Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

orach Atriplex hortensis, a plant of the goosefoot family which grows wild throughout Europe as far east as Siberia and all around the Mediterranean coast, is also called mountain spinach. It is a tall, spindly plant with small, generally arrowhead-shaped leaves, which grows well in sandy or poor soil. Several of its closest relations, known as saltbushes because of the salty taste of the leaves, display similar characteristics in various parts of the world, but are rarely used for human food.

From the time of the rise of the Mediterranean civilizations orach was cultivated as a green vegetable, to be used as spinach now is. Its taste is like that of spinach but the leaves are less succulent.