Sublime

Orange peel

Like pepper-dusted decorations, the lozenges the size of small loaves hanging in Italian salumerie or delis are guanciale, whole pig cheeks cured in salt. Look at a cross-section and you will see guanciale is mostly fat, streaked with pink meat. But what gorgeous, seasoned fat! That renders into sweet, rounded melted fat and a nugget of meat.

Notice the glossy coating that adorns these lips. It is no accident; your lips are covered with sebaceous oil glands that produce a waxy substance called sebum. Sebum is not just pretty, it’s also functional; it protects your pussy from infection and disease.

Fiber and fat, key ingredients, are removed in the refining process: fiber, to change the texture and make food taste “better,” and natural fats, to extend shelf life, since fats tend to go rancid with time. And so we ingest the “poison” without the “antidote”—the protective effects of fiber is removed from much of our food.