yerbas & spices

Through a process i like to call taste and error, i have come to learn and identify many old favorite flavors amongst a sea of new and unusual looking plants. This process is an integral part of my cultural immersion as plants have become something of a medium in my communication. i love cooking, i love el mercado, i love gardens, and i love plant nurseries. For these loves, i frequently plunge myself into awkward partially-intelligible conversations in which i'm sure i come across as a gringa loca; HOWEVER, i usually emerge with new and valuable knowledge of the aforementioned heart throbs.
Case in point numero uno: my quest for CILANTRO
A favorite of mine, i came into Nicaragua confident that cilantro was as spanishy as a word can get, an herb requisite in mexican cuisine, certainly an EASY FIND throughout all Latin America! Imagine my dismay when i scoured the market, inquiring constantly cilantro? Hay cilantro? Busco cilantro? and the ladies kept showing me this plant:
obviously NOT cilantro, to which i shook my head and kept searching, oblivious to the identical cilantro scent of Eryngium foetidum, commonly known as culantro (with a hard c, like a k) or Puerto Rican coriander. the above plant grows abundantly in our backyard and has become essential in all my soups, sauces, and salads.

Happily, I made the connection between mentha and mint on my own. despite the lack of any apparent physical similarity, the nose knows While i'm content using mentha in my mojitos, we all know this woody plant with rounded leaves is not a member of the authentic square-stem Mint Family. so what is it?

They handed me this one on a plate: Oregano

Plectranthus amboinicus

Also known as Cuban Oregano, Mexican Mint, and Spanish Thyme. Call it what you will, these guys propagate beautifully from cuttings and do wonders for a spaghetti sauce.

My garden boasts two basil varieties--again, smelling is believing.
The purplish leaves are tiny but pungent, and somehow i got the idea that this one is of Thai basil descent, but i haven't made an official identification yet. It does provide a fantastic flavor in combination with coconut milk, garlic, hot chiles, and one final herbal wonder in mi jardin:

Zacate Limón

Andropogon citratum

Nothing beats the zing of lemongrass in a Thai coconut soup! Not to mention its presence as a grassy bed end plant. Stalks are always available and will propagate readily.

¡FELIZ AÑO NUEVO!

January, finally back to my garden! After 5 weeks away, both to my delight and dismay, my tiny cultivated piece of paradise was overGROWN. Some of the plants thrived (check my latino oregano, big leafy guy, probably wouldn't know it's oregano unless you smelled it--it is); sunflowers BLOOMING! squash full-on hijacked the rest of the garden, which was slightly tramatic for me. By hijacked i mean Squash Jungle vining and groping and suffocating other innocent plant babies (all six canteloupes: dead upon arrival); here is a pic of the squash climbing a coffee plant (see the curly tendril?)!! arrrrgh.
I'm currently drying my first batch of oregano and basil, yum.
Right-side up tomates have li'l green fruits! Upside-down tomates, not so much. bummer. they are starting to flower, so maybe they'll just be late bloomers?
So that's that in the garden. Soon I will really and truly share a recipe. think: Pesto and Hummus, but neither...