Culinary Herbs: Anise

Cooking with anise adds a splash of licorice flavor to desserts, especially cakes and pastries. Growing anise is relatively simple, requiring well-cultivated ground and plenty of sunlight.

 

 

Anise is an annual herb native to southwestern Asia, northern Africa and southeastern Europe. To judge from its mention in the Scriptures, it was highly valued as a cultivated crop not only in Palestine but also elsewhere in the East. Many Greek and Roman authors wrote more or less fully of its cultivation and uses.

 

The roots of anise are white, spindle-shaped and rather fibrous. Its stems grow about 18 inches tall and are branchy, erect, slender and cylindrical. Its stem leaves are more and more finely cut toward the upper part of the stem, near the top of which they resemble fennel leaves in their finely divided segments. This herb produces yellowish-white flowers that are rather large in loose umbels consisting of many umbellets.

 

The fruits or seeds of this culinary herb are greenish-gray, small, ovoid or oblong in outline, longitudinally furrowed and ridged on the convex side. They are very aromatic, sweetish and pleasantly piquant.

The seeds, which should be as fresh as possible, never more than two years old, should be sown in permanent quarters as soon as the weather becomes settled in early spring. They should be planted 1/2 inch deep, about 1/2 inch asunder, in drills 15 or 18 inches apart, and the plants thinned when about two inches tall to stand six inches asunder. In terms of growing anise, an ounce of seed should plant about 150 feet of drill.

 

Anise plants, which do not transplant readily, thrive best in well-drained, light, rich, rather dry, loamy soils well-exposed to the sun. Light applications of well-rotted manure, careful preparation of the ground, clean and frequent cultivation are the only requisites for growing anise.

 

In about four months from the sowing of the seed, and in about one month from the appearance of the flowers, the plants may be pulled, or preferably cut, for drying. The climate and the soils in the warmer parts of the northern states appear to be favorable to the commercial cultivation of anise, which should prove a profitable crop under proper management.

As far as cooking with anise, the leaves are frequently employed as a garnish, for flavoring salads and to a small extent as potherbs. Far more general, however, is the use of the seeds, which enter as a flavoring into various condiments, especially curry powders, many kinds of cake, pastry and confectionery and into some kinds of cheese and bread.

 

Anise oil is extensively employed for flavoring many beverages both alcoholic and non-spirituous and for disguising the unpleasant flavors of various drugs. The seeds are also ground and compounded with other fragrant materials for making sachet powders, and the oil is mixed with other fluids for liquid perfumes.

 

 

Kains, M.G. (2007). Project Gutenberg eBook of Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation, Harvesting, Curing and Uses. Retrieved March 28, 2008, from the Project Gutenberg Web site: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21414/21414-h/21414-h.htm.