The pan has a dome in the middle. Meat goes on the dome and vegetables around the rim, so that the fat and juices run down and season them. The shape of the iron is the method; nobody has to be told the order of operations. The name is written with the characters used for Genghis Khan, and is explained by a story about grilling mutton and vegetables for soldiers in the field.

Sheep came to Hokkaido for their wool. When the First World War made imported wool hard to get, the government promoted sheep farming, and the island was where most of the flocks went. The meat was, at first, simply what was left over when the wool had been taken. Since almost nobody in Japan had a habit of eating mutton, a dish was worked out in the early Showa years, borrowed from a Chinese method of grilling lamb.

There are two schools on seasoning. Around Takikawa, in the interior, the meat is marinated in sauce before it hits the pan. In Sapporo and Tsukisamu it is grilled plain and dipped afterwards. Neither side has conceded anything in eighty years, and both versions sit side by side in every supermarket on the island.

Animals brought here for their coats, remembered for their meat.