Oregano deserves the spotlight

The spice shop is never quiet. Jars clink when they’re stacked, metal scoops scrape against bins and the air carries the overlapping scents of a thousand kitchens. The shopkeeper is the axis it all spins around, toggling between two modes: languid, as if the register counter were a chaise lounge; or electric, buzzing to life the second a group of salon-fresh, sixty-something women drifts in from next door. He greets them with the same line—something about how they’re spicier than anything in his store—and they laugh as if they’ve never heard it before.

Today, though, he’s working one-on-one. He flips a jar of sumac between his hands like a baseball while teasing a regular, a woman in zebra-print pants with a diamond wedding ring the size of a quail’s egg. “Have you left him yet?” he asks. She giggles. “Maybe someday.” He pleads.

She giggles again. “Maybe someday soon.”

The herbs themselves are stored in what looks like a relic from a university office: a honeycomb of wooden cubbies, each one just big enough to hold about a dozen packets. You can almost imagine its former life — department memos, summons from the dean, the occasional illicit letter between English faculty — now repurposed to dole out parsley, marjoram, garlic powder. I scan the little slots until I find mine: a refill of Greek oregano, parceled out in a plastic baggie with a heat-sealed strip. It looks more like contraband than cooking, which is fitting enough. Because this isn’t the anonymous dust you shake over a slice of pizza and forget about. This oregano is sharper, peppery, alive.

I pay, slip my little baggie of herbs into my purse, and step back out onto the block. It’s almost funny—once you’re holding oregano in your hand, you start to see it everywhere.

Within three blocks, it’s on the Greek restaurant’s roasted potatoes, the ones that crackle with oil and lemon; folded into the birria at the Mexican joint; tucked inside the Italian place’s meatballs; mixed into the deli’s sausages; and, of course, dusted over every slice of pizza. Oregano is the breadcrumb trail that ties this neighborhood together, the quiet seasoning that makes each cuisine taste more like itself. And yet, for all that ubiquity, it rarely gets credit for holding so much together.

That’s the thing about oregano: it’s rarely the main character when it comes to spices, alliums, or herbs. Sage gets to announce fall, mint conjures spring, dill earns cult status in Alison Roman’s corner of the internet and garlic is beloved across the board. Oregano? It never trends, never inspires devotion, never even gets a season. Which is surprising, because it’s not timid. Oregano is bold—woodsy, warm, a little bitter. Like walking through a sparse forest in early autumn, the air sharp with smoke from a campfire, leaves underfoot brittle enough to crack. A little witchy, a little grounding, more powerful than it pretends to be.

But I get it. I wasn’t a convert until relatively recently.

About this time last year, I was given my first really good jar of oregano after a lifetime of Kroger’s finest. At first, I sprinkled it in the predictable places: pizza sauce, red-sauce pasta, maybe a roasted chicken if I was feeling ambitious. But then I noticed something. Oregano, especially in its dried form — which sharpens and intensifies into something almost resinous, unlike its greener, more delicate fresh counterpart — has become the backbone of my pantry cooking.

Anytime I was making the sort of braised, savory “brown food” that rewards a little patience (stews, beans, short ribs, even a pan of sautéed mushrooms edging toward collapse) I’d inevitably hit that moment where the dish tasted flat, like the volume knob had been turned just shy of “on.” That’s when I entered triage mode.

First, more salt. Then, a splash of acid, like a squeeze of lemon or a finger’s flick of vinegar to carve a little brightness into the shadows. And if it still needed something, I’d reach for the oregano. The good stuff. A loose-fingered sprinkle that collapsed into the pot like dried pine needles, instantly perfuming the steam. Together, the dish bloomed and deepened, gaining a kind of plush dimensionality. The flavors, previously muddied, began to stand upright and speak.

It’s worth noting here that not all oregano is the same. Greek oregano, what most people picture when they say “oregano,” is actually a member of the mint family, floral and peppery. Mexican oregano, meanwhile, isn’t oregano at all but related to verbena — earthier, with a citrus tang that makes it just as indispensable in a pot of beans as in tomato sauce.I’ve grown to become a fan of both, fresh and dried.

That said, despite my newfound devotion, ardent enough that I’ve had to replace my “good oregano” twice in the time since the original acquisition, I hadn’t ever really given oregano its time in the spotlight.

But then came one of those days recently: the kind where you’ve already been out four separate times (during a week already punctuated by two unnecessary grocery trips), and still, somehow, the sum of all your effort leaves you with no plan and no ingredients to support even the suggestion of a plan. That kind of culinary corner tends to breed invention, or at least desperation. So I decided to blow out the tenets of my current kitchen triage — salt, acid, oregano — into a full-blown meal.

I melted a knob of butter in a small saucepan, then a spoonful of the dried leaves. The fat hissed in greeting, and within seconds the kitchen was filled with oregano’s scent. Scanning the spice rack, I added garlic powder, onion powder and a very, very generous crank of black pepper, and the butter thickened under the stir of a spoonful of flour. A splash of cream softened everything into a pale, velvety sauce, and a grating of parmesan and lemon zest nudged it toward something bright and indulgent.

It was the simplest of pantry dinners, but the oregano made it taste intentional, almost glamorous: a weekday dish dressed up for company.

I’ve had plenty of pantry dinners that served their purpose and vanished from memory. But this one—oregano blooming in butter, cream thickened with a spoonful of flour, all eventually tossed half a box of farfalle and torn pieces of rotisserie chicken—turned into something I’d actually look forward to. It’s a meal I’ll make again, the kind you tuck away not just as a recipe, but as proof that there’s more to be found in the ordinary than you thought.

This story originally appeared in The Bite, my weekly food newsletter for Salon. If you enjoyed it and would like more essays, recipes, technique explainers and interviews sent straight to your inbox, subscribe here.