The plan was simple. On this trip I intended to embrace one of the tenets of ikigai, the Japanese framework for living a happy life: eat until you are 80 per cent full. Easy, given the small servings and lightness of Japanese food. Or so I thought.

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The plan did not survive contact with Niigata prefecture. It never stood a chance.

The mountainous region in northern Honshu prides itself on its produce and its food. And when visitors arrive, the locals insist you sample as much as possible. So instead of being 80 per cent full for the past few days, it's been more like 180 per cent. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

It started off light enough with a lunch at the award-winning Farm Front Noen Seki, a contemporary restaurant which overlooks Seki Farm's rice paddies and serves onigiri - salted rice balls - on dried bamboo leaves with a selection of tangy pickles. Seki Farm's rice is regarded as the best Japan produces - short grained, sweet and a little sticky, just as the locals like it, and perfect for wrapping in dried seaweed and topping with pickled vegetables.

But dinner at Ryu Sushi clobbered any notion of sticking to the ikigai rule. Here, we were seated around the sushi chef who worked his magic in front of us in a soft performance. To get us started we were served a dish of milky white stuff which looked vaguely like yoghurt and was almost impossible to extract with chopsticks.

The testes of cod fish, we were told. Information that probably should have been shared only after we'd eaten it. But it was a weird hurdle worth jumping, The following 16 courses of various cuts of tuna, mackerel, squid and eel were delicious. And filling.

For the past few days, we haven't just been eating food, we've been making it, too. Sasa dango is a traditional dessert dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed. An hour spent making the dough and filling and learning how to wrap them had the group giggling like children. Fitting really because sasa dango is a children's favourite in Niigata - not only the eating of it but the preparation too.

Our work done, a feast of Obanzai home cooking - simple dishes of seasonal fish and vegetables - was prepared by a team of local mothers. A principle........

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