Baked fish and potatoes with oregano and lemon mayonnaise

After my dog pulled me over in front of a group of teenagers, I began using an antiseptic called Citrosil on my elbow, hip and ear. Clothes I wear often, tea towels draped over my shoulder and my bag now seem to carry its scent, and a woman in the supermarket told me she found it reassuring.

I also kept having thoughts about chips fried in olive oil with oregano, which I at first blamed on a friend's comment before realising the smell of Citrosil—like hospital corridors, my grandma, lemon and turpentine—was behind them. The bottle lists a herbal element as thyme essence.

Thyme and oregano belong to the same family and both contain thymol and cymene, whose medicinal, tarry, woody and floral notes can conjure chips, braised vegetables, köfte and flatbreads. Kew Gardens' plants of the world online clarifies that oregano and marjoram are essentially the same: both are members of the genus Origanum, native to 80 countries with 44 accepted species.

citrosil, antiseptic, oregano, thyme, thymol, cymene, origanum, kew gardens, baked fish, lemon mayonnaise