Harako-meshi

Harako-meshi is rice cooked in the stock from simmering salmon, with the flaked salmon on top and salmon roe over that. Two forms of the same fish on one bowl, and the rice takes the colour and the flavour of the fish because it was cooked in it rather than beside it.

It comes from Arahama in Watari, at the mouth of the Abukuma river where the salmon run, and the town's account is that it was presented to Date Masamune when he came to inspect canal works there. Harako is the local word for the roe. The season runs from around early September to early December, when the wild salmon are running, with a spring version using coho from about April to July. Outside those windows it is not on the menu.