The Hokuriku region spends more on croquettes than most of the rest of Japan, and in Takaoka they have long been ordinary weekday food, bought from the butcher on the way home from work. Nobody thought them special.

Then somebody decided that the town needed a thing of its own. In 2005 a croquette stall appeared at the Nihonkai Takaoka Nabe Festival. The following year, butchers and restaurants around the city joined in, and a Takaoka Korokke committee was formed to run the thing.

There is no fixed recipe for it and no specification anywhere. Takaoka korokke simply means a croquette that is sold in Takaoka. Every shop therefore makes its own, and the differences between them are the point of the exercise rather than a problem to be solved.

They are on sale at butchers, at supermarkets, and in restaurants, ranging from plain ones eaten standing up straight out of the fryer to elaborate fillings that took somebody real thought. What I like about the whole exercise is the order of operations. They did not invent something and then persuade people to eat it. They looked at what the town was already eating every single day, and then they gave that a name.