Caraway

Caraway is a biennial herb with feathery leaves and umbrellas of small white to pink flowers, closely related to carrot, parsley and cumin. The part sold as a seed is actually a tiny fruit, crescent-shaped and about three to five millimetres long, with five pale ridges running along a dark brown body.

The taste is warm and earthy with an anise-like sweetness and a hint of citrus and pine, which comes mainly from the compounds carvone and limonene. Caraway is sold whole, ground and as an essential oil. Because the whole fruit is usually used, the aroma releases best when it is lightly toasted or crushed just before cooking.

Caraway is native to Europe and western Asia and has long grown wild in meadows and roadsides across the temperate zone. It is one of the oldest cultivated spices of Europe, with seeds identified at ancient settlements, though precise dates of domestication are uncertain.

The English word probably descends from Medieval Latin carvi, which in turn goes back to Arabic karawiya, itself possibly based on the Greek karon. In Germany, Kummel is the word for both caraway and cumin, which causes frequent confusion; in Hindi the word for caraway is shahi jeera, meaning royal cumin.

Caraway was known to ancient Greek and Roman writers, and by the Middle Ages it was widely used in Europe both in the kitchen and as a folk remedy for digestion. Arab cooks adopted it early, and the Arabic name karawiya is the root of several European names. In medieval European cookery, caraway seed comfits, small sugar-coated seeds, were served at the end of feasts to aid digestion.

The spice is particularly associated with central and northern Europe. Rye breads in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and the Baltics, sauerkraut, cheeses such as Leyden and Havarti with caraway, sausages and goulash all draw on it. Spirits such as aquavit and the German Kummel liqueur are flavoured with it. In North Africa caraway is an essential ingredient of the spice paste harissa, especially in Tunisia.

Today the Netherlands, Egypt, Finland, Germany and Poland are important producers. The oil is extracted for use in flavourings and toothpastes, and for sprouting potato storage, where carvone is used to inhibit sprouting.

Caraway seeds flavour rye and other breads, cabbage and potato dishes, sauerkraut, stews, sausages and cheeses. They are a classic ingredient in Hungarian goulash, Austrian and German cuisine, and in Tunisian harissa and Moroccan spice mixtures. Seeds are used whole or lightly crushed, and sometimes toasted in a dry pan to bring out their aroma.

Caraway is a key flavouring in aquavit and Kummel liqueur. Caraway tea or water has been a traditional European remedy for gas and indigestion, and the oil is used in flavourings, mouthwashes and some herbal digestive preparations. The root, a pale parsnip-like vegetable, is also eaten in some regions.

Caraway has a long folk reputation for easing bloating and indigestion, and some small clinical studies, usually of caraway oil combined with peppermint oil, found improvement in functional dyspepsia. The evidence for caraway alone is more limited. The seeds provide fibre and small amounts of iron, calcium and other minerals, though culinary amounts are small.

Caraway can be enjoyed as a flavouring and a traditional aid after meals, but it is not a treatment for any condition.