Sanshō

The only seasoning grilled eel gets, and that fat needs a buzz, not acid.

Numbing citrus is the traditional brake on eel richness.

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

Charcoal fat plus tingle; the citrus leaf note lands before the buzz does.

Kinome dressing: green tingle over sweet ferment, and the colour is the point.

Ground fine over a plain bowl, where nothing else is competing for attention.

No flavour to fight, so the tingle becomes the entire experience of the dish.

Marine broth wants a green top note; anything hotter would flatten the kombu.

Oily fish simmered in soy; the buzz cuts where lemon would only add sour.

Shared limonene, then the numbness lands and the pith stops registering.

Green-leaf volatiles in both, and the tingle stretches the sugar out.

Numbing citrus against a peppery mushroom. Two peppers, neither is one.

Citrus tingle over pure acid. The mouth cannot tell which is doing the work.

Cocoa butter melts at body heat and spreads the tingle with nothing else.