Food By Franz

What looks like a tall carrot, and produces fruits that smell like black licorice? The answer…. is a caraway plant. Caraway suffers from several misconceptions – first the name means different things in different languages. Another misconception is that the dried “fruit” of the caraway plant are called seeds. The “seeds” are technically crescent shaped achenes. It resembles cumin closely and is sometimes confused with cumin.

Culinary wise – caraway has been used to flavor a wide variety of things. First and foremost – think rye bread – the German’s couldn’t live without it. Commonly added to sauerkraut, it is also used to flavor curries. It is used in many cheeses, like harvarti, gamalost and pultost. In the UK it is used to flavor their popular “seedcake” for tea time – think pound cake served warm and buttered. It is also used to flavor a variety of liquors, Kummel, Akuavit and Schnapps. The roots are edible, resemble parsnips and may be cooked like carrots or parsnips. Caraway oil is used as a fragrance in lotions, soaps and perfumes.

Caraway is one of the oldest cultivated spices – there are records going back 3000 years. Buried with Egyptians to ward off evil, used by Greeks medicinally, the Romans used to make bread out of the roots. Currently it is cultivated in many area’s – Europe, Turkey, North Africa. The Dutch produce some of the finest caraway known.

Caraway seed

Interesting Facts.
Caraway tea made from the seeds has been used as a remedy for colic.
Caraway is generally used for digestive disorders, even used as a treatment for worms.
Caraway seeds were commonly chewed as a breath freshener.
Old herbal legends describe caraway’s power to keep things from getting lost or stolen.
Caraway was used in old love potions
Caraway is beloved by fowl, it was used to keep chickens and pigeons from going astray
The anise or black licorice flavor and aroma come from the essential oils the “seeds” contain – carvone and limonene.