Kola nut ✦

Noix de kola

What it is

Among the Igbo the nut is broken and shared before any serious conversation begins — he who brings kola brings life, as the proverb has it — and the number of lobes it splits into is read as an omen. It carries more caffeine by weight than a coffee bean, which is what put the cola in the first Coca-Cola formula, though the drink has not used it in any real quantity for a century.

In the kitchen

Freeze it and grate it on a microplane — dried kola is too hard to cut and far too astringent for a heavy hand. Two grams infused twenty minutes in a litre of cream or milk gives a bitter aromatic backbone; always pair it with fat, which is the only thing that blunts the tannin.

Goes with

Dark chocolate Coffee Ginger Molasses Orange Vanilla Cocoa nibs

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