Portobello

The cap is a sponge. Oil it, do not marinate it, or it drowns.

Rubbed into the gills before the grill, where the bitterness lives.

Sugar in the vinegar chars; that is where the fake-steak effect comes from.

Survives grill heat. Most soft herbs just turn to black flecks.

Milk fat sits in the cup and mutes the gills going bitter.

Resin plus char. Blunt, but the mushroom is blunt to begin with.

It is bun-shaped and it leaks. The bread was always structural.

Grilled alongside, the sugars caramelise on the same timing.

Adds the smoke a domestic grill never gets hot enough to make.

Blue mould and dark gills are both funk. Neither backs down.

Anchovy glutamate straight into the gills, brushed on halfway.

Thin it, glaze the cap, let it lacquer. Amino acids on amino acids.

Roast barley and charred gills share the same burnt-grain bitterness.

Rub the cap in grounds before grilling. Pyrazines meet pyrazines.

Crushed over the top: bitter, roasty, crunchy. All three were missing.