Kakichisha is a heritage vegetable from Shimonoseki, a crinkled leaf lettuce that used to be grown in the back gardens of ordinary houses across the area. It has a mild bitterness with a faint sweetness underneath.

It is dressed with vinegared miso, and the dressing is done by rubbing and squeezing the leaves in the hands rather than tossing them in a bowl, which is exactly why the dish is also called chisha-momi, rubbed lettuce.

The fish component in it used to be iriko, dried sardines, toasted first and then torn into pieces by hand. These days people use shirasu, or namari, or vinegar-cured fish instead, and adapt the dish to whatever happens to be available.

The origin of it is placed in the Mori period, and the account says that it was devised among people left impoverished in the aftermath of Sekigahara. What that means in practice is a dish assembled entirely from a green growing in the back yard and dried fish that was already in the house, with nothing at all bought for it. That combination held for four centuries, and the name that eventually stuck to it describes not the ingredients at all but what your hands are doing to them.