In message <Pine.NEB.4.64.0608151907380.2856@glacier.reedmedia.net>, "Jeremy C.
 Reed" writes:
>> There used to be something about IGNORE_RECOMMENDED, but it seems to be
>> gone now.
>
>We renamed it :)
>
>USE_ABI_DEPENDS=no

I thought I'd found this, but nothing worked.

Finally I figured it out:  Once the build's started, the set of needed
packages gets cached, so they'll get rebuilt anyway, or something; nuking
all my work directories fixed it.

-s