Marjoram - A pleasure to see and to eat (Marjoram)

Member Name: thehonesttruth

Product:	Marjoram
Date:	18/06/07 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to grow and maintain, many uses, tastes lovely lovely smell

Disadvantages: none

Introduction
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Marjoram is one of those herbs I always have lurking at the back of my cupboard for tossing into a recipe to give it a bit more flavour. It’s very commonly used in Italian recipes, and also a lot of French cookery, but it’s really very versatile and can be used to add taste to a wide variety of foods, and works especially well in meat dishes.


Marjoram’s Plant Family
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Marjoram (Origanum majorana) is part of the Lamiaceae group of plants, which also includes lavender, Basil, Rosemary, and Mint, to name but a few. It’s a very large family of plants with around 3500 different species of all.

The majority of plants in this category are aromatic, and this plant group is widely cultivated, due to being one of the easiest plant groups to propagate from cuttings and to maintain, as well as being very useful in cooking, aromatherapy, and perfumery.

Plants in this family have distinctive physical traits: Petals fused into an upper lip and a lower lip, stems that are usually square from a cross-section view, and generally 5 united petals on the flowers, with the leaves tending to emerge at right angles. However, there are always exceptions, and some of these traits can be found in other plants that are not part of the lamiacaea family.

Varieties of Marjoram.
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There are three types of marjoram.

Sweet marjoram (Origanum marjorana) and pot marjoram (Origanum onites) are most used in cooking.

Wild or winter marjoram (Origanum vulgare, which is common oregano) is the most used medicinally.


Nutrition
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In a 1 gram (1 tbsp) serving of Marjoram, there are 2 calories, and absolutely no fat or cholesterol. There’s also no carbohydrate, and just 1.mg of sodium. It all sounds good, but alas, man cannot live on herbs alone, so it may not help you on a diet! However, it does provide 4% of your RDA of Iron, which could be useful if you are anemic ... perhaps!

Appearance
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Although I grow marjoram mainly for its use in the kitchen and aromatherapy, I do have a second plant purely because it’s a lovely plant to look at. Marjoram grows 10 - 24 inches (25 - 60 cm) tall, and depending on the variety, and of course natural variations in soil quality and climate, the flowers have hues from white to vivid pink, and the flowers grow in clusters, jam packed with hundreds of tiny, delicately petalled flowers.

The leaves again vary in colour according to variety and growing conditions, but the leaves on my plant are a deep grayish green and oval shaped, feeling velvety to the touch, and the stems are reddish in colour. Adding to this, when grown outdoors, marjoram attracts bees and butterflies, creatures I love seeing in my garden, and this adds in my mind to the overall beauty of the plant.

Marjoram when grown indoor (it can be grown either outside or inside) has a tendency to trail, and makes a very pretty hanging basket.

Growing and looking after Marjoram
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Marjoram can be grown easily either from seeds. Start seeds in early spring, and transplant them in early summer. Plant your seeds in moist soil, and keep it moist. Once the seeds germinate, move the plants to a sunny position, such as a windowsill, or a conservatory if you have one, and keep the soil moist. Also, turn the plants frequently so that all sides get natural sunlight. If you want to, you can add a couple of drops of plant food every so often.

Once the seedlings are well sprouted, you can transplant them into your garden if you wish to grow them outdoors ( Marjoram plants are perfectly happy indoors too) again taking care to place them in a sunny position, as marjoram likes a good few hours of sunshine each day.

Alternatively, you can plant your seeds directly outdoors in late spring, but you should keep them covered to speed up germination – the bottom of a 2litre drinks bottle cut off and upturned is perfect for this.
If you bring your plants in for the winter, make sure to pot them up in fresh compost, and to keep them in a sunny area. Again, turn frequently.

If you don’t get much sunlight (lets face it, most of us DO live in England! ) marjoram can be grown under a fluorescent light, but make sure to keep it far enough from the plant so that it doesn’t get overheated, and again, keep the soil moist and well nourished.

Marjoram can also be grown from cuttings. Select cuttings from a healthy plant, about 4.6 inches long with an angled cut below a leaf node, and remove the lower leaves. Dip the base of the cutting into a rooting hormone (available from most garden centres)

Be careful when setting your cutting into a pot to root – its important that the mixture in the pot be sterile and not fertilized, (although once the cuttings are well rooted, you can add fertilizer). I recommend a mixture of half course construction sand and half peat moss. Don’t use fine sand as it has poor drainage and aeration. Water thoroughly, and place in a sunny position, covered to keep the heat in. Again, the bottom of a pop bottle works well for this.

Check the progress of the roots every so often by gently removing from the pot. Once they have at least an inch of root growth they are ready to be transplanted to a permanent home, either indoors or outdoors depending on the time of year and of course on your own personal preference.

Storing Marjoram
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Wrap fresh marjoram in damp paper towels, place in a sealed plastic sandwich bag, and store in the fridge, it will keep fresh for several days. The leaves also dry easily, store dried marjoram in a cool, dark place in an airtight container. You can of course crush or chop fresh marjoram and freeze it in ice cube trays ready to pop into a meal at a moments notice, and I quite often do this.

Folklore and Legend
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According to Greek legends, Marjoram was the favourite herb of the goddess Aphrodite. Perhaps this link to the ancient Greek goddesses also explains the tradition that if you rubbed marjoram oil, or bathed in a bath of marjoram leaves and flowers, you’d dream of your future partner. It was also worn at weddings, in wreaths or bouquets, to bring happiness to a couple, and added to the wedding feast to nurture love

In the middle Ages, bridal couples wore wreaths of marjoram to symbolize love, honour and happiness. It was commonly carried around in ladies posies and in sweet bags and sometimes strewn around the house as a deodorant. It was worn at weddings for happiness and added to food to increase and prolong the love between a couple. It wasn’t just used as an ancient love aid though; it was also commonly used to cure muscle spasms, act as a remedy against the effects of poisons, and was placed at burial sites to bring peace and rest to the dead in the afterlife.

Even Hippocrates got in on the act, using marjoram as an antiseptic, while the ancient Egyptians used it as a disinfectant. The plants leaves were chewed or stewed in teas in the middle ages to help cure toothache, coughs, and indigestion. The leaves of the plant were often chewed during the Middles Ages to relieve toothache, rheumatism, indigestion and coughs

The following is from Halliwell's Popular Rhymes and Superstitions:

'On St. Luke's Day, says Mother Bunch, take marigold flowers, a sprig of marjoram, thyme, and a little wormwood; dry them before a fire, rub them to powder, then sift it through a fine piece of lawn, and simmer it over a slow fire, adding a small quantity of virgin honey and vinegar. Anoint yourself with this when you go to bed, saying the following lines three times, and you will dream of your future partner "that is to be":

St. Luke, St. Luke, be kind to me,
In dreams let me my true love see.
If a girl desires to obtain this information, let her seek for a green peascod in which there are full 9 peas, and write on a piece of paper -
Come in, my dear,
And do not fear;
which paper she must enclose in the peascod,and lay it under the door. The first person who comes into the room will be her husband.'
Shakespeare may allude to this in As You Like It (ii. iv.) when he talks about the wooing of a peascod.

Recipes
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Creamy Marjoram Sauce
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2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of flour
2 cups of milk
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of chopped fresh marjoram

Melt the butter on a low head and whisk in the flour, stirring until it makes a paste. Keep on whisking for a couple of minutes, then take off the heat and slowly add the milk, keep whisking to avoid lumps. If needs be, add a tiny bit of milk at a time, and whisk in between. Add salt and pepper, and then return to a low heat. Stir in the marjoram, and then serve.

Pork and tomato casserole with Marjoram
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4 pork chops
2 large onions, sliced
2 cloves or garlic, crushed or finely chopped
400g can of peeled tomatoes (can be chopped or unchopped depending on preference)
1 level tablespoon or fresh chopped marjoram
2 tablespoons of vinegar (cider vinegar works best)
2 level tablespoons of brown sugar, the darker the better

Heat the oven to gas mark 4/ 180
Fry the port chops for a few minutes on each side until nicely browned, and then lay them flat in an ovenproof dish. Then fry the garlic and onions together, and once they are soft, add in the tomatoes, vinegar and sugar. Stir until boiling, and then add in the fresh marjoram. Poor this over the pork chops, and cook for about 40 minutes.

You can also add a bay leaf, some chilli, and various other things to this, I tend to vary it every time, that’s the kind of cook i am! If I have any wine lurking about, I often add a big slosh of that too!

Conclusion
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What’s not to love? It’s free if you can get hold of a cutting from a friend, if not, you can buy the herb fresh from supermarkets and with a bit of TLC have a lovely plant. It needs minimal looking after, looks great, tastes great, and smells great.

Summary: well worth adding to your herb collection