This belongs to Yamagata-machi in Kuji, in the north of Iwate. Dried sardine and kelp stock, seasoned with soy sauce, with vegetables and grilled tofu in it, and floating among them a dumpling called a mamebu.

The dumpling itself is wheat flour wrapped around a walnut kernel. Sometimes brown sugar goes in with the nut. Which means that in a single mouthful you get the salt of the broth and the sweetness of the sugar arriving at the same moment, on the same spoon, and the dish makes no attempt whatsoever to reconcile the two of them.

Where the name actually comes from is unsettled. That the dumplings are about the size of a bean. That they resemble marifu, the little round wheat gluten pieces. Or that it comes from mamemameshiku, an expression about living diligently and in good health, in which case the name is a wish.

The historical account is that during the repeated crop failures of the Edo period this stood in for the noodles that a celebration would otherwise have called for. In some places the dumplings are made large for happy occasions and small for funerals, so the same bowl can be read two ways depending on why people have gathered.