{"id":682,"date":"2024-07-03T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T06:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/?p=682"},"modified":"2024-06-26T17:42:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T17:42:04","slug":"an-oregano-by-any-other-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/?p=682","title":{"rendered":"An Oregano By Any Other Name…"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, I thought oregano was oregano. An co-worker once told me oregano was for pizza, not sauce. That was the extent of my knowledge.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I went to the Regional (i.e. Farmer’s) Market, looking for herbs to grow myself. I overheard a woman asking for Greek Oregano, as opposed to the Italian Oregano that seemed to be offered at every booth. She finally found some (the vendor called it ‘hot’ oregano). I bought both varieties, curious about the difference.<\/p>\n

Every summer I make Mediterranean-style wraps to keep in the fridge for on-the-go eating. The spread calls for fresh oregano. The summer I grew both, I learned we prefer the Greek because of its stronger flavor.<\/p>\n

The next season, it appeared the Italian variety hadn’t survived the winter, and the Greek didn’t look very healthy. I went back to the market and made the rounds to dozens of vendors before I found Greek Oregano again. The original Greek plant eventually perked right up, and the newer one, well a season later, and it is thriving.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

All was well in my world.<\/p>\n

Until a few weeks ago, another author included a recipe for Mango Salsa in her newsletter and one of the ingredients was Mexican Oregano.<\/p>\n

What? I’ve seasoned Mexican-style food with oregano-from-a-jar for years. Naturally, I had to look up this new twist.<\/p>\n

Come to find out, the two herbs come from entirely different plants.<\/a> European (Greek, Italian, Turkish–yes, Turkish–oreganos are part of the mint family, whereas Mexican Oregano is part of the verbena family. That’s right. If you’ve read Gone With the Wind<\/em> as many times as I have, you may remember that Scarlet O’Hara’s mother Ellen used lemon verbena sachet.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I had to buy a jar of Mexican Oregano if for no other reason than to make Kait Nolan’s Mango Salsa<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, I thought oregano was oregano. An co-worker once told me oregano was for pizza, not sauce. That was the extent of my knowledge. A few years ago, I went to the Regional (i.e. Farmer’s) Market, looking for herbs to grow myself. I overheard a woman asking for Greek Oregano, as opposed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.1359999999999998987476601541857235133647918701171875,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3000000000000000444089209850062616169452667236328125,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.67849999999999999200639422269887290894985198974609375,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92000000000000003996802888650563545525074005126953125,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.84999999999999997779553950749686919152736663818359375,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.1999999999999999555910790149937383830547332763671875,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.90000000000000002220446049250313080847263336181640625,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.270000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.020000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.4699999999999999733546474089962430298328399658203125,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking-food"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"17":{"name":"Cooking\/Food","link":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/?cat=17"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comptonplations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}