Lively Lemon Grass

Lemon grass is an edible grass native to Southeast Asia with a floral aroma that is a cross between freshly cut hay and lemon. While it is lemon flavored, it lacks that fruit's mouth-puckering tartness and thus is equally at home in delicate soups and tongue-blistering curries, in appetizers, salads, main dishes, desserts and tisanes.


Fragrant lemon grass figures prominently in Thai soups, Vietnamese chicken and beef dishes, and in Malaysian curry pastes. In the West, however, it was long used mainly in herbal tea, but now progressive American chefs are adding fresh lemon grass to everything from barbecue sauce to cre`me brule'e.

It is available as slender stalks up to two feet long ...