Kubanita

Cuban oregano graces gardens and kitchens


BY MARICEL E. PRESILLA

food@herald.com
Thu, Aug. 18, 2005


Like most gardeners, I have a soft spot in my heart for flowering annuals and beautiful foliage. Aesthetics take second place to my needs as a cook, however, and I'd rather make room for scrawny herbs and vegetables than showy ornamentals. I like to reach into my New Jersey garden for that summer's best tomato, that fresh bunch of epazote or that last-minute sprig of cilantro.

Happily, there is one plant in my garden that is as lovely as it is useful: Cuban oregano. Round and compact with thick, dewy leaves, this tropical beauty reminds me of a ball of crushed green velvet.

When I saw it growing in my cousin Manolo Espinosa's lush roof garden in Puerto Rico, I knew I had to have it. Manolo had grown his plants from a small cutting he had smuggled from Cuba. He was besotted with it and was more than happy to give me a few cuttings. I stashed them in my purse together with tiny ají cachucha peppers from a plant grown from Cuban seed and forgot about them.

My tiny botanical cache sounded the alarm at the airport, but an agricultural inspector gave them a clean bill of health, and I was allowed to carry them home. After rooting the cuttings in water, I planted them in nice terra-cotta pots and cared for them tenderly. Seeing them grow healthy and strong was immensely gratifying, as if I had opened a hidden door to the Cuban gardens of my past.

Like rosemary, Cuban oregano has a penetrating scent that fills the garden after a rain or when you brush past it. Its aroma and flavor are somewhere between oregano and sage with notes of turpentine, and it can be used interchangeably with those herbs in numerous savory dishes.

Cuban oregano shares the sprawling habit of its relative the garden coleus, and pinching a few sprigs to use in cooking only improve its appearance, as the plant sends out new shoots and fills out more compactly.

Though commonly known to U.S. gardeners as Cuban oregano, this aromatic plant is neither a Cuban native nor a true oregano. A Southeast Asian plant (Plectranthus amboinicus), a member of the Lamiacea or mint family, it made its way to the Latin America in colonial times.

In Cuba, gardeners know it as orégano de la tierra, oreganón or French oregano (orégano francés), which points to Haiti, a former French colony, as a possible point of entry. My family never used it in cooking, but I have heard of cooks seasoning black beans and stews with it. I mostly remember it as a medicinal plant used to make hot tisanes (teas) and fried in oil to treat bronchitis, severe colds and digestive problems.

I have less lofty uses for my plants. The tender shoots make lovely garnishes for salads and drinks. After two or three days of steeping, it turns white distilled vinegar into a wonderfully aromatic vinegar that I lavish on avocado and fresh tomato salads.

I like to whirl highly fragrant, mature leaves with grassy, green-tasting olive oil in a blender or food processor and strain it well to make a terrific infused oil that I drizzle over oven-roasted red snapper.

The subtle herbal bitterness of the leaves is partially tamed by simmering them in a simple syrup, and gives a mysterious kick to cocktails and summer drinks like my white wine sangria.

While my mint and epazote have turned ungainly and spindly under the sweltering heat of late summer, the Cuban oregano looks lush and youthful -- almost proud to have gained a place of honor in my garden and my heart.

Culinary historian Maricel E. Presilla is the chef/co-owner of Cucharamama and Zafra in Hoboken, N.J. Her latest book is The New Taste of Chocolate.

SOURCE


GROW YOUR OWN: Cuban oregano, left, is available at Parker Sod Garden Center in Kendall (305-596-5620).

mellisas

l have to tell ya cuban oregano is the best l have ever had..it is so full of flavor...grows wild in alot of places...you can pick it at the side of the road...wonderful stuff..

__________________
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Kubanita

... i don't recall seeing it ... but i'm going to look now that i know what it looks like!

mellisas

a lot of it around trinidad...out in the hill side..look so different than the oregano l know ..the discription used that it looks like garden coleus is very true...

__________________
None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe