Cassava leaf

Charque is the salt in the pot. Soak it, then let meat and leaf boil into one thing.

Toucinho goes in whole, and its fat is what stops a week of boiled leaf tasting austere.

White rice underneath, always. The leaf cooks down almost black and needs a floor.

Paio seasons the pot from the inside out. The leaf brings no salt of its own.

Cured pork hands over the smoke that a leaf boiled this long has no way to make.

Farinha over the top for grit. Root and leaf off one plant, on one plate.

Fried off before the leaf returns to the pot, or the whole dish only tastes of boiling.

The standard fat for this leaf on two continents, and it puts the colour back.

Pimenta at the table, never in the pot. A leaf this dark wants its heat added late.

Ground nut turns the greens into a stew that needs no stock. The fat is the sauce.

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

Mozambique simmers it in coconut milk, which rounds off a green cooked past all edges.

A squeeze at the table, since nothing acidic survives four days at a simmer.

Sweet picked crab folded through a leaf cooked to a paste. Texture is the whole point.

Two Amazon crops that have never shared a pot. Grated nut gives the paste fat and body.

Roast-malt bitterness beside a near-black leaf and salt pork. Only drink that keeps up.