Soybean

Boiled in the pod and salted outside it. The pod is the seasoning delivery.

The same bean, aged. Fresh and fermented versions of one thing on one plate.

A complete protein, and the bean supplies the savoury the grain never had.

Roast covers the raw green note the bean gives off when undercooked.

Sulfur on sulfur; the bean has more of it than people expect.

Cuts the beany top note that makes soy milk taste like a lawn.

Raw allium over soft protein. The whole tofu course is this and nothing else.

Glutamate onto glutamate. They add, they do not multiply — dashi needs a fish for that.

Fat carries capsaicin into a protein that has no fat to spread it with.

Inosinate over glutamate; the two savouries multiply rather than add.

Soy milk carries vanilla the way dairy does, with no cream anywhere in it.

Shared milky lactones; the bean's green edge stops the chocolate cloying.