Kala Jeera vs. Shah Jeera vs. Black cumin vs. Nigella

[Jenise]

and vs. kalonji.

The term 'black cumin' seems to be applicable to several different seeds, and they are not the same. The black cumin supposedly kala jeera seeds I just ordered are definitely not the seed I wanted. These are short, almost triangular in shape, and jet black. They do taste of cumin, but the kala jeera seeds I was trying to replace look more like caraway seeds and have a camphor-like aroma.

With the right glasses on I can tell the difference when looking at these pictures, but only by picture and not by name:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Cumin-Seed ... B003CIE2C4

From that physical description, you got Nigella (aka, Kalonji), like this: https://www.foodrepublic.com/2016/11/21/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nigella-seeds/

Shah jeera is a form of cumin, somewhat milder than the regular. Apparently, physically somewhat similar to caraway.

Black cumin is similar to cumin but the seeds are more slender, taste a bit smoky.

Kala jeera, unfortunately, is used in different ways in different places, so could mean any of the previous three.

Don't forget poppy seed and onion seed, while we're at it.

I'd always thought that kala jeera and shah jeera were both names for the same seed, with the English name being black cumin. I wasn't aware there is another kind of seed going under the name black cumin. The ones I buy at the local Indian grocery look like a smaller version of regular cumin and have a camphor-like aroma. But I guess the situation is more muddled and the names mean different things depending on where you are in India.

Kalonji is nigella. It is sometimes called in English "black onion seed". That's a misnomer. Nigella is not from a plant in the onion family.

Indians use white poppy seeds quite a bit, but I've never found an Indian recipe that calls for the black poppy seed used in Europe.

There's also black vs. white vs. green cardamom. Green cardamom pods are as harvested. The white cardamom pods commonly found in supermarkets are dried green cardamom. Black cardamom comes from a different plant. The pods are much larger, ridged, and the seeds are in a soft mass and have a smoky aroma.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

From that physical description, you got Nigella (aka, Kalonji), like this: https://www.foodrepublic.com/2016/11/21/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nigella-seeds/

Shah jeera is a form of cumin, somewhat milder than the regular. Apparently, physically somewhat similar to caraway.

Black cumin is similar to cumin but the seeds are more slender, taste a bit smoky.

Kala jeera, unfortunately, is used in different ways in different places, so could mean any of the previous three.

Don't forget poppy seed and onion seed, while we're at it.

But no matter what we believe to be correct, if you followed my link and checked all the products shown as black cumin--they use the same name for more than one type of seed. It's not absolute. You can even order seeds mailed to you from India for just two extra $ and get what one unhappy shopper got: "I got my order in a good amount of time. Inside was not what I ordered, there were brown khaptra beetle crawling everywhere. I'm am so happy I didn't bring this inside my house. Thank God."

I did look at your link, I did not read the comments, I'm sure the packers and shippers can screw it up. As much as I was very, very impressed with spices that Salil gave me (that he got from his grandmother, who still lives in the old country (which I think is Pakistan)) I am happier when I deal with US firms that have clear signage, photos, return policies, ideas concerning sanitation like unto my own, etc.

[Jenise]

Yeah, reading that comment disturbed me. And I read it after I read one that comes in a plastic jar whose pitch included a parenthetical comment about the importance of plastic jars as containment. Now I get what they meant!

Heh. All unprocessed food ingredients have contamination problems. They count rodent hairs, right?

In Indian grocery stores you'll usually see toor dal (split pigeon peas) sold both plain and oiled. Toor dal is especially prone to insect infestation and the oil helps guard against that. All of my Indian cookbooks advise to sort the dal by hand to remove any small stones or other contaminants. I've never run into this problem with the brands of dal that I buy, nor have I had insect problems.

Many years ago I did have a problem with a bag of rice flour I bought at an Asian market. It was contaminated by tiny weevils. I ended up with a serious and persistent infestation that I dubbed "shelf life". One time I used the salt shaker and what fell out onto my food was dead weevils. The last straw was when I mixed up some Instant Breakfast, took a sip and almost choked because it was just pure cocoa--no milk or sugar at all. I examined the other packets in the box and found out that weevil larvae had chewed their way into most of them, eaten all the powdered milk and sugar, and left the cocoa behind. I emptied the kitchen shelves, tossed almost everything, cleaned the shelves thoroughly with bleach, and bought a bunch of mason jars of various sizes. Flour, cornstarch, dried beans, rice, and whatnot are now all kept in sealed mason jars. A friend has a similar insect problem in the kitchen once, but in that case it was tiny moths, not beetles or weevils.

-Paul W.

Paul, Bleh.

Infestations Fun Fact: That 'old book' smell is clove oil. It used to be added to bookbinding glue because bookworms don't like it.

I should try that. Or mothballs. I have a persistent problem with the binding in my hard-bound books coming apart after a few years. I'm pretty sure it's silverfish eating the glue.

-Paul W.

Many years ago I did have a problem with a bag of rice flour I bought at an Asian market. It was contaminated by tiny weevils. I ended up with a serious and persistent infestation that I dubbed "shelf life". -Paul W.

A few years ago, I had a weevil infestation that took me forever to get rid of. I finally found the source, a large tin used originally for popcorn in which I had dumped a large bag of rice flour. I must have thrown away 50-60 lbs of flour and other stuff.

Twice in my life I've had a pantry moth problem. The first was in MN decades ago. I went crazy trying to find the source: a tiny bag of crushed chiles in my spice rack.

Several years ago here in NM, I spent maybe three years or more eradicating all traces of the pantry moths (I discovered they also love chocolate). And how they can get into sealed jars is beyond me. The source was a small bag of dry dog food I had stashed away. Even this year, I saw a lone moth flutter by in front of my tv. Didn't last long, but a lone survivor may pop up somehow even five years later. It's like they're invincible.

[Jenise]

Many years ago I did have a problem with a bag of rice flour I bought at an Asian market. It was contaminated by tiny weevils. I ended up with a serious and persistent infestation that I dubbed "shelf life".
-Paul W.

Once upon a time when I was single and sharing a house with a friend, we had a bad bad moth problem in the pantry. We may have also had weevils--it's all very fuzzy now--but we may have surmised that weevils become moths because we had both issues and/or maybe someone told us that. I seem to recall that a burlap bag of basmati rice purchased at a low-rent Indian store was suspect.
ANYWAY, like you: everything in jars ever since. Many households later, still no problem. I'm also very careful about where I buy ingredients. I've walked out of more than one Asian market that smelled of moth balls.

The larval form of pantry moths is a tiny caterpillar. I was the one who discovered the source of my friend's moth problem. It was a metal biscuit tin and it was literally crawling with the caterpillars. Weevil larvae are tiny grubs. I know it was the larvae that got into my Instant Breakfast because their cast-off pupal skins were in the packets.

-Paul W.

The larval form of pantry moths is a tiny caterpillar. I was the one who discovered the source of my friend's moth problem. It was a metal biscuit tin and it was literally crawling with the caterpillars. Weevil larvae are tiny grubs. I know it was the larvae that got into my Instant Breakfast because their cast-off pupal skins were in the packets.

-Paul W.

When infested, I noted pantry larvae frequently creeping along the intersection of walls and ceilings. I've also found pupal skins in the hermetically sealed cheese sauce envelopes in mac and cheese and inside packets of hot chocolate. Always accompanied by a little hole that they bored to get inside.

I think I have had very stupid weevils, or something like that. I have found cast-off skins in my shoeshine box(?) and among some boxes/postcards I keep under the bed. I don't think I've ever seen a live creature. I assume whatever it is got in, possibly in the corrugated cardboard itself, and then tried to infest but starved to death instead.

Going back to the original subject, Neelam Batra writes that jeera is the Hindi word for cumin. If a recipe calls for just "jeera", it means ordinary cumin. "Kala jeera" (black cumin) or "shah jeera" (royal cumin) are what in English is called black cumin. They are the dark-colored, tiny, aromatic, caraway-like seeds. According to Neelam, kala jeera and shah jeera are two names for the same thing.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Then what are the little triangular jet black seeds that are sold as black cumin but which don't look like caraway seeds? My kala jeera (the one purchased from Penzey's ages ago) are almost indistinguishable from regular cumin or caraway in color--you'd call them brown, I think. Def not black. Seems to be variation, perhaps depending on where grown. You can see it in the photos on Amazon, which is why it's so confusing. How do I know I'll get what I want?

I just took a look at that Amazon page you linked to. The seeds in the photo look like the black cumin that I buy at the local Indian grocery. Swad is a brand I'm familiar with. Here's what I find confusing. The item being sold on the page you linked to is Swad brand kala jeera. But if you scroll down to the "what other items do customers buy" part of the page, you'll see an image of a bag labeled Swad brand shah jeera. I can't be certain but I think they're the same product under different names.

This prompted me to do some more googling around. As Jeff described, I found three different types of seeds, from three distinct species of plant.

Cuminum cyminum seeds are the ordinary cumin found in the West. The Indian name is jeera, or sometimes safed (white) jeera, to distinguish it from kala (black) jeera.

Bunium persicum seeds are the black cumin whose Indian name is kala jeera or shah (royal) jeera. It's the thin caraway-like seed shown in the photo in that Amazon page.

Centratherum anthelminticum seeds are known in English as bitter cumin. The Indian name is kali jeeri. It's used as a medicinal herb. Based on the pictures of it that I've been able to find, I think this is what you got. The two Indian names (kala jeera vs. kali jeeri) are confusingly similar. I found kali jeeri for sale on Amazon. The vendor mentions the scientific name (C. anthelminticum), but here's the catch--the image on the kali jiri page is the same image as on the kala jeera page you linked to! I think someone at Amazon got the two confused and decided they could use the same image for both.

I'll ask the guy who runs the Indian grocery about this confusing situation next time I'm in there.

Fortunately I can buy kala/shah jeera in person so I can see what I'm getting. For online purchases, I suggest looking for the proper scientific name before buying.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I'm sure Jeff was right, as you confirmed: the triangular jet black seeds are nigella, aka kalonji, which taste a lot like cumin but are milder (I have the jars on my desk, just tasted them). The kala jeera I have are much smaller and also darker, but brown not black. I was all set to order new kala jeera from the Rani line featured on Amazon, because they do jars, but have balked because the close-up photo looks identical to the larger, lighter plain old cumin I've got sitting right here, not the kala jeera. Maybe I'll just wait until the border opens up and I can shop at an Indian store in Delta (which is overrun with sikhs).

By the way, I like nigella seed a lot. I was first introduced to it as a sprinkle on top of a loaf of rye bread, but now I use it on squash and on fatty fish.

I like nigella, too. I got a recipe for a Moroccan-style carrot, sweet potato, and red lentil soup from Food52. It's best when garnished with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt and a sprinkling of nigella.

-Paul W.