Té de Limón Morelense

Morelos, the warm central state around Cuernavaca, Tepoztlán, and Yautepec, knows this tea from the patio before it knows it from the market. Té de limón is not black tea with lemon. It is zacate de limón, lemongrass, cut from a tall green clump beside the kitchen door, bruised with the back of a knife, and boiled until the whole room smells clean and sharp.

In Morelos, the heat grows the herb easily. The women who taught me this did not measure it like pharmacy. They grabbed a fistful, rinsed off the dust, bent the stalks to crack them, and dropped them into the pot. That bruising matters. If you do not break the fibers, the oils stay trapped inside the stalk and you get weak yellow water. No me vengas con atajos.

This is comfort food without a plate. A cup after too much food, a cup when a child has fever, a cup before bed when the stomach is arguing. My mother kept dried zacate de limón in a paper bag, but she preferred it fresh when the market had good bundles. She wrote in her notebook: 'machacar tantito antes de hervir' (bruise it a little before boiling). She was right. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.