How Greek Was My Oregano

I regard oreganos as the Harleys of the herb world. Vroom vroom! In fact, Greek oregano is so lusty, on hot summer nights you can almost hear bouzouki music thrumming from the patch.

I hear you say, “What’s this Greek oregano? What’s Greek about it? Isn’t oregano just oregano?”

No way. There are at least nine different species of the genus Origanum. You get the feeling that when botanical names were handed out the naming committee had drunk its share of ouzo. The Latin name Origanum is translated as marjoram. The only herb called oregano in English is Origanum vulgare --also known as marjoram, pot marjoram and wild marjoram.

So we’re talking marjorams here. Specifically, pot marjorams. Greek oregano, O. heracloticum or O. hirtum , is also called pot marjoram. And so is Origanum onites , which is also known as Cretan oregano, Italian oregano or rigani --which happens to be the modern Greek pronunciation of origanum . (I wonder, did the naming committee throw their glasses into the fireplace afterward?)

Now, language is a living thing. Academics can tell us that we should use this word and not that, but when another word suits, we use it. Native to dry rocky places, the leaves on these small shrubs have--to a greater or lesser degree--a sunny/musky/minty flavor. The “to a greater or lesser degree” is the crux of the matter. As the plants have found their way into our gardens and kitchens, names have sorted themselves out. Delicate “marjorams” wave demurely as macho “oreganos” thrum by, vroom vroom!

Then there’s the exception that makes the rule--sort of. Remember, the official first name of just plain oregano-- O. vulgare --means just plain marjoram. You’ll find it in catalogues listed both ways. Native from Europe to Central Asia, it’s an extremely variable species. Usually its flavor is mild at best, but I understand that when grown in a Mediterranean soil and climate, its leaves are filled with flavor.

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Which brings up an important point: When setting anything in your garden, especially herbs, try to approximate its native conditions--create a microclimate. That’s why I like to tell you where a plant comes from. When, in the Companion Plants catalogue, the flavor of Cretan oregano--native to southeastern Europe, Turkey and Syria--is described as a cross between oregano and marjoram, how much of that middling is in the leaf itself, and how much in the fact that it’s grown in Athens, Ohio, and not Athens, Greece?

Leaves on these plants are small and charming, heart-shaped without the indentation at top, from 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches long. The blooms, which come midsummer, are tiny whitish or mauvish stars clustered at the tips of the stalks. Buds and flowers are not only edible but also as flavorful as the leaves. Mauve-tinted sprays are particularly appealing over cream-colored fish and poultry.

Another species with oregano-flavored leaves mercifully doesn’t confuse us with the M or O words: Dittany of Crete. This is a thrilling plant. Its leaves are silvery, round and woolly, and richly fragrant when you crush them . . . but I’ve never been able to pick one for cooking--they’re that beautiful.

And the flowers! Actually, they’re not flowers but bracts, modified leaves that form a cascade of small bells shaded from chartreuse to pink to burnished copper. While the other oregano-flavored plants I’ve mentioned grow upright, Dittany of Crete is pendulous--heavenly in a hanging basket.

Then if you want an oregano-flavored herb in your garden, choose O. heracleoticum/hirtum (Greek oregano), O. Onites (Cretan oregano) or O. dictamnus (dittany of Crete). You can start the first, a hardy perennial, from seed in spring or fall. Start the second and third, both tender perennials, from plants. All should be set in warm soil. Herb nurseries offer other cultivars they describe as flavorful oreganos, but I haven’t tasted them, so I’ll leave you to try them.

Do not, however, look to something called Mexican oregano. It’s not even a member of the Mint family like all the marjorams; it’s a verbena. As lusty as it may be, true oregano it ain’t.

But I do want to tell you about a bit of serendipity. A month ago, cruising through herbs in a nursery, I bought something labeled Purple Oregano. The leaves have more blue to their green than I’ve seen, the wiry stems are wine red and the tiny flowers are neon purply pink (they remind me of dyed straw flowers I had as a child).

I planted it in full sun in pure decomposed granite with a boulder behind it, and it’s happy as a clam. The flavor is a tad less emphatic than Greek oregano, but it’s tasty. It has a stiff habit of growth, and I notice that, in true mint family fashion, stems are already sprouting around the base. (Vroom, vroom.) I’ve just learned that it’s O. laevigatum , and a hardy, vigorous English cultivar named Hopley’s Purple. I love it.

I think it was Jim Wilson in “Taylor’s Guide to Vegetables & Herbs” who wrote, “Oregano is actually a flavor, and not a specific herb.” Hooray, Jim! At this moment, a couple of stalks of Greek oregano lie on my lap. Their pungency fills my nostrils. Stalks of common oregano are also close, but they send me no fragrance. A fine oregano is earthy, matchless with other earthy flavors.

Terrific affinity for tomatoes. Neapolitan pizza wouldn’t be its magnificent self without an oregano topping. Classic southern Italian tomato sauce must have oregano at its heart. The likes of slow-baked dried beans, braised root vegetables, roast lamb and poultry and quail and game hens and grilled red meats are superb with oregano.

For my part, I find oregano too assertive for most fish, yet it’s traditional in Greece to rub the leaves over fish before grilling. I love sweet marjoram with fish. What’s sweet marjoram? It’s the marjoram equivalent of Greek oregano. Native to north Africa and southwest Asia, sweet marjoram is hugely underappreciated around here. You can be sure it’s sweet marjoram if it’s O. Majorana . It’s a tender annual, so start sweet marjoram in spring from seeds or plants.

I’ve been looking through cookbooks to get a sense of how others use these two herbs. In “The Classic Italian Cook Book,” Marcella Hazan writes, “Oregano is virtually never used outside of southern cooking, where it appears frequently in tomato sauces, and sometimes with fish or salads.” She says sweet marjoram (marjoram, for short) “is used on occasion in northern and central cooking, in soups and braised meats.”

How about marjoram with cauliflower, onions, spinach and a creamy vegetable soup? I culled this list from “Leaves From our Tuscan Kitchen” by Janet Ross and Michael Waterfield. First published at the turn of the century, it’s a marvelous collection subtitled, “Vegetables as the Center of a Meal.” Alas, Hazan was right. There’s not a jot of oregano in that kitchen.

Worse, in “Venetian Cooking,” written by H.F. Bruning Jr. and Cav. Umberto Bullo in the early ‘70s, about the same time as Hazan’s book, there are armloads of flat-leaf parsley, some sage and rosemary, but not a leaf of marjoram--never mind oregano. Their tomato sauce is flavored with another “sweet” herb, basil.

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In the Venice of the ‘90s, tiny progress: “The Harry’s Bar Cookbook” calls for oregano in rigatoni with bacon and ham as well as in tomatoes au gratin. So I hopefully looked north, to Provence. Perhaps I went too fast, but in Richard Olney’s new “Lulu’s Provengal Table,” I found fennel galore, winter and summer savory, thyme, saffron, flat-leaf parsley . . . and not a wisp even of marjoram.

It suddenly struck me how narrow within a cuisine’s dominion of flavors is the province of herbs. I’m saddened to think that most cooks in China don’t know that oregano and marjoram exist. In Spain, there are those who will never taste star anise. Part of what’s so wonderful about cooking and eating in America--particularly this part--is that we embrace flavors from all over the world. Nothing provincial about our palates. To expand the repertoire further, when a recipe calls for rosemary or fennel seeds, use oregano in its place, tasting as you go. If there’s a call for mint, try equal parts Greek oregano and sweet marjoram. If there’s thyme in the recipe, savor sweet marjoram instead.

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These handsome plants are as appealing in the garden as the kitchen. Given full sun, soil on the dry side and good drainage, marjorams/oreganos are among the easiest herbs to care for. But if you give them rich soil, they’ll thumb their noses at you, elbowing everyone nearby out of the way. Ah, but two can play at that game. Thumb your nose back.

I set the Greek oregano next to a German sage next to a passel of rambunctious mints--all in full sun with great drainage, but on a boulder with not six inches of soil underneath. I can hear them: “Move over, you preposterous chocolate mint! I, the noble Berggarten sage from Germany, must have that space!” Meanwhile sexy bouzoukis distract both of them and the Greek mint rumbles past.

Harvesting is also uncomplicated. While the flavor of many herbs declines as the plant flowers, that of the marjorams/oreganos peaks just before flowering and continues to be delicious. But I pick when I like. What’s crucial is to remember to pot up and bring in the tender plants before frost and to dry some sweet marjoram for winter.

Speaking of winter, I urge you to grow plain oregano for its rosy-purple flowers--they’re among the finest of everlastings. In autumn, I tuck a bouquet into an empty vase, and for months, they look as fresh as the day I picked them, a vibrant keepsake of summer from the humblest of the lot.

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Fresh-cut from farmers’ markets.

Greek oregano and sweet marjoram may be found at a local nursery. Hopley’s Purple Oregano from Armstrong’s, 8985 Venice Blvd. All other plants from Companion Plants, 7247 N. Coolville Ridge Road, Athens, Ohio 45701.

* Thompson can be reached via TimesLink e-mail at bubq86e. For information on TimesLink, call (800) 792-LINK, ext. 274.