FRUCTUS CARUI.
Semen Carui vel Carvi; Caraway Fruits, Caraway Seeds, Caraways; F. Fruits ou Semences de Carvi; G. Kümmel.
Botanical Origin—Carum Carvi L., an erect annual or biennial plant not unlike a carrot, growing in meadows and moist grassy land over the northern and midland parts of Europe and Asia, but to what extent truly wild cannot be always ascertained.
It is much cultivated in Iceland, and is also apparently wild.[1159] It grows throughout Scandinavia, in Finland, Arctic, Central, and Southern Russia, Persia, and in Siberia. It appears as a wild plant in many parts of Britain (Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), but is also cultivated in fields, and may not be strictly indigenous. The caraway is found throughout the eastern part of France, in the Pyrenees, Spain, Central Europe, Armenia, and the Caucasian provinces; and it grows wild largely in the high alpine region of Lahul, in the Western Himalaya.[1160]
But the most curious fact in the distribution of Carum Carvi is its occurrence in Morocco, where it is largely cultivated about El Araiche, and round the city of Morocco.[1161] The plant differs somewhat from that of Europe; it is an annual with a single erect stem, 4 feet high. Its foliage is more divided, and its flowers larger, with shorter styles and on more spreading umbels than the common caraway, and its fruit is more elongated.[1162]
History—The opinion that this plant is the Κάρος of Dioscorides, and that, as Pliny states, it derived its name from Caria (where it has never been met with in modern times) has very reasonably been doubted.[1163]
Caraway fruits were known to the Arabians, who called them Karawya, a name they still bear in the East, and the original of our words caraway and carui, as well as of the Spanish alcarahueya. In the description of Morocco by Edrisi,[1164] 12th century, it is stated that the inhabitants of Sidjilmâsa (the south-eastern province) cultivate cotton, cumin, caraway, henna (Lawsonia alba Lamarck). In the Arab writings quoted by Ibn Baytar,[1165] himself a Mauro-Spaniard of the 13th century, caraway is compared to cumin and anise. The spice probably came into use about this period. It is not noticed by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville in the 7th century, though he mentions fennel, dill, coriander, anise, and parsley; nor is it named by St. Hildegard in Germany in the 12th century. Neither have we found any reference to it in the Anglo-Saxon Herbarium of Apuleius, written circa a.d. 1050,[1166] or in other works of the same period, though cumin, anise, fennel, and dill are all mentioned.
On the other hand, in two German medicine-books of the 12th and 13th centuries[1167] there occurs the word Cumich, which is still the popular name of caraway, in Southern Germany; and Cumin is also mentioned. In the same period the seeds appear to have been used by the Welsh physicians of Myddvai.[1168] Caraway was certainly in use in England at the close of the 14th century, as it figures with coriander, pepper and garlick in the Form of Cury, a roll of ancient English cookery compiled by the master-cooks of Richard II. about a.d. 1390.
The oriental names of caraway show that as a spice it is not a production of the East:—thus we find it termed Roman (i.e. European), Armenian, mountain, or foreign Cumin; Persian or Andalusian Caraway; or foreign Anise. And though it is now sold in the Indian bazaars, its name does not occur in the earlier lists of Indian spices.
Cultivation[1169]—In England, the caraway is cultivated exclusively in Kent and Essex, on clay lands. It was formerly sown mixed with coriander and teazel seed, but now with the former only. The plant, which requires the most diligent and careful cultivation, yields in its second year a crop which is ready for harvesting in the beginning of July. It is cut with a hook at about a foot from the ground, and a few days afterwards may be thrashed. The produce is very variable, but may be stated at 4 to 8 cwt. per acre.