Anise

Pimpinella anisum is a delicate annual herb up to about 60 cm tall, with feathery upper leaves, broader lower leaves and flat umbels of small white flowers. The seeds are small, grey-green to light brown, oval and ridged, about 3 to 5 mm long, covered in fine hairs, and are botanically dry fruits that split into two halves.

They smell and taste sweet and warm with a clear liquorice character, thanks to the compound anethole. Anise is sold whole, as ground powder, as essential oil and as flavouring extract. Whole seeds are chewed after meals in many countries and are cooked into biscuits, breads, liqueurs and sweets.

Anise is native to the eastern Mediterranean region and western Asia, including Egypt and the Levant, and has been cultivated for millennia. It is now grown widely in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Mexico and parts of Europe and South America, thriving in warm, sunny places with light soils.

The English word comes from Greek anison through Latin anisum and Old French anis. Star anise, a different plant in a different family, shares the flavour compound anethole and a similar name, but is not related.

Anise was grown in ancient Egypt and mentioned in Egyptian records and in Greek and Roman writing. Romans served anise-spiced cakes, mustaceum, at the end of feasts to aid digestion, a custom that may be an early ancestor of wedding cakes. Pliny and other Roman writers praised anise for freshening breath and settling the stomach.

In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne is said to have encouraged the cultivation of anise in his estates, and the seed spread across central and northern Europe, where it flavoured breads, cakes and sweets. In Britain it was one of the spices of the medieval trade, and seeds were sugar-coated as comfits.

Distillers developed a family of anise-flavoured spirits: Greek ouzo, Turkish raki, Levantine arak, French pastis and anisette, Italian sambuca and Spanish anís, which are often cloudy when mixed with water because anethole is not very soluble. Anise remains a major flavour in confectionery, including liquorice sweets, and is still grown in the Mediterranean and Mexico, where it features in baking and festive drinks.

Whole or ground anise is baked into biscuits, breads, cakes, pretzels and festival sweets, such as Italian pizzelle and many European festive biscuits. It is used in sausages, curries and spice blends, brewed as a digestive tea, and chewed as a breath freshener in India and elsewhere. The spirits ouzo, arak, raki, sambuca and pastis are all anise-flavoured.

In traditional medicine, anise is a carminative and expectorant, and its essential oil is used in cough drops, toothpaste, and in perfumery.

Anise seed contains anethole and other volatile oils that give it carminative and mild antispasmodic effects in traditional use, and small trials have examined anise for digestion, menopausal symptoms and cough, with generally low-quality evidence. As a seasoning in food amounts, it is a pleasant source of flavour, with the nutrition figures above applying only to rather large servings that are seldom eaten.