Anise

Also aniseed. A plant, Pimpenella anisum, it contributes its flavor not to its green growth, but to its essential­ oil-rich "seeds" (properly fruits), which have a distinctive sweet licorice taste. Anise is a native of Levant (the former name for a region that now comprises Lebanon, Israel and parts of Turkey and Syria) and was known to the Greeks by the 4th century BC. Culinary use extends at least as far back as Ancient Rome, when historian Pliny wrote of the seed: "Be it green or dried it's wanted for all conserves and flavorings." The Greeks, Romans and Hebrews used anise as a condiment. Today, it's most often found in desserts and liqueurs, including anisette, ouzo and Pernod. Because of the value of anise, it became one of the spices used by the Romans to pay taxes. England's King Edward I levied an import tax on the herb in 1305. But despite its popularity, it was not cultivated in England before the 16th century.

Aniseed was a favorite both with the old herbalists and the ladies of fashion, for the seed was said to be good "for affections of the diaphragm where the body is tightly laced and if suspended by the pillow for the sleeper to smell, it will give him a youthful look and prevent disagreeable dreams." John Gerard (1545-1612), the English herbalist, said, "Aniseed helpeth the yeoxing or hicket and should be given to young children to eat which are likely to have the falling sickness [epilepsy] or to such as have it by patrimony or succession." And finally, founders of America thought so well of it that the organizers of the colony of Virginia required every man to plant six seeds of the herb, perhaps because "the seed thereof found in a little bag or handkerchief and kept at the nose to smell to, keepeth men from dreaming and starting in their sleep and causeth them to rest quietly." Mexico is currently the largest producer of anise. See also star anise.

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