Bai are sea snails from the deep water of Toyama Bay, taken in basket traps off Shinminato, Namerikawa, Uozu, Kurobe, and Asahi. Four separate species of them come up here: ooetchubai, chijimiezobora, kagabai, and tsubai. Having that many different kinds landed in a single place is, apparently, unusual anywhere in the country.

They are simmered in soy sauce with the shells left on them, so that nothing escapes into the pot, and the flavor stays inside the animal where you eventually find it.

Eating one of them is a small operation in itself. A toothpick goes into the opening of the shell and you turn it, slowly, drawing the whole body out of the spiral in one piece. If you get it right the liver comes out too, still attached at the very tip, and there is a distinct small sense of having done something correctly.

The reason it appears at celebrations is not culinary. Bai, said aloud, suggests bai meaning double, so good fortune doubling, and that pun put the shellfish onto banquet tables at weddings and festivals across the prefecture. Its place in a formal meal was decided by the sound of its name rather than by anything at all to do with how it happens to taste.