Camarón seco

Salt-glutamate crumb clings to dry segments the way it never would to orange.

Simmered together with okra, this is the backbone of a Bahian maxixada.

Simmered in a light broth with dried shrimp, the leaf tints the whole bowl pink.

Salt-dried shellfish gives the buzz something savoury to land on. Chew, tingle, chew again.

The first two things into the mortar, pounded before anything else.

Dried shrimp, chilli, salt, pounded. Sambal and nam prik both.

The reason it exists: a spoon of funk turns plain rice into a meal.

The only salt the broth gets, and it dissolves in rather than sitting on top.

Concentrated marine glutamate is what gives shredded raw fruit any savoury weight.

Marine glutamate in dry form; it seasons the ferment without adding water.

Concentrated marine salt soaks straight into the translucent flesh.

Two stages of one fermentation. Stacking deepens rather than doubles.

The funk needs a wall of acid or it stays in your mouth for an hour.

Thai balance. The sugar rounds the sharp edge off the cure.

Sour-sweet against cured funk. The standard Southeast Asian correction.

Ground shrimp and orange fat is the floor most West African stews are built on.

Powdered and stirred in, it puts glutamate everywhere the starch goes.

Salt and glutamate in a dry crumb, which is exactly what the starch lacks.

Salty crustacean grit sticks to blistered skin and reads as seasoning.

Concentrated marine salt is the fastest counterweight in the cupboard.

Dried shellfish salts the pot from the inside. A very dense green needs seasoning with reach.

Umami stock built from almost nothing else, since the vegetable offers none itself.

Umami dust against a bean chewy enough to hold its shape through a long stir-fry.

Umami dust against a leaf gentle enough to need the extra savour.

Bean fritter and dried shrimp, West African by descent.

Vatapá logic: ground nut and dried shrimp thicken past either alone.

Coconut milk mutes the funk into something you can eat by the bowl.

Land and sea, both dehydrated. The pantry version of a stock pot.

Amazonian fish stews thicken with the mashed flesh the way others use potato, and the shrimp gives it savour.

Umami dust on a vegetable that supplies none of its own, a Cantonese habit more than a rule.

A Northeastern seafood habit: a handful of dried shrimp turns the pot savoury without meat.

Both roast-heavy in pyrazines. A shrimp mole is Bahia waiting to happen.

Two glutamate concentrates. On paper it is the same broth twice.