136 CARAWAY. 



able taste and odour *. The young roots are said to be more 

 delicious than parsnips, and they are spoken of by Dioscorides, 

 as a nutritious and agreeable food. It has been suggested, that 

 these roots, ground, mixed with milk, and made into bread, 

 formed the substance spoken of by Julius Caesar, under the 

 name of Chara, as eaten by the soldiers of Valerius f. The 

 warlike Germans of old, made of the root a vinous drink, or 

 preserved it in honey or must, and it is eaten occasionally in the 

 present day, either raw, or boiled as a pot-herb ; the leaves are 

 also used for the last mentioned purpose. Bechstein asserts, 

 that caraway, if carefully transplanted into richer soil, pro- 

 duces roots not inferior to those of the scorzonera, and like- 

 wise affords a very agreeable pickle. Goats, swine, and sheep 

 are fond of the herbage of this plant, but cows and horses 

 refuse it. 



Many of the Tartars and Circassians prepare from the seeds 

 a kind of farina, which they make into cakes, and which they 

 consider a great dainty. The Swedish and German peasants 

 flavour their cheese, soups, ragouts, and household bread with 

 the seeds: they are also used in the distillation of spirituous 

 liquors ; and, incrusted with sugar, they form the well known 

 comfits of the confectioners. 



Caraway seeds give out the whole of their virtues by moderate 

 digestion to rectified spirit ; and the spirituous tincture is 

 stronger in taste, but less powerful in smell than the watery in- 

 fusion. Distillation elevates all the aroma of the seed, and 

 along with the fluid, there generally rises a considerable quan- 

 tity of essential oil, in the proportion of about one part in thirty, 

 very hot and pungent to the taste. The leaves of the plant 

 also afford an oil similar to that of the seeds, but in much smaller 

 quantity. 



Medical Properties and Uses. — The medical properties 

 of these seeds are carminative, cordial, and stomachic. They 



* Shakspeare adverts to it in the following passage :-" Nay, and you 

 shall see mine orchard, where in an arbour we will eat a last year's pippin 

 of my own grafting, with a dish of carraways, and so come forth ; come 

 cousin, silence, and then to bed."— Henry IV. 



t Tractatus hiiianico-criticus de chara Cresaris. — J'. G. Wcininann, Carols- 

 ruh», 1769. 



