Cumin

Cumin is the dried seed of Cuminum cyminum, an umbellifer related to parsley and carrot. It is earthy, warm and faintly bitter, with a heavy, almost sweaty note from cuminaldehyde that is unmistakable once known and impossible to substitute for.

In cured meats it draws a clear geographic line. It is fundamental to the North African merguez, to the Middle Eastern sujuk and its Turkish and Armenian relatives, to the Spanish and Portuguese chorizos and morcillas where it sits behind the pimentón, and to Mexican and Latin American chorizo. It appears in some Dutch and German cheeses and sausages, and it runs through the Indian and Central Asian preparations. It is almost entirely absent from the Italian and French traditions.

The confusion worth clearing up is with caraway. In German the two are called Kümmel and Kreuzkümmel, in several Slavic languages the names are similarly entangled, and translated recipes go wrong on this constantly. They are different plants with different flavours: caraway is sharper, more aniseed and rye-bread-like; cumin is earthier and heavier. A Polish or German recipe calling for Kümmel wants caraway. One calling for Kreuzkümmel wants cumin. Getting it the wrong way round does not produce a slightly different sausage, it produces the wrong one.

Toasting transforms it, more so than most spices. Raw ground cumin is dusty and slightly harsh; the same seed toasted until it darkens a shade and smells nutty, then ground, is rounder and considerably more aromatic. Most traditional formulas in the cumin-using regions assume toasting. Because so much of its character is volatile, pre-ground cumin from a jar is a weak shadow of freshly toasted and ground seed.

Doses are generous compared with the warm baking spices: 1 to 4 g per kilo of meat is normal, and a merguez or a sujuk may carry more. It is a spice that defines rather than supports, so a formula either commits to it or leaves it out.