Bitter melon does not stop being bitter when you slice it and put it in a hot pan. In Okinawan kitchens, no great effort is made to persuade it otherwise, and the seeds and the pale pith are the only things removed.

Tofu, egg, pork. The island tofu is firm enough to hold its shape under a high flame, so it can be pushed around properly rather than collapsing into the vegetables the way mainland tofu does. Everything meets over strong heat and quickly, and the egg goes in last to pull the pan together. The word champuru is generally traced to campur, the Malay and Indonesian verb meaning to mix, and the dish is whatever the house happens to have that day.

There is consequently no correct version, and asking for one misses what the word is telling you. Ask three people and you will get three answers, each delivered with the mild certainty of someone describing their own kitchen. Some use canned pork, which arrived as American military rations and stayed on after the war; here it is simply called pork.

People say it is food for a hot place, that the bitterness brings the appetite back. Whether that is physiology or long habit I could not tell you. But on a day when you have been sweating since morning, the rice does go down easily beside it. Left bitter, it stays with you longer.