The Ariake Sea has a tidal range of around six meters. When the water goes out, an enormous flat of mud appears, and what lives in it is called by locals maeumi-mon, the stuff from the sea out front. Mudskippers are part of that.

A mudskipper breathes through gills and through its skin, which is why it can leave the water at all, and it comes out of its burrow when the tide drops. In Japan it lives only in the Ariake and part of the Yatsushiro Sea. Spawning runs May to July and the season runs from then into August.

Catching them is done at low tide by a method called mutsukake, a hooked line flicked out across the mud from a board the fisherman kneels on. It is difficult, it takes years to learn, and from the bank it looks a great deal like sport. The fish are then grilled plain, alive, and afterward simmered down in a sweet soy glaze.

Because the freshness has to be absolute, this is a summer dish and nothing else. What arrives at the table is dark and glossy and tastes faintly of river eel, and I was not remotely prepared for it. Nothing whatsoever about an animal skipping across a flat of wet grey mud suggests that this is where it is going to end up.