Culantro

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About Culantro
Culantro (Eryngium foetidum L., Apiaceae) is a biennial herb indigenous to continental Tropical America and the West Indies. Although widely used in dishes throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Far East, culantro is relatively unknown in the United States and many other parts of the world and is often mistaken and misnamed for its close relative cilantro or coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.). Some of its common names descriptive of the plant include: spiny or serrated coriander, shado beni and bhandhania (Trinidad and Tobago), chadron benee (Dominica), coulante (Haiti), recao (Puerto Rico), and fit weed (Guyana).

Culantro grows naturally in shaded moist heavy soils near cultivated areas. Under cultivation, the plant thrives best under well irrigated shaded conditions. Like its close relative cilantro, culantro tends to bolt and flower profusely under hot high-light long days of summer months. Recent research at UVIAES has demonstrated that it can be kept in a vegetative mode through summer when treated with GA3 sprays.

The plant is reportedly rich in calcium, iron, carotene, and riboflavin and its harvested leaves are widely used as a food flavoring and seasoning herb for meat and many other foods. Its medicinal value include its use as a tea for flu, diabetes, constipation, and fevers. One of its most popular use is in chutneys as an appetite stimulant. The name fitweed is derived from its supposedly anti-convulsant property. The presence of increasingly large West Indian, Latin American, and Asian immigrant communities in metropolises of the US, Canada and the UK. creates a large market for culantro and large quantities are exported from Puerto Rico and Trinidad to these areas.