CARAWAY

6th January 2024

Photo Credits: emer1940 & DerekK (Getty Images), CANVA

Nay, you shall see my orchard, where in an arbor, we will

eat a last year’s pippin of my own graffing, with a dish of caraways,

and so forth. - Come, cousin Silence - and then to bed.

SHALLOW: Henry IV, Part 2, Act 5, Scene 3

CARAWAY (Carum carvi)

Caraway seeds were a snack with some medicinal qualities. John Gerard says that Caraways “the seeds confected or made with sugar into confits are very good for the stomach, they aid digestion, provoke urine, assuage and dissolve all windiness.”

Caraways are in the same family as Carrots and Celery (APIACEAE) and are native to temperate Eurasia. They were cultivated in Britain by the medieval period and are still naturalised in some parts of Britain.

More Information

BSBI Plant Atlas 2020: Carum carvi

John Gerard, 1597 (first edition), The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1636 edition accessed via archive.org)

Kew Plants of the World Online: Carum carvi