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[Photograph: Max Falkowitz] Fermented black beans are most at home in simple stir fries where they can add pungency and unite a few key players. This is my take on black bean sauce, less gloppy and more intensely flavored than... More

True to its name, the squash is unabashedly bitter, with an acerbic taste that leaves your tongue and the roof of your mouth dry. The exterior of the melon is riddled with wart-like bumps; the cooked texture of bitter melon, like that of zucchini, is palatable, albeit uneventful. Why, then, eat such an offensively flavored melon? Precisely because its bitterness, at times almost unbearable, is unique and memorable. More