These files are lenses first, library second. Start with an overview.md or single-file lens to orient your thinking: flavor logic, core techniques, pantry backbone, and common outsider mistakes. Use the focused follow-up files only when the question needs that slice of context. For exact ratios or a named preparation, search at runtime per ../searching-sources.md.

The format

Each overview/lens has four parts:

• Flavor logic — the salt/fat/acid/heat/umami/aromatic signature; what makes the food taste like itself.
• Core techniques — the handful of methods that do the heavy lifting.
• Pantry backbone — the ingredients the cuisine is built around.
• Common outsider mistakes — where people go wrong, usually by flattening, substituting the signature, or importing the wrong technique.

Focused follow-up files hold the verified research that would bloat an overview: regional maps, dish identity, substitutions, omitted traditions, and pantry or technique nuance.

No cuisine is a monolith

This is the most important caveat, and it applies to every file here. "Chinese food" isn't one thing: Cantonese, Sichuan, Hunan, Uyghur/Xinjiang, Shanghainese/Jiangnan, Shandong, Fujian, and other traditions can differ sharply in heat, fat, technique, staple grain, and table structure. "Indian food" spans enormous regional, religious, caste/class, community, and diaspora variety. "Mexican" goes far deeper and far more regional than Tex-Mex, while Tex-Mex itself is a real Tejano/borderlands cuisine rather than a mistake.

Be specific about which regional tradition you're drawing from, and don't let a national label flatten real internal variety. Diaspora, border, and immigrant cuisines are not failed versions of an origin cuisine; they are often traditions of their own. When a single file would over-generalize, it says so and points to regional distinctions.

Treat these as a respectful working understanding, not the last word. Stay skeptical of your own recall (the reflection principle), verifying specifics rather than asserting shaky ones.

What to load

Broad folders:

• caribbean/overview.md — start here for Caribbean cooking.
  • caribbean/regions.md — island specificity, Indigenous/African/Indo-Caribbean/Spanish-Caribbean distinctions.
  • caribbean/pantry-techniques.md — aromatic bases, jerk, brown stew, rice and peas, saltfish, pantry checks.
  • caribbean/dish-boundaries.md — Scotch bonnet, allspice, culantro, jerk, rice-and-peas pivots.
• chinese-regional/overview.md — start here for Chinese regional cooking.
  • chinese-regional/regions.md — Eight Great Cuisines and broader regional map.
  • chinese-regional/techniques-pantry.md — wok, velveting, soy, vinegar, bean pastes, diaspora context.
  • chinese-regional/substitutions.md — Shaoxing, dark soy, doubanjiang, oyster sauce, vinegar, wok substitutions.
• sichuan/overview.md — start here for Sichuan.
  • sichuan/flavor-profiles.md — má là, yúxiāng, guàiwèi, red-oil, mild profiles, Chengdu/Chongqing context.
  • sichuan/pantry.md — Pixian doubanjiang, peppercorns, yacai/zhacai, vinegar, caiziyou.
  • sichuan/techniques.md — frying doubanjiang, dry-frying, water-boiled dishes, hotpot bases.
  • sichuan/pivots-history.md — chile history, mapo/yúxiāng/mala boundaries, stale peppercorn problems.
• mexican-regional/overview.md — start here for Mexican regional cooking.
  • mexican-regional/regions.md — Oaxaca, Puebla, Yucatán, Veracruz, north, Baja/Pacific, west, Mexico City.
  • mexican-regional/techniques.md — nixtamalization, comal/tatemar, mole/adobo/pipián/recado, pit/leaf cooking.
  • mexican-regional/pantry-substitutions.md — dried chiles, Mexican oregano, epazote, achiote, masa, Tex-Mex boundaries.
• indian/overview.md — start here for Indian cuisines.
  • indian/regions-communities.md — regional/community map and historical layers.
  • indian/techniques.md — tadka, bhuna, dum, fermentation, pressure cooking, pickles/chutneys, tandoor.
  • indian/pantry-substitutions.md — tejpatta, curry leaves, hing, chile, acids, masalas, fats, staples.
• north-african-middle-eastern/overview.md — start here for the broad North African / wider Middle Eastern lens.
  • north-african-middle-eastern/maghreb.md — Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria/Libya/Mauritania.
  • north-african-middle-eastern/egypt.md — Egyptian legume, bread, rice, molokhia, and koshari logic.
  • north-african-middle-eastern/gulf.md — Gulf rice, dried lime, dates, seafood, spice, and trade-route logic.
  • north-african-middle-eastern/persian.md — Persian rice, tahdig, khoresh, herbs, saffron, sour-sweet balance.
  • north-african-middle-eastern/pantry-techniques.md — preserved lemon, harissa, spice blends, dried lime, tagine/couscous/tahdig pivots.

Single-file lenses:

• japanese-home.md
• korean.md
• levantine.md
• german.md
• hawaiian.md
• irish-british.md

Future: sweets and baking can be added as a parallel set (e.g. a references/baking/ directory) without disturbing any of this. Bread baking is out of scope for now.