Squid ink turns this soup completely black. Aori squid, called shiro ika locally, is cooked with lean pork and njana, a bitter green, and the ink goes in at the end. There is no attempt to soften the color. It arrives in the bowl looking like something poured out of an inkwell.

In Okinawa it belongs to the category of kusuimun, food that is medicine. More specifically it is called sagigusui, a drawing-down remedy, on the understanding that it pulls bad things out of the body. It has been given for flushed heat in the head, for headaches, and to women recovering after childbirth.

None of that is presented as folklore to be smiled at. It is presented as what the soup is for. You eat it when you want to be well again, and the bitterness of the njana is part of the argument rather than an obstacle to it.

I had expected the black to be the story. It is not. The black is just what happens when you cook with ink, and everything anyone here says about the dish is calm, domestic, and concerned with health. Fresh squid comes into the house, someone makes the soup that afternoon, and the family sits down to a bowl the color of night for no reason except that it is understood to be good for them.