Oregano

Oregano is an important culinary herb. It is particularly widely used in Greek and Italian cuisines. It is the leaves that are used in cooking, and the dried herb is often more flavourful than the fresh.

Oregano combines nicely with pickled olives, capers and lovage leaves. Unlike most Italian herbs, oregano works with hot and spicy food, which is popular in southern Italy.

Oregano is an indispensable ingredient for Greek cuisine. Oregano adds flavour to the Greek salad and is usually used separately or added to the lemon-olive oil sauce that accompanies almost every fish or meat barbecues and some casseroles.

It has an aromatic, warm and slightly bitter taste. It varies in intensity; good quality is so strong that it almost numbs the tongue, but the cultivars adapted to colder climates have often unsatisfactory flavour. The influence of climate, season and soil on the composition of the essential oil is greater than the difference between the various species.

Health benefits

Oregano is high in antioxidant activity, particularly due to a high content of phenolic acids and flavonoids (PMID 16218659, PMID 12730411). Additionally, oregano has demonstrated antimicrobial activity against food-borne pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes (PMID 16218659). Both of these characteristics may be useful in both health and food preservation. In the Philippines, oregano is not commonly used for cooking but is rather considered as a primarily medicinal plant, useful for relieving children's coughs.

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