The mackerel is opened along the back, cured in salt and then vinegar, and packed full of sushi rice. The head and tail, cut off earlier, are stood up at either end. On the plate the fish is reassembled into something that looks alive.

That arrangement is considered the correct form, and it is meant to look bold rather than neat. Not slices laid out in a row — the whole creature, put back together.

It is the first thing you see. It belongs on the sawachi platter, a dish about thirty-six to thirty-nine centimetres across on which food from the sea and the mountains and the sushi are all piled together and set down in the middle of a room. Sawachi appears at weddings, at funerals, at shrine observances: any day when a large number of people are in one house.

The fish used here is the spotted mackerel, one of the main species landed in the prefecture and less rich than the common kind, so Kochi cures it hard with salt and vinegar rather than trying to soften it. Kyoto makes its own version of mackerel sushi with the fattier species and seasons it towards sweetness. Two dishes with the same name, using different fish and pulling in opposite directions.