Essays
p. 054
On learning to like bitter things
Coffee, chicory, grapefruit, grief. Hana Sørlie on the flavours we only understand later.
Nobody likes their first espresso. I remember mine exactly: a café in Copenhagen, aged fourteen, trying to look older. It tasted like burnt bread and I finished it out of pride.
Bitterness is the flavour we are built to distrust. In nature it often means poison. We only learn to love it slowly, through repetition and company, which is why bitter things so often come with rituals: the coffee after lunch, the amaro after dinner, the radicchio salad at the end of winter.
Perhaps that is why they feel so adult. Learning to like bitter things is learning that pleasure and difficulty are not opposites.
“Nobody likes their first espresso. Everybody remembers it.”
About the writer
Hana Sørlie
Hana is a former line cook who now writes long essays about preservation, salt and the Nordic pantry. Her first book, Brine, is out next spring.
Keep reading
Reportage
№ 06
The amaro makers of the Dolomites
Thirty-two herbs, one secret, and a family that hasn’t changed the recipe since 1902.
Words by Luca Ferrante
Interviews
№ 06
In conversation with a winter forager
Dandelion, wild chicory, sea beet: what grows when nothing else does.
Words by Priya Raman
Recipes
№ 06
Charred radicchio with blood orange
A plate for the end of winter: bitter leaves, sweet fruit and too much good oil.
Words by Kwame Asante