Kaiyaki Miso

There is no pan. A scallop shell is the pan. Nets dragged along the seabed brought up scallops that had been down there five or ten years, and their shells were the width of two hands, wide enough to set straight onto the fire with a portion of broth sitting in them. People are said to have been eating this in the Edo period.

The first versions were a fisherman's meal: a piece of sardine or mackerel with homemade miso spread over it, and grilled. Now you melt miso into broth in the shell, add whatever there is to add, and finish by pouring in beaten egg and letting it set softly across the surface. In Tsugaru it is usually kept simple — egg and miso and not much besides. Down on the Shimokita peninsula they say the two halves of the name the other way round.

When eggs were still expensive, this was food for the sick and for women who had just given birth. One shell of hot, salty broth. Dazai Osamu wrote of it in Tsugaru, his book about the region.

Now it is also eaten alongside local sake.