.50
Pliny mentioned that caraway was principally employed for culinary purposes (rather than as a medicine). He maintained that the most esteemed variety came from Caria, a region of western Anatolia, and that the name ‘careum’ was derived from this region in which it was first grown.51
Caraway was found in a sackcloth bag from excavations in Roman Colchester from the area of Boudican destruction.52 Seeds were also found from excavations in the Roman settlement at Oedenburg/Biesheim-Kunheim on the west side of the Rhine, from both the first and second century CE.53 Caraway occurrences in Roman times are rather limited and localised, mainly being found in modern-day Germany.54 However, it is listed in Apicius’ De Re Coquinaria in numerous recipes, mainly in sauces for birds, boiled and roast meats, wild boar, venison, suckling pig, shellfish, cuttlefish, redfish, moray eel and other fish.55
Caraway is well represented in recipes from a thirteenth-century anonymous Andalusian cookbook but is surprisingly rare in English medieval records.56 In a review of 217 English recipes from the late thirteenth century to late fifteenth century, caraway only appears three times.57 In a 2012 study it is even less common, occurring in only one of 1,377 recipes.58 It features in The Forme of Cury in a recipe for Cormarye (pork loin in red wine sauce), alongside coriander and pepper.59
Caraway is referred to in the fifteenth century in John Russell’s Boke of Nurture as part of a dessert (with apples):
Afftur this, delicatis mo.
Blaunderelle, or pepyns, with carawey in confite, Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.60
In Henry IV Part 2, Shallow invites Falstaff to try his pippin apples with a dish of caraway seeds.61 There seems to be a tradition for eating caraway with roast apples, apparently still continued at Trinity College, Cambridge.
The seventeenth-century herbalist and apothecary John Parkinson wrote about caraway in his Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris:The rootes of Carawayes may be eaten as Carrots, and by reason of the spicie taste doth warme and comfort a cold weake stomacke … the seede is much used to bee put among baked fruit, or into bread, cakes, &c. to give them a relish … It is also made into Comfits [seeds coated in sugar].62
In the eighteenth century, Hannah Glasse provided several recipes using caraway, mainly cakes, including one for ‘carraway cakes’.63 Traditionally seed cake was baked by farmers’ wives to celebrate the end of grain sowing and given to the farm labourers.
It has long been popular in various folk medicines, e.g. it was an old Romany custom to chew caraway seeds to help digestion.64 S. K. Malhotra provides an extensive list of caraway preparations and their application in medicine.65
Caraway seeds are commonly added to rye breads and cheeses in Germany and Holland, to flavour cabbage, sauerkraut, soups and sauces, and are used to flavour the liqueur kümmel and the Scandinavian spirit aquavit. The seeds are often served in a small dish to accompany Munster cheese, but in fact the seeds are a great combination with many cheeses.
The largest producer is the Netherlands, though caraway is cultivated in many countries. Caraway is frequently confused with cumin and has the informal names of vilayati jeer (Hindi), cumin de pres (France), German cumin, Persian cumin and others.66
Black caraway, while also a member of the same genus, is a different species, Carum bulbocastanum. However, it is often confused with Nigella sativa, or caraway. It is a temperate perennial native to Europe and the Himalayan region. The seeds are used widely in North Indian cuisine.