Marjoram

Marjoram is Origanum majorana, the same genus as oregano and a different plant in the ways that matter. Where oregano is peppery and assertive, marjoram is sweet, faintly piney and delicate. It carries less carvacrol and more of the milder terpenes, which is why it never dominates a mix the way its cousin can, and why so many northern formulas can use it generously.

It is the herb of the Polish kiełbasa. Majeranek appears in more Polish sausage recipes than any other herb, usually alongside garlic, black pepper and allspice, and that quartet is close to a signature of the tradition. German sausage making uses it heavily too, particularly in the liver sausages, the Thüringer bratwurst family and the Leberkäse and brawn styles. It runs through Austrian, Czech and Hungarian work, and it is common in British sausages and stuffings. It is far less used in the Mediterranean, where oregano occupies the same place.

The practical point is fragility. Marjoram's aroma sits in volatile terpenes that drive off with heat and time, and it is markedly more perishable than oregano in this respect. Long cooking flattens it, and a sausage seasoned generously at mixing can taste of very little after a two-hour poach. Traditional practice adds it late where the process allows, and in a cooked sausage many recipes deliberately over-season with marjoram at the mix in the knowledge that a good part of it will be lost. In a raw fermented product it survives better but still fades over a long maturation.

Dried is the normal form and, unlike oregano, dried marjoram is weaker than the fresh herb rather than stronger, so a substitution in either direction needs adjusting. Rubbed leaf keeps far better than ground. Doses in Polish and German work commonly run 1 to 3 g per kilo of meat, occasionally higher, which is generous for a herb and reflects both the mildness of the plant and the losses to cooking.