Tarragon vs Marigold
The short answer
Asked because "Mexican tarragon" is a marigold, and the answer runs through a compound rather than a family. True tarragon is Artemisia dracunculus, in the daisy family; the marigolds — Tagetes — are in the same family and a different genus, and two of them are used as tarragon substitutes because they carry estragole, the compound that gives real tarragon its anise. SpiceHQ profiles the Georgian marigold, which is used for colour and a mild resinous aroma rather than for anise, and the Mexican species that stands in for tarragon is a third plant again. The practical point: a recipe calling for tarragon in a hot climate may mean Tagetes lucida, and a recipe calling for marigold in Georgia does not.
Side by side
| Tarragon | Marigold | |
|---|---|---|
| Botanical identity | Artemisia dracunculus L. | Not established |
| Part used | leaf | flower |
| Origin | Central Asia and southern Russia, with a native range extending across Siberia into western North America. The French cultivar is a European selection from that stock. | Mexico and Central America, where Tagetes species are native. The culinary use described here is Georgian and postdates the Columbian Exchange. |
| Flavour notes | anise, green, sweet, faintly bitter, grassy | floral, resinous, faintly bitter, mild |
| Heat | Scoville does not apply | Scoville does not apply |
| Flavour | Sweet-anise and green at once, with a mild numbing tingle on the tongue that most cooks notice and few name — the same slight anaesthetic quality found in other estragole-rich plants. Russian tarragon has the green and almost none of the anise, which is why a dish made with it tastes vaguely of nothing in particular. | Very mild — faintly bitter and resinous with a floral background — and easily lost in a dish carrying anything assertive. Its practical role is colour, and the aroma is a bonus rather than the purchase. |
| Aroma | Anise, clearly, over a green grassy base with a faint bitterness behind it. The anise is not the sweet confectionery anise of aniseed but a sharper, more herbaceous version of it. | Mild, resinous and slightly green, with a faintly medicinal edge that the whole plant carries much more strongly than the dried petals do. It is a quiet spice and is not bought for its smell. |
Which should you buy?
Tarragon
Buy it fresh, or buy tarragon vinegar, or freeze it. Dried tarragon is the one dried herb in this catalogue that is hard to recommend for anything, because what drying removes is precisely the anise the herb is bought for. If a recipe calls for tarragon and only the dried jar is available, the honest options are to use tarragon vinegar in place of part of the liquid, or to accept that the dish will not taste of tarragon and season it some other way.
Marigold
Ground, and in a small opaque jar. The usual argument for whole spices does not apply to a petal that is bought for its pigment and that will be dispersed in a stew either way. What does apply is light: buy an opaque container, keep it in a cupboard, and replace it when the colour goes, because a faded marigold is not a weaker spice but an inert one.
Full detail on tarragon and marigold, including evidence grades and sources for every claim above.