Mizu is a mountain vegetable, properly called uwabamiso. It grows widely across the Tohoku region and can be gathered from spring right through into early autumn, and what it offers is freshness and a very distinct crunch between the teeth. Nothing else about it is remarkable.

Combine that with hoya, the sea squirt, and then pour cold kombu stock over the two of them. That is the entire preparation, start to finish. Nothing at all is cooked.

There is a local expression in Tsugaru that goes hoya to itara mizu, meaning that if you say hoya you have already said mizu. The two are treated as inseparable and together they stand for summer eating. A thing from the mountains and a thing from the sea, brought together cold in the same bowl.

This has never once been promoted as regional cuisine in any organized way. It is simply what households here make, without particularly thinking about it, and it appears on izakaya menus right through the summer months. The Tsugaru summer is a short one, and the window for this is short along with it. Dishes that nobody has tried to turn into a specialty are probably the ones that last longest, precisely because nothing is riding on them.