Konnyaku, shiitake, negi. Take the first sound of each and you have koshine-jiru. The name is not a description of the soup so much as the soup's entire ingredient list, compressed.

It was devised by the federation of women's associations in Tomioka, using what this area actually grows.

The Kanra and Tomioka district gets dry weather, and each of the three crops in the name is there because of it. Konnyaku potato dislikes damp and does well here. Shiitake are raised on logs. And Shimonita produces its thick, heavy leeks.

Those three are the rule and everything else is open. Burdock, taro, carrot, tofu, pork, whatever the household has, and the miso varies from kitchen to kitchen as well. The only real instruction is to put in a lot of what grew nearby. It has been made for about a quarter of a century and is now firmly settled here. It is made in homes now and served in school lunches, which for a dish invented by a local women's federation rather than handed down over centuries is a reasonable outcome. Two soups with this name will not have the same things in them past the first three. Three things out of the fields, and the name went no further than listing them.