Ingredients · Flower

Marigold

Tagetes erecta (see note on the name) · Asteraceae (daisy family)

Marigold
Orange and gold petals, used for colour. Five products carry it. A note on the name, because it matters: marigold is two different plants. Tagetes, the American genus of fifty species, is the marigold of Mexican Day of the Dead and Indian garlands. Calendula officinalis, the European pot marigold, is a different plant that got the name first — and it has its own profile in this shop, on fifteen products. Where a tea label says marigold rather than calendula, the trade usually means Tagetes, but the two are sold under one word often enough that it is worth asking the supplier which is in the bag.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partFlower
KindFlower
CaffeineCaffeine-free
Where it is fromMexico and Central America (native range)
TasteFaintly bitter and grassy; used for the gold rather than the taste

How to use it

Scattered in a blend for gold and orange flecks. Used industrially as a lutein source for colouring food. A handful will tint an infusion; it will not flavour it.

With food

A visual ingredient — it goes with whatever it is decorating.

With spices

Safflower, which does the same job in a warmer red. Calendula. Cornflower, for the contrast.

With tea

Fruit and rooibos blends, where orange flecks read against red and brown. Oolong. Green tea.

Its story

Where it comes from

Tagetes is native to central and southern Mexico and several other Latin American countries; the Nahua called it cempohualxochitl. The florets of Tagetes erecta are rich in the orange-yellow carotenoid lutein and are used as a food colour in the European Union, for pasta and oils among other things; in the United States the powders and extracts are approved as colorants only in animal feed. Which plant our lots hold is unconfirmed.

What happened

Tagetes erecta is the flower of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, laid in vast quantities on graves and altars, and it is the flower of the garland across India and Bangladesh — at weddings, at festivals, at temples. Two continents, the same orange, both of them about marking an occasion. The confusion with the European pot marigold is old: the name marigold was first applied to Calendula officinalis, a plant native to Europe, and then handed over to the American genus that looked like it.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

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