_Fructus vel Semen Cymini_; _Cumin or
Cummin[1258] Fruits_, _Cummin Seeds_; F.
_Graines de Cumin_; G. _Mutterkümmel_,
_Kreuzkümmel_, _Langer oder Römischer
Kümmel_, _Mohrenkümmel_.
=Botanical Origin.=—_Cuminum Cyminum_ L., a small annual plant,
indigenous to the upper regions of the Nile, but carried at an early
period by cultivation to Arabia, India and China, as well as to the
countries bordering the Mediterranean. The fruits of the plant ripen
as far north as Southern Norway; but in Europe, Sicily and Malta alone
produce them in quantity.
=History=—Cumin was well known to the ancients; it is alluded to by
the Hebrew prophet Isaiah,[1259] and is mentioned in the gospel of
Matthew[1260] as one of the minor titheable productions of the Holy
Land. Under the name Κύμινον, it is commended for its agreeable taste
by Dioscorides, in whose day it was produced on the coasts of Asia
Minor and Southern Italy. It is named as _Cuminum_ by Horace and
Persius; Scribonius Largus, in the first century of our era, mentions
Cuminum æthiopicum, silvaticum and thebaicum.
During the middle ages, cumin was one of the spices in most common
use. Thus in A.D. 716, an annual provision of 150 lb. of cumin for
the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, was not thought too large a
supply.[1261] Edrisi mentioned cumin as a product of Morocco (see
article Fructus Carui, p. 305), Algeria and Tunisia. It was in frequent
use in England, its average price between 1264 and 1400 being a little
over 2_d._ per lb.[1262] Cumin is enumerated in the _Liber albus_[1263]
of the city of London, compiled in 1419, among the merchandize on which
the king levied the impost called _scavage._ It is mentioned[1264]
in 1453 as one of the articles of which the Grocers’ Company had the
weighing and oversight, and was classed in 1484 in the same way in the
German warehouse in Venice.[1265]
[1255] _Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Sind for the year
1872-73_, Karachi, 1873. 36.
[1256] Ditto for Bombay, 1872-73. ii. 90.
[1257] _Annual Volume of Trade, etc. for the Bengal Presidency_,
1870-71. 121.
[1258] _Comyne_ in Wicklif’s Bible (1380), _Commen_ in Tyndale’s
(1534), _Commyn_ in Cranmer’s (1539), _Cummine_ in the Authorised
Version (1611), _Cumin_ in Gerarde’s _Herbal_ (1636) and Paris’s
_Pharmacologia_ (1822), _Cummin_, Ray (1693) and in modern trade-lists
and price-currents.
[1259] Ch. xxviii. 25-27.
[1260] Ch. xxiii. 23.
[1261] Pardessus, _Diplomata_, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.
[1262] Rogers, _Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England_, 1876. i.
631, ii. 543-547.
[1263] _Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis_, edited by Riley, i. (1859)
224.
[1264] Herbert, _Hist. of the Great Livery Companies of London_, 1834.
114.
[1265] Thomas, _Fontego dei Todeschi in Venezia_, 1874. 252.
=Description=—The fruit, the colour of which is brown, has the usual
structure of the order; it is of an elongated ovoid form, tapering
towards each end, and somewhat laterally compressed. The mericarps,
which do not readily separate from the carpophore, are about ¼ of
an inch in length and ⅒ of an inch in greatest breadth. Each has 5
primary ridges which are filiform, and scabrous or muriculate, and 4
secondary covered with rough hairs. Between the primary ridges is a
single elongated vitta, and 2 vittæ occur on the commissural surface.
A transverse section of the seed shows a reniform outline. There is a
form of _C. Cyminum_ in cultivation, the fruit of which is perfectly
glabrous.
Cumin has a strong aromatic taste and smell, far less agreeable than
that of caraway.
=Microscopic Structure=—The hairs are rather brittle, sometimes ½ mm.
in length, formed of cells springing from the epidermis. The larger
consists of groups of cells, vertically or laterally combined, and
enclosed by a common envelope; the smaller of but a single cell ending
in a rounded point. The whole pericarp is rich in tannic matter,
striking with salts of iron a dark greenish colour.
The tissue of the seed is loaded with colourless drops of a fatty oil;
the vittæ with a yellowish-brown essential oil. But the most striking
contents of the parenchyme of the albumen consist of transparent,
colourless, spherical grains, 7 to 5 mkm. in diameter, several of which
are enclosed in each cell. Under a high magnifying power, they show a
central cavity with a series of concentric layers around it, frequently
traversed by radial clefts. Examined in polarized light, these grains
display exactly the same cross as is seen in granules of starch,
although their behaviour with chemical tests at once proves that they
are by no means that substance; in fact iodine does not render them
blue, but intensely brown. Grains of the same character, assuming
sometimes a crystalloid form, occur in most umbelliferous fruits,
and in many seeds of other orders. All these bodies are composed of
albuminous and fatty matters; the more crystalloid form as met with in
the seeds of _Ricinus_ and in the fruit of parsley, is the body called
by Hartig _Aleuron_.
=Chemical Composition=—Cumin fruits yielded to Bley (1829) 7 per cent.
of fat oil, 13 per cent. of resin (?), 8 of mucilage and gum, 15 of
albuminous matter, and a large amount of malates. Their peculiar,
strong, aromatic smell and taste, depend on the essential oil of which
they afford as much as 4 per cent. It contains about 56 per cent. of
_Cuminol_ (or _Cuminaldehyde_), C₆H₄ {CHO,
{C₃H₇
a liquid of sp. gr. 0·972, boiling point 237° C. It has also been met
with, in 1858, by Trapp in the oil of Cicuta virosa. By boiling cuminol
with potash in alcoholic solution,
cuminalcohol, C₆H₄ {CH₂OH,
{C₃H₇
as well as the potassium salt of cuminic acid,
{COOH
C₆H₄ { , are formed.
{C₃H₇
The oil of cumin, secondly, contains a mixture of hydrocarbons. That
which constitutes about one-half of the crude oil has been first
obtained in 1841 by Gerhardt and Cahours, just from the oil under
notice, and therefore called _Cymene_ (or also _Cymol_). It is a liquid
of 0·873 sp. gr. at 0° (32° F.), boiling at 175°; neither cymene nor
cuminol have the same odour and taste as the crude oil. Many other
plants have been noticed as containing cymene among the constituents
of their essential oils. Thus for instance _Cicuta virosa_ L.,
_Carum Ajowan_ (page 304), _Thymus vulgaris_ (see art. Folia Thymi),
_Eucalyptus globulus_ Labill.
Cymene, C₆H₄ {CH₃ (Propylmethyl-benzol),
{C₃H₇
may also be artificially obtained from a large number of essential oils
having the composition C₁₀H₁₆, or C₁₀H₁₄O, or C₁₀H₁₆O, or C₁₀H₁₈O. It
differs very remarkably from the oils of the formula C₁₀H₁₆, inasmuch
as cymene yields the crystallizable cymen-sulphonic acids when it is
warmed with concentrated sulphuric acid.
Lastly, there is present in the oil of cumin a small amount of a
terpene, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at 155·8° C., as stated in 1865 by C. M.
Warren, and in 1873 by Beilstein and Kupffer.
The dextrogyrate power of cuminol is a little less strong than that of
cymene; artificial cymene is optically inert.
=Commerce=—Cumin is shipped to England from Mogador, Malta and Sicily.
In Malta there were in 1863, 140 acres under cultivation with this
crop; in 1865, 730 acres, producing 2766 cwt.[1266]
The export of cumin from Morocco[1267] in 1872 was 1657 cwt.; that from
Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 6766 cwt.;[1268] and 20,040 cwt. from
Calcutta[1269] in the year 1870-71.
=Uses=—Cumin is sold by druggists as an ingredient of curry powders,
but to a much larger extent for use in veterinary medicine.