Cumin

Cumin is a slender annual of the parsley family, some 30 to 50 centimetres tall, with thread-fine divided leaves and small white or pink flowers held in umbels. What is sold as the seed is a small dried fruit, ridged along its length and yellowish brown, much like caraway, with which it is sometimes confused. It is native to the Irano-Turanian region and has been in use for thousands of years: wild seeds were found at the drowned settlement of Atlit-Yam, Minoan palace tablets record it, and Egyptian healing texts name it. Pliny says Greek and Roman students burned the seeds to help their studies. India now grows about 70 per cent of the world crop. Much of its lore concerns keeping hold of things. In medieval Europe it stood for love and devotion; it was baked into cake to keep a lover faithful, given to a departing lover to bring them safely back, and fed to homing pigeons so they would come back and to farm animals to stop them straying or being stolen. In Germany and Italy it went into bread to stop wood spirits stealing the loaf, and Northcote tells of the German Moss-People, elves who loathe it. Cunningham adds that it is burned with frankincense for protection, scattered with salt to drive out evil, and that the sower must curse while sowing for a good crop.