Kohoku is inland, but it is close to Wakasa Bay, where mackerel is landed. So grilled mackerel, fermented mackerel sushi, heshiko: all of it was near at hand here, despite this prefecture having no coastline of its own at all.

Behind this particular dish is a custom with a name of its own: gogatsu-mimai, the fifth-month visit. In May, the busiest month of the farming year, the parents of a daughter who had married into a farming household would carry a grilled mackerel over to her.

It was a way of looking after someone who had no time left over to look after herself. The fish did the talking.

The cooking of it follows directly from the gift that was carried over. The grilled mackerel is simmered in a sweet-salty stock until it softens, and then the somen is cooked in that same liquid and the fish laid over it. The seasoning is strong, so it tends to be eaten as something alongside rice or with a drink rather than as the meal itself. Quick enough for the busy season, good enough for a wedding. In Kutsuki in Takashima, on the mackerel road itself, it is also what a festival requires. The dish is named after a fish that somebody's parents carried across a field to a daughter.