Echizen crab is the local name for snow crab, and seikogani is the female. She is noticeably smaller than the male, and a good number of people here will tell you they prefer her, which is not the usual direction for such preferences to run.

There are two kinds of roe on her, and they are treated as separate ingredients. The sotoko, carried under the belly, are fertilized eggs that pop between the teeth. The uchiko sit inside the shell, deep orange, the ovaries, and they are called red diamonds locally, a phrase that sounds like marketing until you see the color.

The way it is served in the fishing towns is fixed. The crab is boiled with the salt judged carefully, and then everything, the miso, both kinds of roe, and the small quantity of dense meat, is arranged back inside the emptied carapace. The vessel is the animal itself, emptied and refilled.

The season opens on the sixth of November and closes on the thirty-first of December. Two months, and then nothing at all until the following autumn. I found the whole arrangement quietly pleasing: a coast where the smaller crab, the cheaper crab, the one with the shorter season, is the one that people are actually waiting for.