Tom Yummy

Lemongrass, what can you tell me about other than it is good? Lemony Snack-it

Lemongrass, or depending on the reference source, lemon grass, is a perennial native to the archipelagoes Malaysia, Sri Lanka and/or Indonesia. Today the herb is cultivated in extensively throughout Asia, particularly the tropical Southeastern part that includes Thailand, Laos, the country we call Cambodia and Vietnam. Lemongrass is now a commercial crop in the US, the Caribbean and parts of South America and Africa. The culinary variety, Cymbopogon citratus, grows to about 2 feet in length but there are over 50 plants in the Cymbopogon genus - some of the family grow as large 3 feet wide and 6 feet high.

Lemongrass is frequently planted on slopes - in part because the plant thrives in soil that is well drained and additionally because the plant can throw some serious roots down it is often planted to help prevent soil erosion. Beyond land management, lemongrass is revered for its medical uses. Also know as fever grass, a tea/infusion is used in treating bouts of malaria in western Africa and Asia. The plant is rich in geraniol, vitamin A, and its essential oil is used in cosmetics like shampoo, perfume and soap. For people who keep a clean house and are looking for something better than a lemon fresh scent – your can now upgrade to a lemongrass clean home - the oils from the plant are commonly used and now marketed in cleaners, antifungal agents and smelly things like potpourri.

I like to think of lemongrass as the antithesis to Midwestern foods – light, fragrant with the promise of citrus, a scent that I find more limey than lemony but I wasn’t on the naming/translating committee, so I need to let it go. While lemongrass is now ubiquitous among food enthusiasts, its near universal embrace is meteoritic: Waverly Root mentions the herb in Food, published first in 1980, “lemon grass [is] used freely in Vietnamese cooking” and that is all. The 1988 edition of On Food and Cooking, bypasses the lemongrass. Correcting this oversight for the 2004 version of his classic volume, Harold McGee gives the perennial its due with a rather thick paragraph about its origin, uses and flavoring compounds.

I first became aware of lemongrass through Thai food – returning from a Cubs game in the late 1980s, my then girlfriend talked me into eating dinner at Thai restaurant by telling me the food was like Chinese food. It was not true, but the lie worked. I still remember my first sip of Tom Yum, less memorably there was the gateway Thai food: Pad Thai. Alan Davidson cites steamed crabs in an earthenware pot with lots of lemon grass as a typical dish. I like pounding the hell out of the bulb end, with chilies, fish sauce, garlic and shallots and grilling paper thin cuts of sirloin – the tops can be used as skewers. You know plus curries, soups and almost anything else it is in.