Holiday Cooking – Anise

Our final holiday ingredient—anise—flavors both baked goods and beverages. Anise has a distinctive licorice taste that comes from the organic compound, anethole, but is not the true licorice from another Mediterranean plant – Glycyrrhiza glabra.

Pimpenella anisum is from the Apiaceae family (formerly Umbelliferae), the parsley plants. The seeds are used for cooking in meat rubs, sauces, sausages, and cookies. The seeds are pressed to yield aromatic oil used by the confection industry (think black jelly beans and licorice). The oil also flavors liquor (such as Greek ouzo), and root beer (like Virgil’s Root Beer in the United States). Anise is used as a digestive, and a tea.



Botanical illustration of Pimpenella anisum from Koehler's Medicinal Plants.
Published before 1923 and public domain in the United States.

 

According to Jan-Öjvind Swahn in The Lore of Spices, anise originated in the Eastern Mediterranean, so was available to the world’s oldest civilizations. The Romans used it to make after-dinner cakes for digestion. Pliny documented its virtues for improving breath, making you look younger, and keeping evil dreams away. Later it was used to make a calming tea, and used to mask the bad taste of medicines. The Southeast Asian tree, the Chinese or star anise (Illicium verum), has gained popularity over the years for its fruit, which also produces anethole, and is used like anise.

The common anise is an annual that grows to two feet tall, and has a long taproot. Basal leaves may be simple and pinnate; or ternately compound and entire or toothed. Flowers are white. Seeds are gray-green and downy, with five ridges. Propagation is by seeds.