Cumin is native to the Levant and Upper Egypt. It now grows in most hot countries, especially India, North Africa, China and the Americas. The spice is especially associated with Morocco, where it is often smelt in the abundant street cookery of the medinas. Cumin was known to the Egyptians five millennia ago; the seeds have been found in the Old Kingdon Pyramids. The Romans and the Greeks used it medicinally and cosmetically to induce a pallid complexion. In Indian recipes, cumin is frequently confused with caraway, which it resembles in appearance though not in taste, cumin being far more powerful. This is due to a misunderstanding of the Indian word jeera.

Spice Description
Cumin is the seed of a small umbelliferous plant. The seeds come as paired or separate carpels, and are 3-6mm (1/8-1/4 in) long. They have a striped pattern of nine ridges and oil canals, and are hairy, brownish in colour, boat-shaped, tapering at each extremity, with tiny stalks attached. They resemble caraway seeds, but are lighter in colour and unlike caraway, have minute bristles hardly visible to the naked eye. They are available dried, or ground to a brownish-green powder. Cumin is freely available in the West, although it is not a traditional European spice.

Bouquet: Strong, heavy and warm. A spicy-sweet aroma.
Flavour: Pungent, powerful, sharp and slightly bitter.

Preparation and Storage
The seeds should be lightly roasted before being used whole or ground to bring out the aroma. Cumin may also be pounded with other spices in mixtures such as curry powder. Ground cumin must be kept airtight, to retain its pungency. This spice should be used with restraint - it can exclude all the other flavours in a dish. Less than a teaspoon of it will flavour a meal for four.

Plant Description and Cultivation
A small, slender, glabrous herbaceous annual, of the parsley family. It usually reaches 25 cm (10 in) (some varieties can be double this height),and tends to droop under its own weight. The blue-green linear leaves are finely divided, and the white or pink flowers are borne in small compound umbels. Cumin is grown from seed. A hot climate is preferred, but it can be grown in cooler regions if started under glass in spring. A sandy soil is best; when the seedlings have hardened, transplant carefully to a sunny aspect, planting out 15cm (6 in) apart. Seed regularly. The plants bloom in June and July. The seeds are normally ready four months after planting. Cut the plants when the seeds turn to brown, thresh and dry like the other Umbelliferae.

Diffrent Names in Diffrent Languages
French: cumin
German: Kreuzkümmel, Romische Kümmel
Italian: cumino
Spanish: comino
Arabic: kammun, kemouyn
Indian: jeera, jeraka, jira, zeera, zira, sufaid..., safed...(white), kala...(black), kalonji(cf Nigella)
Indonesian: (d)jinten
Malay: jintan puteh
Sinhalese: cheeregum, jeera, su(du)duru
Tamil: cheeregum

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