There is a specific, sharp mist that hangs in the air when you slice into a calamansi. The fruit is small, usually no larger than a marble, with a thin green skin that yields an abrasive, floral acidity — something halfway between a key lime and a sour mandarin 1 . Last week, standing in my kitchen, I halved a handful of them and squeezed their juice into a Dutch oven full of simmering chicken and okra 2 . Calamansi limes for sale in Vancouver’s Granville market. The dish was bamya asam . If you consult a standard cookbook, bamya is a Middle Eastern staple, a slow-braised lamb and okra stew whose character relies on a deeply savory tomato base heavily perfumed with garlic. In the middle east, its signature sourness comes from lemon juice (typical in Iraq or Anatolia), tamarind (as found in southern Iran), or can even be coaxed out of the dusty, fermented acidity of noomi basra — sun-dried black limes 3 . My pot, however, smelled reminiscent of the Southeast Asian tropics.…