MARJORAM AND ITS UNIQUE ORIGIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 34

MARJORAM AND ITS UNIQUE ORIGIN

Venus is supposed to have been the first to raise sweet marjoram. Wild marjoram, according to tradition, was once a youth in the service of King Cinyras, of Cyprus. One day he was carrying a vase of perfumes, which he dropped, and in his terror he lost consciousness and finally became

metamorphosed Into this sweet herb. The botanical name, origanum, means ‘“joy of the mountain,” and one cannot imagine a more appropriate name I for this fragrant plant. One old berI balist tells us that to smell wild mar-

joram frequently keeps a person in good health. The ancient Greeks believed that if marjoram grew on a tomb the dead person was happy. “May many flowers grow on his tomb, violets and marjoram and the narcissus growing in water, and around thee may all roses grow,” was an old prayer. Marjoram was one of the strewing herbs, and it was always put into the sweet-bags for the linen. Marjorams love sun, and they cannot have too much of it. They like a light, dry soil. Sow seeds of marjoram in March or April, and increase by dividing the roots or taking slips any time during the spring or autumn. Sweet marjoram can only be grown from seed, as it is only an annual. Take the tops and tenderest parts of sweet marjoram, bruise it well in a wooden mortar or bowl; take double the weight of fine sugar, boil it with marjoram water till it is as thick as syrup, then put in your beaten marjoram.—From “The Recipes of John Nott, cook of the Duke of Bolton, 1723.” One pint of boiling water poured on a good handful of the young leaves and flowering tops of wild marjoram, will make marjoram tea. The wild marjoram has a pungent taste, warmer than that of sweet or pot marjoram.