Caraway fruits (erroneously called seeds) are crescent-shaped achenes with five pale ridges which are hydrodistilled to produce oil out of it. Caraway seeds from the plant Carum carvi are known as kümmel in German. They are crescent-shaped, long, and have five pale ridges. Caraway is more common in the German kitchen than cumin and is typically used whole, not ground. It has an anise-like flavor and aroma that is popular in breads (especially rye breads), cheeses, sauerkraut, and root vegetables. It also can be found in desserts, liquors, and as an ingredient in beauty products, folk medicine, and breath fresheners.

Also known as Meadow Cumin, Caraway is a very old and well known spice, used as far back as the Stone Age by the evidence in archaeological digs. The Egyptians used it as a flavouring in foods, the Romans in bread-making, and in the Middle Ages it found popularity among the Germans and Austrians in their cooking. Spices are an important bio-nutrients for both food ingredients and nutritional supplements. From ancient times, spices have been used as food additives to enhance the taste and be flavor of food. Apart from these uses, spices also have numerous medicinal properties and used to treat several disorders that form an important part of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia (Indian System of Medicine). Spices have increasingly larger role to play in Indian recipes as the bactericidal, bacteriostatic, fungistatic, antifertility, anti-helminthic and other medicinal properties and believed to aid digestion. In the traditional Indian system of medicine, more than a few spices and herbs have hold and possess several medicinal properties such as antithrombotic, anti-atherosclerotic, hypolipidemic, anti-inflammatory, anti-aggregatory, eicosanoid inhibitor.