Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Cumin along with all the recipes employing Cumin presented on this site, with 1564 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cumin recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cumin as a major wild food ingredient.

As a spice Cumin is the dried fruit of the Cuminum cyminum plant which is a member of the Apiaceae (also known as Umbelliferae) family. It is therefore related to carrots, caraway and fennel and distantly related to Black Cumin (see above). The plant is native from the eastern Mediterranean through to India. The plant is herbaceous with a slender branched stem 20–30 cm tall. The leaves are 5–10 cm long with thread-like leaflets. The flowers themselves are small and bourne in umbrella-like structures called umbels. Cumin is used as a spice for its distinctive aroma, and is popular in North African, Middle Eastern, western Chinese, Indian and Mexican cuisine.

Cumin is particularly associated with Indian cookery (where it is a component of most curry powders) and Mexican cuisine. The name itself probably derives from the Sumerian word gamun which entered Latin as cuminum.