Hit the books on this, and Puerto Rico is where coriander leaf is sometimes
cUlantrillo, whereas the long leaf is both culantro, culantro del monte, and
recao -- as Gary mostly had it.

Recao, I learned is indeed the contraction of recado for "ration" meaning
the daily shopping one did for five or ten cents worth of a made up pile of
sofrito ingredients: a mild chile, a tomato, a bit of garlic, some cilantro,
some culantro. Then the term came to mean the culantro by itself, which is
why I always see it labeled as recao in the store.


--
-Mark H. Zanger
author, The American History Cookbook, The American Ethnic Cookbook for
Students
www.ethnicook.com
www.historycook.com

"Mark Zanger" > wrote in message
. ..
> Can't take the hint right away -- I have an interesting Latin American
> dictionary downstairs I'll get at one of these days. I will say that in
> Puerto Rico "recao" is *not* cilantro, it's recao, a long leafed native
> plant. Also there is someplace where cilantro is "cilantrillo" and the
> other plant of that flavor is "culantro."
>