Pousse de bambou

Spring shoot and spring seaweed simmered in dashi. Nothing added.

Fat coats the fibre; the bitterness is what stops it being too much.

Salt and glutamate soak into cut fibres the way they do into tofu.

Slow simmer, cool in the liquid. The shoot takes flavour only as it cools.

Guanylate plus glutamate; two dull ingredients making one loud broth.

Rice wine strips the raw earthiness the boil left behind.

Spring on a plate. Shoot bitterness and leaf citrus arrive at the same time.

Fermented, sour, crunchy. The only thing in the bowl that resists.

Bitter fibre takes fat and heat better than it takes sugar.

Fermented broad bean chilli fills a vegetable that is mostly structure.

Smoked flakes stick to wet slices and season them without salt.

Numbing masks the last of the bitterness the boiling did not remove.