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.