Lard

The carotenoids are fat-soluble; without pig fat the colour stays in the spoon.

Whipped into the dough it aerates. Tamales without it are bricks.

The bean has body and no fat. Lard fixes that and browns the mash on top.

Cook the animal in itself. Nothing else renders anywhere near as clean.

The pigment is fat-soluble. Bloomed in pig fat it becomes an oil and a dye.

Fried briefly, it turns pliable to crisp. Every tostada starts here.

Rubbed in cold, it coats the flour and blocks the web. Shortcrust is a deliberate failure.

It stays liquid at lower heat than dripping, so the skin crisps slower and finer.

Sweat allium in pig fat and the sugars come out without any browning at all.

Sulphur wants saturated fat. Central Europe has never used anything else.

Malic acid is the only thing standing between roast pork and pure grease.

Piperine is fat-soluble. Whipped into cold lard it becomes a spread.

Pork fat carries further than oil; crisped bottom crust is the reward.

Thujone survives a slow render and turns the fat green and medicinal.

Whipped lard with crackling bits on black bread. Salt is the whole seasoning.

Dried-fruit sugar cuts pig fat where acid only slices through it.

Perfumed fruit slow-cooked in pig fat: Iberian, and almost never written down.

Mexican chocolate fried in lard. The pyrazines want a saturated carrier.