Matsubagani is the name for the mature male snow crab. The season opens in early November and closes in March, and the boats work a winter sea that is famous for being unpleasant. Everything about the fishery is arranged around those four months, and the boats work out of Tottori, Ajiro, Tajiri and Sakai.

Any crab with a carapace over eleven centimetres gets a tag before the auction begins. The reverse of the tag carries the name of the boat that landed it. You can, if you want, stand in a restaurant in Tottori and know which vessel was out that night.

The name has several explanations and no settled one. The thin legs look like pine needles. Or: shell the legs, drop the meat in water, and it opens out like a pine needle. Or: the fishermen boiled the catch on the beach over fires made of pine litter. All three are about how the thing looks, or about a movement of the hands, and none of them is about taste, which is oddly typical of the names given to shellfish.

The female is a different animal commercially, called oyagani, and much smaller. Simmered whole, she gives up both the eggs carried outside and the roe inside. Same species, two names, two prices, and two entirely separate conversations.