Pargo

The acid cooks it, and the sweetness is what survives.

Fried, then drowned in vinegar and chilli, and eaten cold.

Aldehydes in the leaf read as the same green as fresh fish.

Milk fat carries chilli further and longer than water can.

Steamed or fried, it strips any muddiness off the skin side.

Citral without acid, so the flesh keeps its raw sweetness.

Sour with no citrus perfume: it sits under chilli, not over it.

Slashed into the skin so it fries in the fish’s own fat.

Veracruz: acid, olive and caper over a fish that runs sweet.

Whole fish, slashed and rubbed. The heat sits on the skin where the char is.

Achiote stains the skin and tastes faintly of pepper and earth.

Fried starch against sweet flesh: the plate has both or neither.

Firm white fish in a broth acidic enough to almost cure it. Stand over the pan.

Grilled white fish is lean and dry; this is the sauce and the fat at once.

River-fish logic on a sea fish: poach it, throw the leaf in last, and the buzz survives.

Unripe fruit does lime’s job with fibre and body attached.

Sulfurous tropical esters read as sea. A crudo dressing, not a pudding.

A pod in the coconut sauce; the fish is sweet enough to make it savoury.