Pitaia

Without it the fruit is decorative water. Citric acid is doing the entire job.

Menthol supplies a top note a fruit this quiet has never generated on its own.

Fat gives the watery flesh some weight and the seeds something to crunch against.

Floral sugar amplifies a faint floral note rather than burying it in sweetness.

Lactic tang plus tiny black seeds; the texture is the reason, not the flavour.

Borrowed aroma. One loud tropical acid makes a whole bowl of this taste of something.

Gingerol heat over cold neutral flesh gives the mouth an actual event to notice.

Salt and chilli on cut fruit works precisely because there is nothing to overwhelm.

Linalool over a blank sweet canvas; the herb becomes the flavour of the dish.

Botanicals fill the aromatic hole. The fruit contributes colour, crunch and water.

Terpene perfume on neutral flesh, the way tonic works on a plain spirit.

Peppery polyphenols supply bitterness; suddenly this reads as a salad, not a fruit.