Shiroebi are small, translucent, pale pink shrimp that live in the deep water of Toyama Bay. Locally they are called the jewels of the bay. Toyama is the only place in Japan where enough of them are caught for a commercial fishery to exist, and they come ashore at two ports, Shinminato and Iwase.

For most of that history they were not eaten as shrimp at all. They were dried whole, shells and everything, and used to make stock. The flesh was simply too small and too delicate to be worth the labor of handling.

Freezing technology changed that. As it improved, shelling became practical and freshness could be held long enough for the shrimp to reach a table intact, and people discovered what had been going into the stockpot: a soft, almost creamy texture and a clean sweetness.

Battered together in a loose clump and fried, they come out crisp and fragrant, with all of that sweetness concentrated into one mouthful. They also do something no other shrimp does, which is that they never turn red. Cooked, they stay pale. The whole story of how an ingredient moved from the stock to the center of the plate turns out to be a story about refrigeration.