February 28, 2025 • 25 mins
This spice brings complex warmth to everything from corned beef to rice puddings to sauerkraut. Come caraway, come caraway, come caraway with Anney and Lauren as we dig into the science and history of caraway.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Res and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam, and today
we have an episode for you about caraway seeds.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, any particular reason these were on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Lord, didn't we just do something about them shortbread? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh my heck, it's been a minute. We're it's been
a minute since we've recorded together. So under understandable.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes, yeah, so right in Shortbread, we discussed how there
was this kind of a trend of putting caraway in shortbread,
and maybe we mentioned other bake goods at the time,
in the sixteen to eighteen hundreds, and I was like, oh, yeah,
we haven't done an episode about those yet. Let's do
an episode about those.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah. Well, I saw heavily because a couple of years ago,
I was trying to make irissoda bread, okay, and I
had never really used caraway seeds. I'm sure i'd had
them and things, I just had never personally made something
(01:16):
with them. And I was like, there's recipe calls for that,
and I went and I purchased them, and I can't
I don't. I can't say if I went overboard or
the recipe went overboard, okay, but it was way too much.
It was like the overpowering slaver. So it sort of
(01:38):
turned me off from Caraways for a while, and I
just purchased like this whole thing, you know. Sure, But
later I ventured back out. I dipped my toe back
in the water, and I do like them. I just
learned to touch on that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I already have a note in here about how a
little goes a long way, and it's true.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, it's a strongly flavored spice. Yeah. No, I mean
I love a Caraway. Yeah, And clearly whatever happened there,
I'm wondering if, like you, misread grains of caraway versus
like powdered caraway or something like that. Or I don't
just miss like a tablespoon for a teaspoon.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But I've made that mistake more than once, so it's
quite possible, all right, could be I had just it
was a shock because I hadn't. I don't think that's
what I was expecting when I tasted it. But whatever
the case, I've come back around. I've recovered from that experience.
Good good. You can see our past episodes on Carrots
(02:43):
Harisa dill, corned beef, pickles, sauer kraut, cabbage, short bread, gin, aquaviit. Yeah, yeah,
it's involved in a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It is or is related to things that are involved
with a lot of things as well.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, as we will talk about. Yeah, but I guess
that brings us through our question.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, I guess.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So. Caraway seeds what are they?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, caraway is a spice made from the seeds of
a plant, technically the fruit. We'll get into that in
a minute. They're either ground up or used whole. They're
shaped a little like ridged grains of rice and are
brownish gray in color, like like tiny over ripe bananas.
Their flavor is warm and kind of earthy, woody, citrusy,
(03:36):
a little bit minty, spicy, and there's this punch of bittersweet,
like anis licorice.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Kind of flavor.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
They're used in all kinds of sweet and savory dishes
and drinks. The whole plant is edible, but it's mostly
used for those seeds because that's where the flavor is concentrated. Also,
they're easy to dry out, but yeah, it adds depth
to vegetable side dishes, cheeses, stew, soups, casseroles, to season
savory breads or sweet cakes or jams or puddings, and
(04:08):
to bring another warming element to alcoholic drinks. It's like, Okay,
I don't know how y'all feel about wood paneled rooms,
but to me, they feel they like look and kind
of smell warm and inviting and homie. And that's that's
(04:29):
what Caraway reminds me of. It just kind of feels
like home.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Carroway Home. Yeah, sounds like a brand I like it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, not sponsored by the pot brand Caraway.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Which I did get confused by briefly this research.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Wait what Yeah, not not not currently anyway. So Caraway
is in fact in the carrot fan family botanical named
Carum carv. I think I still have never learned Latin.
Here we are, Yeah, A caraway is a soft herbaceous
plant that can grow like one to three feet tall,
that's up to a meter, with these delicate, lacy green
(05:14):
leaves that look a lot like carrot leaves. They'll grow
a creamy white taproot down into the ground like a
like a skinny parsnip, which is another cousin to store
nutrients for the following year. After surviving a winter, they'll
shoot up a long, skinny flower stem that will bloom
with these flat, pretty clusters of like white pinkish flowers
(05:34):
that look kind of like Queen Anne's lace, which is
another cousin. Each flower, if pollinated, will develop into a small,
hard fruit that is completely that's made up of these
two crescent shaped seeds that come together in like a
little oval, and each half of that oval is what
we mean when we say caraway seed. Technically a fruit,
(05:56):
a specific type called akeene. They have five fridges lengthwise
and are slightly curved again like a crescent moon or
a banana. And when they dry from green to brown,
they are ready for harvest. The flowers can also be
used in salads or as a garnish to warm dishes.
The leaves will benefit from a little bit of cooking
(06:17):
to soften them, like carrot leaves, which you can also eat.
And I understand they taste like similar to caraway, but softer,
more like almost like a like parsley or like dill.
The root can be cooked like any other root vegetable.
I understand it's warm and earthy in flavor, and yeah,
carraway seeds are a key flavor ingredient in things like
(06:41):
sauer kraut or seeded or Jewish rye, bread, goulash, aquavit,
and other Northern European liquors, a few Northern European cheeses,
Middle Eastern rice puddings, Just a spread of things that
I find super interesting across a number of different cultures
in a number of wise.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yes, yes, indeed, well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You're not typically eating enough for it to make a
real nutritive difference. Again, a little bit goes a long way.
But caraway does contain protein and fiber, a great smattering
of minerals, and some other micronutrients, and those include compounds
that have been found to have antioxidant, anti inflammatory, and
(07:27):
antibacterial properties that seem to all kind of help your
body block harmful bacteria from growing in your gut and
thus help promote a healthier gut microbiome, all of which
may help aid in digestion, all of which is super
interesting because caraway has been used in various traditions to
(07:50):
aid digestion for a very long time, essentially since humans
picked these this stuff up they were like digestion. That
being said, most of the research that has been done
so far has been in vitro in test tubes, not
in bodies, and then when it has gone in bodies,
(08:11):
it's been in mostly animal studies. So saber motto. You know,
nutrition is complicated, our bodies are complicated. More research is necessary.
Before ingesting a medicinal amount of anything. You should contact
a medical provider who.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Is not us. Nope, no bar no bo. I can
give you some videos I think might help your mental
health if you will laugh. But that's about it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, I can share cat photos. That's what I've got.
That's the extent of what we can offer here. We
do have a number for you. One. The global market
for caraway seeds is worth about two billion dollars a
year as of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I think, yes, I mean that's kind of a hard
thing to pin down.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, yeah, I saw a couple of varying numbers, but
that seems to be where they were centered around, aside
from one outlier that was like a lot more than
that by like a factor of ten, And I was like.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Oh, that's a different number. Okay, so they're doing well.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think we can see yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And there there's a history as to how they got
to this point.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
There is, and we are going to get into that
history as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay, So,
if you heard any hesitation about my clunky transition, it's
because I couldn't find too much about the early days
of caraway. But from what I could find, researchers believe
that it originated in Egypt and or the Mediterranean or
(10:10):
a modern day Turkey. Some evidence suggests that caraway seeds
were present in Switzerland over five thousand years ago, So
I don't know. It seems like it was around for
a while and maybe in a couple different places. Sure,
that's what I can say. Historians believe that ancient Romans
spread caraway throughout Europe, and that the ancient Romans may
(10:34):
have eaten the carey root as well. A handful of
recipes from the first century CE Roman cookbook the Epiceus
called for caraway seeds. Beginning in the Middle Ages at
the latest, caraway seeds were being cultivated in a wide
swath of land from Scandinavia to Sicily. As with most
(10:54):
things we discuss, they were widely used medicinally in the
early days. As mentioned, a twelfth century text out of
Germany prescribed them for a few ailments primarily related to
the stomach and digestion. However, I also read that they
may have been used as sort of a breath freshener,
like maybe specifically to mask the smell of alcohol. But
(11:16):
at the same time, at some point it became an
ingredient in certain varieties of gin, amongst other alcohols.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
So, yeah, you know a lot of these purportedly medicinal
ribs and spices made their way into alcohols, because, as
we've said on the show many times, a lot of
alcohols were originally also meant to be kind of medicinal.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yes, around this time, caraway seeds found their way into
Eastern European and Scandinavian recipes.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
The word caraway entered the English language sometime around the
twelve hundreds. The etymology is contested, but it might through
an Arabic word that itself came from a Greek word
for cumen.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So if you think I didn't see your pun there, rooted.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Through Oh I didn't see my pun there, So.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Oh I just on the lookout. Yeah, before the potato.
Cabbage was one of the most popular vegetables for many
Jewish homes in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of these
homes would have barrels for things like sauerkraut, and Caraway
was a popular seasoning to layer in between the cabbage
(12:32):
as it fermented, but it found its way into all
kinds of things, typically more on the savory side, soups, meats, vegetables, dumplings, noodles,
sometimes in cheese, just all kinds of things. According to
one source, I found, some parts of Europe offered sugar
coated caraway seats at the end of a meal to
(12:54):
help people digest during the sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, this totally happened. They're called cumfeets, and this is
a fairly fairly wide category of like sugar coated treats
like like nuts or seeds or spices or sometimes dried
fruit that are right like sugar coated, like like Jordan
almonds are a type of cumfeet and yeah, tasty.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Okay, okay. Well. As mentioned in our shortbread episode, this
is also around the time that Mary, Queen of Scots,
allegedly enjoyed short bread flavored with caraway seeds and from
what I could find, A couple of bread type recipes
from this time out of the UK call for the
addition of caraway seeds.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Some were savory breads that used like straight caraway and
some were sweeter breads like kind of like like raised
biscuits or scones that used caraway cumfets.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I will say I did go on an Irish
soda bread side quest and I got some very mixed
results about the history of adding in caraway seeds. It
sounds like not many people do that anymore. Listeners, please
write in whole episode.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, I've had soda bread on the list for
quite a long time, I believe as a listener request.
So sorry, we haven't gotten to that in seven years, but.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
We're working on It's.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Probably because I looked at it and was like, not today,
soda bread.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
But anyway, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
As sugar became more available in Europe, caraway found its
way into more dessert recipes like cookies and cakes.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And then moving ahead, Europeans brought caraway seeds over to
the US during the seventeenth century. I couldn't find too
much about it outside of some spice blogs, which sounds
a little with sci fi knowledge sounds a little funny,
but according to to these blogs, these seeds were incorporated
(15:03):
into all kinds of things like soup, stews and sausages.
But that makes sense to me, but I couldn't really
find hard evidence. Well.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In eighteen forty one, a Swiss chemist isolated a flavor
molecule from Caraway seeds, which would later be named carbone caraveone.
That's probably it after Caraway. It's spicy MINTI it's actually
the key compound in spearmint and is also a major
compound of Caraway and Dill's flavors. Today, one version of
(15:38):
this molecule is either synthesized or extracted from mint and
used to flavor like a lot of mint candy and
gum and personal care products that are on the market.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, and I would say I couldn't find too much
about like modern day careway, But I will say a
lot of things I read made it sound like it's
it's having a moment, like people are rediscovering it, are
realizing how to cook with it or experimenting with it
(16:09):
more than they had previously been doing.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So that's what sounded like to me as well.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, get it, I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It infuriates me in a way. Infuriates is a strong word,
but I'm sticking with it. How like some of these
very simple kind of staple, especially fruits and vegetables, and
like like Plant Matter episodes, you're kind of like, well,
and then I couldn't find anything else about it because
I guess people it was so omnipresent that either the
people weren't writing about it they were just like, yeah,
that's just that stuff that we have all the time.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, Or what happened to me a lot is I
would be like, oh, I found this whole book and
it would just be as a recipe ingredient. Oh, it
wouldn't be any further Okay, it was used in this recipe?
Got it cold? Cool? Or yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Or like the thing with the human comparison, Cuman does
look very much like a slightly smaller version of caraway,
and there has been some historical confusion about which plant
people were talking about. There's another one from the Indian
subcontinent that is very similar that gets conflated.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So here we are, yes, here we are. But this
is where you listeners can help, because oh yeah, it
is used in all kinds of ways all over the world,
so please let us know. But I think that's what
we have to say about Caraway for now. I think
it is.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we will get into that as soon as we
get back from a quick break for a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. And
we're back with smooth the seeds, even though I read
a lot of articles that were like, don't call them
Caroway seeds. Yeah, Like, well, all right, Carolyn wrote, I'm
(18:23):
glad that another listener wrote in about lab grown meat,
slash processing, etc. As I've been meaning to send in
a note about a really odd product that was marketed
to me on Instagram. There may be other brands, but
this particular one is called board Cow. The stick was
you should drink it to quote give cows a break,
(18:44):
but that it's also real dairy. It's basically lab grown milk,
and I don't have the grasp of the process necessary
to explain, but it does present an interesting question on
a few levels. The same as with meat. There were
also some people asking about alpha gel and it sounds
like it would still trigger a response, meaning it's genetically
(19:05):
the same as milk from a cow. Oh, the existential
question is lab created food if identical to the original
steel real? How do we define real food in the
modern age? Can milk that didn't come from a cow
be considered and labeled real dairy? I have been tempted
to order some out of curiosity, but it's prohibitively expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, I mean, and these are the questions that lawmakers
are particularly trying to define for us.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yep, yeah, no, that's fascinating. I mean cool, it's cool
if that product exists. It's cool that whatever algorithm you're
living within it has decided to give that to you.
I haven't gotten that ad. I'm jealous of your algorithm.
(20:04):
But yeah, huh.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I had not heard of this. This is a new one.
Like I wasn't surprised when you sent it, but I
had never heard of it before.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I haven't heard of this brand. But doing our reading
for lab Ground Meat, I ran across lab Ground Dairy.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So yeah, interesting. Maybe maybe when we build up our
stamina again, Uh, we could more of a you problem, Lawrence,
you do the science, we can tackle this one. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I mean, y'all know, I love talking about milk.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's just yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It is honest is but the questions are real.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, all right, I'm setting that asad. Sorry,
I just went my brain was like what okay, No,
you can't google that right now? Down, It's okay, all right,
Bart wrote, as a Belgian expat living in Ireland, I
definitely have a foreigner's view of Gatorade. And before listening
to your episode, I thought I knew two things about Gatorade.
(21:11):
Turns out I only knew one thing about Gatorade, and
my respect for my beloved Lucazide has been deepened thanks
to the wonderful idiocracy. I knew Gatorade had electrolytes and
that they were just salt. I also thought I knew
that Lucazaide was just a British ripoff of Gatorade. A
boy was I surprised to learn Lucazaide came first earned
(21:32):
respect for my nearest neighbors on the island next door.
As a kid, I hated Lucazaide because their original flavor
literally what it's called now is much too sweet even
for kid and me, and it doesn't really taste of
anything recognizable. But in recent years I've fallen in love
with their zero sugar pink flavor because it doesn't call
(21:53):
out an ingredient in its branding. I just assumed it
was ruby grapefruit flavor or something, because it's a wonderful
mix of bitter and sweet. I only discovered its real
flavor a few weeks ago when I was put on
blood pressure meads that interact with grapefruit, destroying my weekend
breakfast routine and briefly interrupting my consumption of pink lucazaide. Thankfully,
(22:13):
before pouring my last few bottles down the sink, I
had the brain wave to read the ingredients. Turns out
it's not grapefruit flavor. It's actually lemon and cherry flavor,
which perfectly explains the sweet and sour flavor and means
the electric pink color might just be a little bit natural.
Maybe probably not.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I do love how we all are, Like I like
the blue wood. Yeah what flavor?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Is it not a blue blue?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Live?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Oh delightful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
See I'm not from I don't think I've ever had
a lucas aide, so this is all.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
News to me. I definitely haven't. I have to say
the Gatorade episode. A lot of people have written in about,
so keep writing in and I'm looking forward to share
some of those. I did have a conversation a lot
of times. I don't know if this is your experience, Lauren,
(23:15):
but sometimes when I go home, people are like, it's
like entertain me, almost, like tell me, tell me the
fact from something.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And I brought out the grapefruit facts about oh some
medications like don't use grapefruit, and everybody was looking at
me like are you serious, no, yes, yes, oh yeah,
very serious. Grapefruit does not lake.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It was a nice moment for me.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I'm glad. I'm glad you could help people out. I
hope they took it seriously and went and checked their meds. Yeah,
there's some that just don't get shared often enough.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It's I do.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I do also get kind of quizzed, like, especially if
someone is learning what I do for the first time,
They're like, oh, tell me something interesting, and I'm like, yeah,
I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
I've forgotten all of that immediately. But yeah, great fruit
stuck with me for sure. But I'm glad you figured
out the real flavor and you didn't have this uh
tossed down the scene.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah. Also, I'm glad that there was actual flavors in
there that they could put on a label. How interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It's very that's a nice, nice surprise. And we did
ask for the opinions of people outside of the US. Yeah, oh,
thank you, Thank you so much. Thanks to both of
these listeners for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can Our email is hello at
saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky and Instagram. We are at saber Pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(25:15):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Res and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam, and today
we have an episode for you about caraway seeds.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, any particular reason these were on your mind?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Lord, didn't we just do something about them shortbread? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh my heck, it's been a minute. We're it's been
a minute since we've recorded together. So under understandable.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yes, yeah, so right in Shortbread, we discussed how there
was this kind of a trend of putting caraway in shortbread,
and maybe we mentioned other bake goods at the time,
in the sixteen to eighteen hundreds, and I was like, oh, yeah,
we haven't done an episode about those yet. Let's do
an episode about those.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah. Well, I saw heavily because a couple of years ago,
I was trying to make irissoda bread, okay, and I
had never really used caraway seeds. I'm sure i'd had
them and things, I just had never personally made something
(01:16):
with them. And I was like, there's recipe calls for that,
and I went and I purchased them, and I can't
I don't. I can't say if I went overboard or
the recipe went overboard, okay, but it was way too much.
It was like the overpowering slaver. So it sort of
(01:38):
turned me off from Caraways for a while, and I
just purchased like this whole thing, you know. Sure, But
later I ventured back out. I dipped my toe back
in the water, and I do like them. I just
learned to touch on that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I already have a note in here about how a
little goes a long way, and it's true.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
It's true.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, it's a strongly flavored spice. Yeah. No, I mean
I love a Caraway. Yeah, And clearly whatever happened there,
I'm wondering if, like you, misread grains of caraway versus
like powdered caraway or something like that. Or I don't
just miss like a tablespoon for a teaspoon.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But I've made that mistake more than once, so it's
quite possible, all right, could be I had just it
was a shock because I hadn't. I don't think that's
what I was expecting when I tasted it. But whatever
the case, I've come back around. I've recovered from that experience.
Good good. You can see our past episodes on Carrots
(02:43):
Harisa dill, corned beef, pickles, sauer kraut, cabbage, short bread, gin, aquaviit. Yeah, yeah,
it's involved in a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It is or is related to things that are involved
with a lot of things as well.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, as we will talk about. Yeah, but I guess
that brings us through our question.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, I guess.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So. Caraway seeds what are they?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, caraway is a spice made from the seeds of
a plant, technically the fruit. We'll get into that in
a minute. They're either ground up or used whole. They're
shaped a little like ridged grains of rice and are
brownish gray in color, like like tiny over ripe bananas.
Their flavor is warm and kind of earthy, woody, citrusy,
(03:36):
a little bit minty, spicy, and there's this punch of bittersweet,
like anis licorice.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Kind of flavor.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
They're used in all kinds of sweet and savory dishes
and drinks. The whole plant is edible, but it's mostly
used for those seeds because that's where the flavor is concentrated. Also,
they're easy to dry out, but yeah, it adds depth
to vegetable side dishes, cheeses, stew, soups, casseroles, to season
savory breads or sweet cakes or jams or puddings, and
(04:08):
to bring another warming element to alcoholic drinks. It's like, Okay,
I don't know how y'all feel about wood paneled rooms,
but to me, they feel they like look and kind
of smell warm and inviting and homie. And that's that's
(04:29):
what Caraway reminds me of. It just kind of feels
like home.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Carroway Home. Yeah, sounds like a brand I like it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, not sponsored by the pot brand Caraway.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Which I did get confused by briefly this research.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Wait what Yeah, not not not currently anyway. So Caraway
is in fact in the carrot fan family botanical named
Carum carv. I think I still have never learned Latin.
Here we are, Yeah, A caraway is a soft herbaceous
plant that can grow like one to three feet tall,
that's up to a meter, with these delicate, lacy green
(05:14):
leaves that look a lot like carrot leaves. They'll grow
a creamy white taproot down into the ground like a
like a skinny parsnip, which is another cousin to store
nutrients for the following year. After surviving a winter, they'll
shoot up a long, skinny flower stem that will bloom
with these flat, pretty clusters of like white pinkish flowers
(05:34):
that look kind of like Queen Anne's lace, which is
another cousin. Each flower, if pollinated, will develop into a small,
hard fruit that is completely that's made up of these
two crescent shaped seeds that come together in like a
little oval, and each half of that oval is what
we mean when we say caraway seed. Technically a fruit,
(05:56):
a specific type called akeene. They have five fridges lengthwise
and are slightly curved again like a crescent moon or
a banana. And when they dry from green to brown,
they are ready for harvest. The flowers can also be
used in salads or as a garnish to warm dishes.
The leaves will benefit from a little bit of cooking
(06:17):
to soften them, like carrot leaves, which you can also eat.
And I understand they taste like similar to caraway, but softer,
more like almost like a like parsley or like dill.
The root can be cooked like any other root vegetable.
I understand it's warm and earthy in flavor, and yeah,
carraway seeds are a key flavor ingredient in things like
(06:41):
sauer kraut or seeded or Jewish rye, bread, goulash, aquavit,
and other Northern European liquors, a few Northern European cheeses,
Middle Eastern rice puddings, Just a spread of things that
I find super interesting across a number of different cultures
in a number of wise.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yes, yes, indeed, well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You're not typically eating enough for it to make a
real nutritive difference. Again, a little bit goes a long way.
But caraway does contain protein and fiber, a great smattering
of minerals, and some other micronutrients, and those include compounds
that have been found to have antioxidant, anti inflammatory, and
(07:27):
antibacterial properties that seem to all kind of help your
body block harmful bacteria from growing in your gut and
thus help promote a healthier gut microbiome, all of which
may help aid in digestion, all of which is super
interesting because caraway has been used in various traditions to
(07:50):
aid digestion for a very long time, essentially since humans
picked these this stuff up they were like digestion. That
being said, most of the research that has been done
so far has been in vitro in test tubes, not
in bodies, and then when it has gone in bodies,
(08:11):
it's been in mostly animal studies. So saber motto. You know,
nutrition is complicated, our bodies are complicated. More research is necessary.
Before ingesting a medicinal amount of anything. You should contact
a medical provider who.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Is not us. Nope, no bar no bo. I can
give you some videos I think might help your mental
health if you will laugh. But that's about it.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, I can share cat photos. That's what I've got.
That's the extent of what we can offer here. We
do have a number for you. One. The global market
for caraway seeds is worth about two billion dollars a
year as of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I think, yes, I mean that's kind of a hard
thing to pin down.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, yeah, I saw a couple of varying numbers, but
that seems to be where they were centered around, aside
from one outlier that was like a lot more than
that by like a factor of ten, And I was like.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Oh, that's a different number. Okay, so they're doing well.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think we can see yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
And there there's a history as to how they got
to this point.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
There is, and we are going to get into that
history as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
And we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay, So,
if you heard any hesitation about my clunky transition, it's
because I couldn't find too much about the early days
of caraway. But from what I could find, researchers believe
that it originated in Egypt and or the Mediterranean or
(10:10):
a modern day Turkey. Some evidence suggests that caraway seeds
were present in Switzerland over five thousand years ago, So
I don't know. It seems like it was around for
a while and maybe in a couple different places. Sure,
that's what I can say. Historians believe that ancient Romans
spread caraway throughout Europe, and that the ancient Romans may
(10:34):
have eaten the carey root as well. A handful of
recipes from the first century CE Roman cookbook the Epiceus
called for caraway seeds. Beginning in the Middle Ages at
the latest, caraway seeds were being cultivated in a wide
swath of land from Scandinavia to Sicily. As with most
(10:54):
things we discuss, they were widely used medicinally in the
early days. As mentioned, a twelfth century text out of
Germany prescribed them for a few ailments primarily related to
the stomach and digestion. However, I also read that they
may have been used as sort of a breath freshener,
like maybe specifically to mask the smell of alcohol. But
(11:16):
at the same time, at some point it became an
ingredient in certain varieties of gin, amongst other alcohols.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
So, yeah, you know a lot of these purportedly medicinal
ribs and spices made their way into alcohols, because, as
we've said on the show many times, a lot of
alcohols were originally also meant to be kind of medicinal.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Yes, around this time, caraway seeds found their way into
Eastern European and Scandinavian recipes.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
The word caraway entered the English language sometime around the
twelve hundreds. The etymology is contested, but it might through
an Arabic word that itself came from a Greek word
for cumen.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So if you think I didn't see your pun there, rooted.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Through Oh I didn't see my pun there, So.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Oh I just on the lookout. Yeah, before the potato.
Cabbage was one of the most popular vegetables for many
Jewish homes in Central and Eastern Europe. Many of these
homes would have barrels for things like sauerkraut, and Caraway
was a popular seasoning to layer in between the cabbage
(12:32):
as it fermented, but it found its way into all
kinds of things, typically more on the savory side, soups, meats, vegetables, dumplings, noodles,
sometimes in cheese, just all kinds of things. According to
one source, I found, some parts of Europe offered sugar
coated caraway seats at the end of a meal to
(12:54):
help people digest during the sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, this totally happened. They're called cumfeets, and this is
a fairly fairly wide category of like sugar coated treats
like like nuts or seeds or spices or sometimes dried
fruit that are right like sugar coated, like like Jordan
almonds are a type of cumfeet and yeah, tasty.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Okay, okay. Well. As mentioned in our shortbread episode, this
is also around the time that Mary, Queen of Scots,
allegedly enjoyed short bread flavored with caraway seeds and from
what I could find, A couple of bread type recipes
from this time out of the UK call for the
addition of caraway seeds.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Some were savory breads that used like straight caraway and
some were sweeter breads like kind of like like raised
biscuits or scones that used caraway cumfets.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I will say I did go on an Irish
soda bread side quest and I got some very mixed
results about the history of adding in caraway seeds. It
sounds like not many people do that anymore. Listeners, please
write in whole episode.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, yeah, I've had soda bread on the list for
quite a long time, I believe as a listener request.
So sorry, we haven't gotten to that in seven years, but.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
We're working on It's.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Probably because I looked at it and was like, not today,
soda bread.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
But anyway, yes.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
As sugar became more available in Europe, caraway found its
way into more dessert recipes like cookies and cakes.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
And then moving ahead, Europeans brought caraway seeds over to
the US during the seventeenth century. I couldn't find too
much about it outside of some spice blogs, which sounds
a little with sci fi knowledge sounds a little funny,
but according to to these blogs, these seeds were incorporated
(15:03):
into all kinds of things like soup, stews and sausages.
But that makes sense to me, but I couldn't really
find hard evidence. Well.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
In eighteen forty one, a Swiss chemist isolated a flavor
molecule from Caraway seeds, which would later be named carbone caraveone.
That's probably it after Caraway. It's spicy MINTI it's actually
the key compound in spearmint and is also a major
compound of Caraway and Dill's flavors. Today, one version of
(15:38):
this molecule is either synthesized or extracted from mint and
used to flavor like a lot of mint candy and
gum and personal care products that are on the market.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah, and I would say I couldn't find too much
about like modern day careway, But I will say a
lot of things I read made it sound like it's
it's having a moment, like people are rediscovering it, are
realizing how to cook with it or experimenting with it
(16:09):
more than they had previously been doing.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So that's what sounded like to me as well.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, get it, I guess.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
It infuriates me in a way. Infuriates is a strong word,
but I'm sticking with it. How like some of these
very simple kind of staple, especially fruits and vegetables, and
like like Plant Matter episodes, you're kind of like, well,
and then I couldn't find anything else about it because
I guess people it was so omnipresent that either the
people weren't writing about it they were just like, yeah,
that's just that stuff that we have all the time.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, Or what happened to me a lot is I
would be like, oh, I found this whole book and
it would just be as a recipe ingredient. Oh, it
wouldn't be any further Okay, it was used in this recipe?
Got it cold? Cool? Or yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Or like the thing with the human comparison, Cuman does
look very much like a slightly smaller version of caraway,
and there has been some historical confusion about which plant
people were talking about. There's another one from the Indian
subcontinent that is very similar that gets conflated.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
So here we are, yes, here we are. But this
is where you listeners can help, because oh yeah, it
is used in all kinds of ways all over the world,
so please let us know. But I think that's what
we have to say about Caraway for now. I think
it is.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we will get into that as soon as we
get back from a quick break for a word from
our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. And
we're back with smooth the seeds, even though I read
a lot of articles that were like, don't call them
Caroway seeds. Yeah, Like, well, all right, Carolyn wrote, I'm
(18:23):
glad that another listener wrote in about lab grown meat,
slash processing, etc. As I've been meaning to send in
a note about a really odd product that was marketed
to me on Instagram. There may be other brands, but
this particular one is called board Cow. The stick was
you should drink it to quote give cows a break,
(18:44):
but that it's also real dairy. It's basically lab grown milk,
and I don't have the grasp of the process necessary
to explain, but it does present an interesting question on
a few levels. The same as with meat. There were
also some people asking about alpha gel and it sounds
like it would still trigger a response, meaning it's genetically
(19:05):
the same as milk from a cow. Oh, the existential
question is lab created food if identical to the original
steel real? How do we define real food in the
modern age? Can milk that didn't come from a cow
be considered and labeled real dairy? I have been tempted
to order some out of curiosity, but it's prohibitively expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yeah, I mean, and these are the questions that lawmakers
are particularly trying to define for us.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Yep, yeah, no, that's fascinating. I mean cool, it's cool
if that product exists. It's cool that whatever algorithm you're
living within it has decided to give that to you.
I haven't gotten that ad. I'm jealous of your algorithm.
(20:04):
But yeah, huh.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I had not heard of this. This is a new one.
Like I wasn't surprised when you sent it, but I
had never heard of it before.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I haven't heard of this brand. But doing our reading
for lab Ground Meat, I ran across lab Ground Dairy.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So yeah, interesting. Maybe maybe when we build up our
stamina again, Uh, we could more of a you problem, Lawrence,
you do the science, we can tackle this one. Yeah.
Oh yeah, I mean, y'all know, I love talking about milk.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
It's just yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It is honest is but the questions are real.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, all right, I'm setting that asad. Sorry,
I just went my brain was like what okay, No,
you can't google that right now? Down, It's okay, all right,
Bart wrote, as a Belgian expat living in Ireland, I
definitely have a foreigner's view of Gatorade. And before listening
to your episode, I thought I knew two things about Gatorade.
(21:11):
Turns out I only knew one thing about Gatorade, and
my respect for my beloved Lucazide has been deepened thanks
to the wonderful idiocracy. I knew Gatorade had electrolytes and
that they were just salt. I also thought I knew
that Lucazaide was just a British ripoff of Gatorade. A
boy was I surprised to learn Lucazaide came first earned
(21:32):
respect for my nearest neighbors on the island next door.
As a kid, I hated Lucazaide because their original flavor
literally what it's called now is much too sweet even
for kid and me, and it doesn't really taste of
anything recognizable. But in recent years I've fallen in love
with their zero sugar pink flavor because it doesn't call
(21:53):
out an ingredient in its branding. I just assumed it
was ruby grapefruit flavor or something, because it's a wonderful
mix of bitter and sweet. I only discovered its real
flavor a few weeks ago when I was put on
blood pressure meads that interact with grapefruit, destroying my weekend
breakfast routine and briefly interrupting my consumption of pink lucazaide. Thankfully,
(22:13):
before pouring my last few bottles down the sink, I
had the brain wave to read the ingredients. Turns out
it's not grapefruit flavor. It's actually lemon and cherry flavor,
which perfectly explains the sweet and sour flavor and means
the electric pink color might just be a little bit natural.
Maybe probably not.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
I do love how we all are, Like I like
the blue wood. Yeah what flavor?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Is it not a blue blue?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Live?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Oh delightful.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
See I'm not from I don't think I've ever had
a lucas aide, so this is all.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
News to me. I definitely haven't. I have to say
the Gatorade episode. A lot of people have written in about,
so keep writing in and I'm looking forward to share
some of those. I did have a conversation a lot
of times. I don't know if this is your experience, Lauren,
(23:15):
but sometimes when I go home, people are like, it's
like entertain me, almost, like tell me, tell me the
fact from something.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
And I brought out the grapefruit facts about oh some
medications like don't use grapefruit, and everybody was looking at
me like are you serious, no, yes, yes, oh yeah,
very serious. Grapefruit does not lake.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
It was a nice moment for me.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
I'm glad. I'm glad you could help people out. I
hope they took it seriously and went and checked their meds. Yeah,
there's some that just don't get shared often enough.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
It's I do.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I do also get kind of quizzed, like, especially if
someone is learning what I do for the first time,
They're like, oh, tell me something interesting, and I'm like, yeah,
I don't know. I don't.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
I've forgotten all of that immediately. But yeah, great fruit
stuck with me for sure. But I'm glad you figured
out the real flavor and you didn't have this uh
tossed down the scene.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah. Also, I'm glad that there was actual flavors in
there that they could put on a label. How interesting.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
It's very that's a nice, nice surprise. And we did
ask for the opinions of people outside of the US. Yeah, oh,
thank you, Thank you so much. Thanks to both of
these listeners for writing in. If you would like to
write to us, you can Our email is hello at
saborpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky and Instagram. We are at saber Pod and
we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(25:15):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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