This is a dish of Iwami, the western half of Shimane, and of Tsuwano in particular. What arrives looks like a bowl of plain rice and nothing else. You put a spoon into it and things begin to come up: carrot, shiitake, tofu, a little grated wasabi from underneath. The vegetables were laid in the bottom of the bowl first and the rice was heaped over them to cover them.

Then broth is poured over the top and you eat it the way you would eat rice in tea. The colour increases as you go down. By the end the bowl looks like a different dish from the one that was set in front of you.

Two explanations are offered for the hiding. One is sumptuary law: this was a domain under orders to economize, and nobody wanted to be seen eating well. The other is the exact opposite — that the ingredients were so poor that people were ashamed to have them seen. Both are still told, and the custom of keeping your eyes lowered while serving it, and while eating it, has come down along with them.

In 1939 the Imperial Household Ministry surveyed the regional dishes of the country, and this was among those it singled out. A dish invented in order not to be looked at had, at that moment, been looked at. Tsuwano has gone on serving it since without any visible embarrassment.