Tofu Chikuwa

Chikuwa everywhere else in Japan is fish paste moulded round a stick and grilled. Tottori's is seven parts firm tofu to three parts fish, and the reason is a domain policy: the Ikeda lords, short of money and with an underdeveloped fishing fleet, told the townspeople to eat tofu instead of fish. What came out of that instruction is soft, pale and considerably lighter than the standard version, and it has been eaten here ever since.

It is a genuinely everyday food — sold in supermarkets, eaten with ginger and soy, put in school lunches — rather than a souvenir invented for visitors, which is unusual. Chimura, in the port district of Karo, has been making it since 1865 and still holds the seven-to-three ratio without preservatives. The factory shop sells it and runs hands-on sessions where you shape and grill your own.