The paste is seasoned, worked until it is smooth, then mounded onto a wooden board and steamed. No mould is used at any stage. It is built up by hand into a curved fan shape, and when it comes out of the steamer the part standing proud of the board has swelled into a smooth dome.

Why Odawara? Three reasons are given, and they are worth taking together. Sagami Bay is close and the fishing was good. Water from the Hakone and Tanzawa mountains comes down full of dissolved minerals. And the town sat on the Tokaido, the main road east, with people passing through it continuously.

The fish is white-fleshed, and these days it is mostly croaker, a species that is not landed on this coast at all. The bay that explains why the industry started here no longer supplies it.

So the three things a business like this needs — the raw material, the water, and somebody to carry the product away — happened to be in one place at one time. Two of them are still here. The fish is not, and the industry has stayed anyway. Remove any one of them and this does not become the thing the town is known for. A great many local specialities turn out, on inspection, to be an accident of where a road happened to run.