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This chapter is nuts. I love it so much. Notice: I will be on a short vacation next week, so the Sunday chapter will be maybe half a day late.

Funny thing about that. When I was younger, my mom one gave me one of these meat stubs and told me it was the chicken's butt. Me, being a gullible boy, kept looking at it trying to find where the poopy hole is. Turns out, that's not how chicken anatomy works.

Now that Dan has been properly introduced, I'd like to take some time to explain why I think he's such a fascinating addition to the character dynamic. But before I can explain that, I must first explain the other love rival, Kinjo Isamu. Kinjo was introduced the same volume as Niki Mariko, and...

You can consider it the 'lesson of the week' before they return to the status quo. This 'showdown' technically isn't even a showdown, more a presentation by the Ultimate Menu to prove that they know their weakness and have the capacity to improve on it. In fact, I'd argue that using the Supreme...

No Gourmet Notes this time. Just a chapter to establish Dan's character.

At last. I've been itching to get to Dan's introduction ever since I started translating Oishinbo. I honestly find Dan to be a fascinating character, not entirely for his character as presented in the story, but more for what narrative purpose he serves. I consider him to be perhaps the most...

I wouldn't be surprised. It's a running joke that whenever we feel sick or uncomfortable in any way, the remedy is to just 'drink more water' (implied warm water). Having grown up with sambal, I can give a few tips if you want to reduce the pain from spiciness. Sambal's spiciness comes from...

It's a very common folk wisdom among Chinese communities. It's why we have something of a stereotype for always drinking hot water or hot tea. I don't really care for it though. I live in Singapore where it's hot every day, so I'm always drinking iced drinks.

This chapter is a nice throwback to when Ohara wasn't so high-strung. Wish we could see him be this way more often, but alas.

I'm just gonna...ignore the mismatched tone for a bit, cause I think this is a great chance to talk about Mrs. Mitani as a character. Early in the series, Mrs. Mitani (Hanamura) was introduced as something of a trendchaser. She's always the one who knows the latest ins around Ginza, and isn't...

If this happened in the real world, almost certainly yes. But we're in the Oishinbo world right now. Some due process will need to be ignored so we can let food solve all our problems.

I really like this chapter. It's relatively low stakes but treated with so much urgency because the main character is dirt-poor. Matsukawa is also just a very fun character. So shameless, so direct.

This is a fantastic question actually. It'll help when I eventually need to study up on nuclear radiation effects for Volume...111. Better to get started early. First, we need to understand why radioisotopes are dangerous to our bodies. High-energy radiation (especially beta decay and gamma...

The Viz volume has some notes on the subject at the end of the volume, and the translator has a good enough track record that I think their sources are valid. Through my research, I did find 1 instance of live decoy ducks being mentioned. The article also calls them 'call ducks'. The part I'm...

Ah yes, the Culture Department Show-and-Tells, also a favourite of mine. They occur once every few volumes, and represent Oishinbo at its least pretentious. I wanna celebrate the people's individual eating quirks. They're what give us character.

I do enjoy whenever we get chapters like this, that give insight into regional differences in food styles. I think it's fun. This one really only touched on udon, so it's a little lacking.

It might just be personal preference, or perhaps Koizumi's kitchen isn't equipped with the proper knife to cut a fish head in half like that. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing you usually do at home.

Correct, mercury poisoning is a concern when it comes to certain species of fish. I've read pretty far into Oishinbo and I haven't encountered a chapter where this issue is addressed, so I suppose I'll explain it here. Mercury often enters marine ecosystems through water pollution, as runoff...

The happy cat face is very silly, but this chapter is grounded enough that I think it deserves a caution. Salt-grilled fish is rich in both fats and sodium, both of which can be harmful to domestic cats if fed in large quantities. If you do want to feed your pet cat cooked fish, vets recommend...

Nice catch! The term Kurita uses is 'ranbou' (乱暴). On it's own, it means something like 'barbaric' or 'offensively rude', like what you'd expect of a caveman. In context, it refers to the heavy Scotch being 'uncultured' as an aperitif. I read that as being a 'faux pas', an action against...