Think of Tasmanian oysters, Cloudy Bay wines, Kangaroo Island free range corn fed fat chickens. Geographically specific food is a great marketing tool. You are buying a place and a space. Consumption makes it yours.

This is what the second son of a Kyoto textile merchant, a pupil of Kitsu Issai in the Kaiseki school, prepared for this evenings board a la Kaiseki. A hassun tray of hors d'oeuvres made of mushrooms with pine needles, fried lily roots, Hachiya persimmons sent by a friend in Gifu, soybeans from the Daitokuji, and calico-fried crab: followed by a red miso broth combined with the flesh of small birds ground with mustard; and then, in elegant Sung dynasty red plates in a peony pattern, sliced raw flatheads prepared blow-fish style; the fried course was spawning sweetfish broiled in soy, served with hatsutake mushrooms in a blue Aoae dressing and ark shellfish in white sesame and bean-paste dressing. The boiled course was pickled bracken in bream bean curd, served with steaming broth containing red madders. (M, FC)

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