Hamada is a port where a wide range of fish has always come ashore, and the town developed a dense cluster of shops making dried fish and surimi products. Akaten belongs to that industry rather than to any home kitchen.

Pollock is ground to a paste and chili is worked through it, traditionally on a stone mill, slowly, so the heat distributes evenly. The paste is formed into a rectangle, coated in breadcrumbs, and deep fried. What emerges looks like a ham cutlet, which is not an accident.

It came out of the food shortages after the war. A local kamaboko shop wanted something that could stand in for a ham cutlet using the one raw material Hamada had plenty of, and this was the answer. Cut it open and the cross-section is red, which is where the name came from later.

You warm it briefly over a flame, then eat it with soy sauce or with mayonnaise, usually alongside a beer. The crumb crust stays crisp, the inside is springy and dense, and the chili arrives a beat afterward. Somewhere in the last seventy years the substitute stopped being a substitute. Nobody in Hamada is eating one of these while quietly wishing it were a ham cutlet instead.