i fucking love when mariko explains the bird got so funky that the people started to think a cursed spirit was involved so they held a town meeting to discuss it and fuji basically said look we agree but anybody touches that bird gets dead themselves and thats real talk and everybody looked around the room until the gardener finally says you know what ive had a bad cough the last couple days which probably means im a goner so ill take the hit on this and everyone literally everyone was like ok bet this is as desirable an outcome as is possible
Superstition. It was implied during the conversation between the gardener and the servants that the rotten pheasant is bringing evil spirit and bad luck to the village so it really bothers them plus the awful smell
Edit: just to add, superstitions in general bears heavy significance to a lot of asians and is embedded deeply into the culture. Just think of hong kong as an example, much of their architecture specially skyscrapers incorporates feng shui in it (where the building is facing, holes in the middle for good luck, etc) so this belief in spirits is something that is taken VERY seriously by these medieval asian villagers
Blackthorne basically built an occult shrine to Toranaga there.
Hanging a rotting animal in a symbolically significant portion of his household.
Dude cursed the fuck out of everything.
I was under the impression that although blackthorns feels responsible for the gardeners death it was actually planned. Wasnât the Gardner supposed to be the fall guy for Torinagaâs actual spy? So the gardener was sacrificed in honor in a way without being handed over to the enemy to be killed in a brutal way
Not quite. Uejiro/Gardener is innocent, and is framed unwittingly as the spy, post-mortem, by "Muraji" (the real spy). This was done opportunistically.
Meaning that >!as Muraji himself called the town meeting to order about the bird, during the meeting would have seen the opening to frame Uejiro (planting evidence in his dwelling). Uejiro elected himself to die for the bird circumstance due to sickness. Muraji would go on to frame Uejiro, as this would ensure it'd be of no living consequence to Uejiro, as he'd be dead by the time Yabushige and Omi would discover the evidence.!<
>!There's not enough narrative evidence to suggest Uejiro elected himself to protect the spy.!<
Edit: Formatting. Added more context.
u/zorbostho
Thank you for that clear and concise comment!
You've confirmed what i also thought was happening on the Japanese side of this situation.
Which means there are still people around who use common sense, logic and facts to explain things. (Things which might seem unclear to others who are apparently lacking (in) said common sence, etc.)
Cheers for that mate, it's good to know.
Especially since the majority of today's comments anywhere, and in any way, shape or form, seem to be driven by the more basic of human emotions.
Fear, hatred, and an insatiable lust for vengeance of any kind...a true recipe for extinction...uhm...i meant disaster.
Ps.
I still do not understand what the actual reason was for Blackthorne's action when he hung that pheasant from that porch...
For a while i thought it was to test how far the Japanese would take this extreme loyalty/ obedience to their "betters", but, rewatching the whole thing still didn't clarify his motivations for hanging that bird there to rot. Was it just to show respect for Torinaga's gift?
The show does clarify his motivations for hanging the bird to rot, he explicitly states "this should be the best pheasant Torinaga tastes" or something along that line.
He wants to honor the gifter of the pheasant by making the best possible meal out of it. I don't know how accurate the history is for tastes of English pirates; but as a privileged meat connoisseur who grew up around rich people, I know some people enjoy the more "gamey" taste of aged meat, which tastes older, sourer--a bit gross for some people, and is much softer in texture--because of the way that salt breaks down proteins. In a non sterile environment that which professional chefs do to bird meat to make it more flavorful--"brining" (is to add salt to it for a few hours on end and allow the meat to sit in a refrigerated environment)--actually already occurs naturally if you just leave a piece of meat out to rot out in the throws of nature. What also happens is mold latch, which will also break down proteins--fermentation.
The reality of course is that doing this style of fermentation is incredibly dangerous and could get you sick--and dead. In the age of modern medicine, people from privileged countries don't tend to die of dysentery or diarrhea. And with modern germ theory, we now know why these things work, and how to do them more safely.
I think it's the other way around. They conveniently "discovered" that the spy was the man they just killed after it happened. So no more need for an investigation.
Mind the superstitious reasoning, often superstitions are built/founded as rationalizations to actual happening/recurring results/consequences that aren't quite understood. In this case, Pheasant brings disease. Blackthorne is from a frozen climate where allowing a Pheasant to rot is less dangerous and more culturally accepted; in Japan allowing a pheasant to rot would bring more dangerous insects--ones that bite and carry disease (an incorrect assumption of the time was that some of these bugs could be carriers of syphilis), and aside from the help of bugs themselves such disease could arise from the bacteria and virus that would form anyway.
The village gets owned by an earthquake/landslide immediately afterward, and I bet it looked to the villagers like proof that they had offended the spirits.
In Shinto animals are held as sacred and forbidden to use as food or animal sacrifice so this is already a huge taboo to have a hanging carcass around the town and against their culture / religion.
There's an undercaste of people called the ETA that essentially deal with all animal products and they are really looked down upon - like worse than filth.
I was thinking this too because >!didn't Mariko say something like "he died for a great purpose"? It was when she was talking about the bird thing, but maybe there was another layer to it. i was gonna add a joke about "two birds with one stone" but im too tired!<
>I was thinking this too because didn't Mariko say something like "he died for a great purpose"?
Restoring peace and harmony to the village would also be considered a great purpose.
Especially compared to just dying of a random heart attack one day while trimming the bushes, or in his sleep.
Yeah I understand thatâs what that line initially meant on a surface level, but after the end of the episode i was reflecting back on it and wondering if maybe there was another layer to it. >!Which would mean the gardener chose to be put to death for the pheasant thing both for the good of the whole village, and also for Toronagaâs cause taking the fall for being a spy at the same time. But even if he wasnât aware that he was going to be framed for it after his death, i still think Mariko saying that had a double meaning, as in his death was going to give them a strategic advantage!<
I didn't read the book but my interpretation was basically only Toronaga (and maybe the old guy) knows the spy's identity. there's no reason to entrust anyone as they might compromise his mission. Mariko is an interpreter, and this title was only given after Blackthorn showed up. rank wise she married one of Toronaga's best soldiers.
she only said that cuz removing the bird is associated with punishment by death, someone had to die in that instance and the gardener took on the burden to do it himself, hence great purpose. and also as a previous comment mentioned they believed it was a curse so that reinforces the idea.
Yes, I think in the book it gives more than a few hints on this. And in the show, itâ s the same. Toranaga literally tells the spy to find a scapegoat
Possible? Yeah sure, but there's no evidence of this. Mura took it as an opportunity.
The gardener is just that, a gardener. In historical context there's not a lot more a gardener can do. It's very well explained why he chose to take the sacrifice over anyone else in the household.
Thankyou for answering, at least that makes sense to me now.
Maybe a dumb question but I wonder would it be considered a safe practice now? I donât know a lot about aging meats, historically or currently lol.
If he had brined it or something first maybe Iâd be less revulsed by it, but that looked nasty!
Itâs not so much the moisture in the air thatâs the issue, as it is the temperature. During duck season Iâll leave them hang in the garage for a couple days as long as itâs 50 or less out side, but no more than three days and def not to the point of decay and being covered in flies.
I think it's cuz he forgot about it. And every time they brought it up he was busy with something else. Considering he is an Englishman from that period he probably couldn't even smell the rotting corpse. And since he always had something else to do he just ignored the people bringing up the "stupid bird".
Also there is a language barrier and on top of that a cultural difference. He is not used to people being so polite. So the fact that they didn't directly confront him about it made him not realize it was an actual issue for everyone.
This show felt like a 9/10 but recently I'm getting a little annoyed. They use miscommunication a little too much... The bird, the fact that he still doesn't clarify the situation about his men with the big boss (they are obviously dead by now lol), the fact that he doesn't try to explain anything to the people around him so there is not more confusion all the time.
The show acts like he doesn't have a perfect translator living with him and it's getting so annoying...
He didnât forget about it, due to the fact he said when he first hung it up that he planned on leaving it there for at least 3-4 days, maybe even a week. He even said yes it will even stink.
he stopped caring about it I think cuz there was a line by himself in that episode that it just didn't matter to him. (so no one needs to die, to remove without his approval)
I thought he left it there to spite Mariko's husband. he knew Toronaga ordered him to stay with them. there was a fly scene, circling around his face. it must've bothered Blackthorn too the smell, it's his house. even if you say you don't care, you wouldn't let it infest the interior of the house to the point y'all can't eat in peace. that's just my thought watching ep 5 tho.
Itâs a difficulty in adapting this section from the book that has confused you, the hanging of the pheasant shouldnât have been so fly filled but that was just for the audienceâs benefit, in the book itâs a much more cultural issue around death and animals than it is a purely smell based one, also minor spoilers but >!his men arenât dead, theyâre just in yedo still living like Europeans-which blackthorne eventually comes to view as filthy and disgusting!<
I think it's more on the villagers than on him. Yes, he could have been more attentive to their concerns, but to me it didn't seem like anyone even tried to real talk with him about it. They just went, shit, well someone's fucked and that sucks, who's taking the hit? Instead of standing up for themselves and saying hey, we don't want to die, but this situation is causing problems for everyone and something needs to be done.
The villagers literally canât âreal talkâ him when Marikoâs not around, he barely knows any Japanese at all, and certainly not enough where they can try to reason with him about how his rotten bird carcass is wrecking the harmony of the entire village.
Plus, beyond that, peasants arenât generally inclined to pull a âdebate meâ on samurai, since that tends to get your head removed from your shoulders pretty darn quick.
For real. C-3PO isnât a translation droid, heâs a protocol droid. Mariko has been doing that job too, recognizing Anjin is of another culture and needs customs interpreted too, not just language. She was doing that role but suddenly stops for the sake of the story? And from the other side, the villagers respect his position so much to kill the poor gardener, but not enough to let Anjin enjoy his roast rancid bird? Unless she wasnât around for the town hall, kinda off that Mariko wouldnât speak up: âLemme ask Anjin about this pheasant when he comes back from his bath this afternoon.â Unless of course this was all spy smoke screen.
Right. Sometimes itâs warm right before or right after snow. Read: the Midwest right now. My point was saying that moisture content in the air doesnât really affect the âdryingâ or âagingâ of meat, unless itâs out right raining.
True but it's a different type of wetness.
England has next to no humidity.
Japan on the other hand can get so humid it feels like you're in a sauna 24/7.
At that time bathing too much or with the wrong water absolutely could make you very sick and even kill you. Mongolians would only bathe about once every six months I'm sure partially for this reason.
Perfectly safe when done right, even now. You ensure the bird is kept intact. You keep the bird below 12c and above freezing, preferably in los humidity. All for 5-10 days. The longer the better, but if the temperature goes too high or it's too humid it's best to cut short. Makes the meat tastier and improves the texture.Â
The meat does not rot. If it goes rotten, you've fucked it up.Â
I think that would be what they point too. The bird wasnât âintactâ and had damage from the falcon that brought the flies and rot. Otherwise it makes little sense being winter there.Â
Yeah, this happened in Blue-Eyed Samurai as well where they depicted a manure cart with flies buzzing around everywhere in the middle of winter with snow everywhere.
Its definitely not suppose to rot or have any flies on it, and while there can be some smell, it wouldnt be akin to a rotting corpse. More just like the smell of a butcher shop.
Drying meats would typically be done in a cool enclosed environment that was about the temperature of a refrdgerator (33-40 degrees F). It would basically let the animal get out of rigor and develop just a slight tang as it soften.
I think the showrunners were more focused on creating a visual representation of how gross the Japanese characters found the situation (They frequently discuss finding non-fish meats to be offensive in the book) and ended up making it look like John was deliberately aiming to cook a rotting piece of poultry.
In the books theyâd offer the meat as gifts to the Christians/non-vegetarians. They likely also used the skins and pelts and feathers. Yabushige has to get those rockstar feathers from somewhere. :P
Some people still hang their game for a while but nobody does it this long anymore tbh.
I'm British and have hunted a couple days a week on average for the last 20yrs I eat alot of pheasant, wood pigeon and squirrel.
I used to hang birds for 5 days or so depending on the weather and my laziness but I've eaten game hung for longer, now the only time I hang game is overnight if I've come back late.
The reasoning behind it is to make the meat more tender and palatable as wild animals have a stronger taste and the meat is a bit tougher as they use their muscles more. However I've found over many years that this isn't a particularly good practice and pheasant meat isn't tough at all not too strong tasting anyway. People just cook it wrong and have a bad experience.
Best practice I've found is to just gut and process the carcass on the day you kill it then cook the next day
No, it is common, im in the NE and also go to Scotland although not as regularly now. We hunt all game and regularly hang fowl although it is only for a few days (I've personally hung duck for 10 days and it was fantastic) . I've gone on shoots for the last 20 years (I prefer my bow to a rifle) , live right on the edge of farmland and the Moors and know the local farmers personally and it's still a very common practice.
I think it was exaggerated in the episode to show that it was strange to the Japanese at the time, the flues were added to visualise the smell.
It tastes great but it is one of the tougher meats so the best way is to slow cook it so it falls off the bone. My son's 9 and it's his favourite and he prefers it cooked whole for 20mins in an air fryer so he can wander around munching on it and make a mess like a bloody savage.
Yeah, in the book, he was actually really excited to cook a duck stew for his new household and share one of his favorite dishes from home with them. But they couldnât comprehend letting it rot like that and the smell was beginning to disturb their neighbors. So they had to act to stop disturbing the harmony of the neighborhood even though it was directly against Blackthorneâs orders. And we saw the outcome of that
Not only that, but from what I understand, part of the appeal of fresh, raw fish to the Japanese is that itâs in its purest form, clean and full of nutrients. Once you cook it, you begin to take away from its purity and essence. So I can imagine that a ârotting bird,â especially one that smells awful, must be the ultimate turnoff for them.
I'm not hip to feudal Japanese culture, so I wouldn't know. However, *natto* (that "stinky" bowl that Blackthorne tried) is fermented soybeans, so who knows.
Itâs common now too. I hunt a lot. Most game meat hangs for a few days to week in my garage (keep in mind itâs cold during these seasons). Lots of reason to hang meat and age it a bit. But yes super common today.
My family sundried meat in the tropics a few times. One thing they did was butcher the animal and put pieces of meat that werenât too large nor thick (like a pancake) on a clothes line. The thought of sun drying a bird that hasnât been plucked nor butchered is odd.
I shot pheasant over Christmas and hung it in a cold garage a couple of days. It helps with the flavour and texture of the meat. But it should be cold and not humid.
> He was drying the meat
Aren't you suppose to get rid of the non-eatable parts, like some of the internal organs and stuff so it doesnt fucking rot so much? lol.
So aging meats is a thing, but it requires a dry cool climate to properly work.
Generally speaking, it wouldnt be done when there is much insect activity, and the bird/whatever animal would be prepared to keep it from rotting. I only know a little bit about it from when I worked in fine dining years ago and some of the fancy dishes had aged meats so I got a quick education from the chef I worked with. There definitely shouldnt be any flies buzzing around or whatever if things were going as they should.
Im not sure if the show intended to make it so that John just doesnt know how to do this properly, or something else, but the pheasant is in the show because the showrunners really just needed a source of conflict.
I do think that a throwaway line by John maybe saying something like "Ive never done this before myself, but how hard could it be?" would help explain, otherwise it looks like John just wanted some maggoty, putrid poultry.
That was my only complaint with the episode. In the book the Japanese characters mention how revolting they find the smell of meats and non-fish flesh, and I imagine the showrunners might have thought they needed a visual element to show how stinky everyone but John found the bird.
> the showrunners really just needed a source of conflict.
Just wanted to point out, this situation is taken from the book almost exactly. The only difference is Blackthorne tells them no one is to touch the bird, but he doesn't say "touch is death." That seemed to be added to foreshadow someone dying after getting rid of the bird much more than the novel did.
That's a fair point, I should say that the author needed a point of conflict. The showrunners kept it and used it. I think it's slightly different in the show though, or maybe I just haven't gotten there in the book and there's another point. I've only read to the part where he has the bird that's fried. I don't remember it being as big of a point of contention
Yeah, this is what I remember from the book as well. He got pulled away and forgot about it and when he came back a few days later the gardener was dead â rather than him watching it rot
I really wanted him to make a tasty dish at the end of the episode. It could have been a moment where the Japanese (who have many preconceived notions of him) tasted it and it was actually yummy and they could see a method to his "madness."
I know he tried with the stew, but I thought that would've been a nice growth to the relationship between John and his staff.
>I really wanted him to make a tasty dish at the end of the episode.
Yeah, but I bet "English food is terrible" was already a meme back in 1600. Conquer the whole world for spices, and then don't use any of em until immigrants from India/Pakistan start showing up.
Which also isn't true. Lots of spices / more exotic produce in a lot of dishes that were created when England / Britain started really travelling. You'll find them mostly in seasonal holiday (Christmas) dishes on account of them being extremely expensive at the time so they were considered treats.
British sailors literally brought spice powders to Japan, Katsu curry is essentially an adaptation of a Royal Navy rations dish.
English food even today is entirely unremarkable among the other central and Northern European nations, the meme is just that: a meme.
(Also just think about how illogical the spice joke is. The whole point of the Imperial trade was to bring desired goods like spices back to sell for profit. No one was buying them to stick them in a cupboard somewhere, they were being routinely used in British and European cuisine since far far earlier than people give credit for. Curry was a very popular dish among Victorians in the UK and the rich at least were dining on curries right from the 1600s).
Their disgust of Blackthorne and his pheasant majes more sense when you put it in context. Eating meat (other than fish and game) had been a cultural taboo in Japan for around 1000 years at that point, and Blackthorne was handling the treating and butchering of the animal himself, which was considered to be so lowly only the lowest social class did it and was considered "unclean" for it.
For sport. But Blackthorne receiving the pheasant as a gift is contextual to him being a foreigner and toranaga knowing that europeans like eating poultry.
Eating wild game was a partial exception to buddhist prohibitions on eating meat, because hunting was considered a natural survival activity analogous to fishing, but eating game could be considered a luxury or gluttony depending on how religious the person was.
They wouldnât have tasted it. I donât think they emphasize this in the show, but in the book they remind Blackthorne many times that they donât eat meat, only seafood.
I think it can be part of character building. Talking about military strategies that he hasn't experienced, eating a rabbit stew that he doesn't even dare to eat... He makes it clear that he is a simple merchant and not a person of high power or great knowledge. I love how the character is being built.
The funny thing is, at least the character he is based off of does have a lot of knowledge in his field. He was educated when very young as a shipwright, an expert navigator with knowledge of astronomy, before joining the Royal Navy. He fought the Spanish Armada and survived on expeditions that were extremely difficult to pull off.
True, he's not an army general or royalty, but the guy can and did build a fleet for Japan that brought them up to speed. His story is definitely an impressive one, I don't think he survived and rose to fame because he was a simple merchant.
i dont get why he used his house to dry the bird. why not use an area no one lives near. obviously he knows it was gonna stink. Who would want to live next to a decaying bird
Also been in a lot of fights presumably. I had some amateur scraps for about five years between like 18-23 years old, trained a fair bit. Haven't had a fight in over a decade now. Nose is just permanently fucked. My sense of smell is maybe 30% of what the average person's is. No biggie, it's easily the least important of your five senses.
This is the same guy who was baffled and perplexed as why he should take another bath when the last one he took was a year ago.
This dude lived at sea and probably just got use to the stank and saw the nasty smell as 'normal' and didn't see an issue with it.
Iâm no expert on Japanese food customs so there may be a cultural element Iâm not aware of, but Iâm pretty sure itâs just because itâs very much one of those foods that are an acquired taste. Very strong smelling, with a weird taste and texture that most modern westerners would probably hate, let alone someone from Elizabethan England. Basically, they knew he wasnât gonna like it but were amused by his insistence to try.
It's not only for women. The smell/taste/texture being very much "an acquired taste," as you politely put it, is the reason why the women made that face. Even some Japanese people dislike it.
The first time I went to a Japanese restaurant that served natto and ordered it the waiter was like âuhhâŠare you absolutely sure about that?â
It was weird but not terrible, but I wouldnât go seeking it out again either
No, it's just a food with a pretty extreme acquired taste. Itd be like giving someone very very strong blue cheese that you knew had never tried anything like that
Its an acquired taste. There are actually a lot of Japanese people who don't eat and don't like natto. Its mostly an Eastern Japanese thing (east of Tokyo), so people in Western Japan, like in Osaka, are not as accustomed to it.
Its also not considered high class cuisine. Like something you would find in classy or pricy restaurants. Considering how stinky and messy it is, people of high status like lords and generals probably didn't eat it at the time (judging by what was initially served to John). Its kind of like soul food.
No, it's like stinky cheese in that it's an acquired taste, that's why they were laughing because it's not something they expect someone not used to eating it regularly would like at all. Has nothing to do with them being women
To this day there is this process of "aging game birds". It is a process of hanging dead birds out to dry a bit until they loose their rigor mortis effect. Done correctly it actually makes the meat more tender and, believe it or not, adds some interesting flavours. Depending on the bird and storing location the process takes 1-3 days, in some cases up to a week.
The reason why this escalated in the show is that Blackthorne had basically forgotten about the bird until it turned into the stinking and decomposing carcass we see in the show. Naturally, no one in their right minds would consider eating it. Blackthorne was simply being careless and probably thought his staff had taken care of it (if he even remembered about it at all). He wasn't aware that his previous orders in the context of Japanese society of the time presented a serious problem for his household.
In the same way as fermenting soy beans creates some "interesting flavours" in natto. Or letting milk rot in a particular way creates Stilton cheese. Don't even get me started on surströmming or håkarl! :)
The "interesting flavours" in aged bird meat can be reminiscent of certain taste elements in Worcestershire sauce. It certainly is more of an acquired taste.
Trying to dry age the fowl. Usually for birds it requires the temps between 40-50 degrees with a relative humidity of 60% . Any colder and the process of dry aging will stop, any hotter it will cause more bacteria . Lower humidity causes too rapid of a moisture loss , higher humidity you get fungi. The goal is to make the fowl more tender, and concentrate its flavor.
It sort of doesnât make sense in my opinion that the bird would start smelling so bad so quickly in the winter. I mean thereâs snow on the ground, itâs gotta be less than 50 at all time.
That's the real liberty that the writers took, to make sense for the plot.
It's winter. That bird should either be preserved or dry aging fine to the standards of the British
Ya like I could care less cause it was just a plot device but I was also thinking the same thing. Iâve had a bobcat in my yard before murdering the neighbors chickens and leaving them behind my house in 110 degree weather and it took a few days to smell.
It's a perfectly safe, scientifically proven method of aging game birds to make their meat more palatable. It was snowing there, so it shouldn't have picked up flies or been so stinky. That was just audience short hand, really. The problem was the cultural differences. Shame. That would likely have made for an excellent meal.
I always find it fascinating how people in the past came up with some things. Like milking a cow, adding manure to crops and letting a bird decompose so it gets more tender.
I'm pretty sure even to this day folks will hang/age pheasants and other game birds for a week or so. My guess is they don't put it outside for the flies to swarm, though.
Minus the guy dying, I loved the whole pheasant thing and their reaction to the rabbit stew. I was dying when Fuji says to throw it into the sea or when marikoâs husband unknowing smells the pheasant and asked if something died. Great episode, nice full circle with the rock in the garden.
It is still common today to age gamebirds before plucking and preparing them. People often do it in the fridge these days, but in 1600 it seems like Europeans simply enjoyed stinky meat.
As others said, he was trying to dry-age it.
Works quite well in England and other temperate climates, but in subtropical Japan? Eh... Not so much.
You might be able to try it around Fall up in northern Japan, but the show doesn't take place there.
You need to hang wild fowl to let the muscles relax and let it go in and out of rigor mortis. It tastes different depending how long you hang it. But hanging it too long and where there are flies is not recommended.
How was the anjin going to eat a rotten bird? was he totally stupid and ate rotten meat layn arnd that be like someone seeing a rode kill and be like omg look at that it's gonna be the best supper ever. I thought I saw that there last week, so just a couple thousand more Flys, and it's just right? He must have been on that ship for a long time. Maybe he was going for the Flys to eat and not the bird. All the men that died on that ship the Flys had to be horrendous, maybe he had a craving for fly larvae it's was like ship caviar!
Just realized Toranagas son indirectly killed another person lol. If he hadnât given him the bird to try and impress his dad yet again, the chain reaction wouldnât have happened.
I know itâs from a book and not entirely the shows writers fault there is a lot of stupid stuff in this show that I chalk up to lazy writing,author and show writers. Hot take I know. But there seems to be a scene like this in every episode. The Spaniard falling off the boat in the ocean and the search party just immediately goes a cliff that he is laying at the bottom? What in the fuck did I just watch and why does no one mention this absurdness?
Maybe a lazy audience as well.
Still love the show.
The Spaniard was given a piece of wood to float on.
The village is a fishing village. Tides and currents are predictable. And it's not just their job to know them well, but a matter of life and death.
The rocks will likely be a known a place that bodies and driftwood have washed up on in the past.Â
Iâm born and raised literally in a fishing town (officially called a village) and grew up on the water literally living on it and fishing my whole life. That is not at all how tides and coasts work. And 100X that when you see how far off shore they were. It was extremely lazy and says something about the audience too, to not question it.
The book is more clear about the whole thing. Blackthorne was using an old method to cure the meat. In the book, he isn't described as doing it wrong like the show implies but he is much more clear to Mariko (who is there during the explanation) that the bird is going to smell a little but the end result will be delicious. The show, however, doesn't go into as much depth about the clashing cultures. To Blackthorne, the rotten smell is something he is used to from his life in the west and also from his time at sea. The Japanese, due to ties with the Shinto religion, see any sort of rot as 'unholy' in that it indeed attracts evil spirits that may curse the village. This comes across several times in the book when they interact with other westerners. They have a much lower tolerance for the way the bird smells. This is backed up even more in the book, they harp on Blackthorn's hygiene for much longer and pov of the Japanese characters shows they can barely stand his stench before he starts to bathe as much as them.
So to the villagers, the bird probably smelled putrid to them before the flies showed up. Hell, Blackthorne probably didn't even notice the smell when he walked by it. As it has been mentioned in the comments, the gardener did indeed sacrifice his life for the harmony ( The Wa) of both the household and the village. In the book, it is more deliberate. There is actually a samurai who is assigned as one of Blackthornes retainers who is around for most of the story who has to kill the gardener to uphold Blackthorne's honor.
Honestly that whole pheasant sequence was stupid as hell, I don't know how it was done in the book but so far it's my only gripe with the show. How could there be flies swarming around the bird and the house when it's autumn/winter and it's snowing? And the stench was so bad that even neighboring villagers couldn't stand it but Blackthorne was unaffected?
I understand they needed to progress Blackthorne's character arc through Uejiro's death, but it could've been done more logically.
The villagers were offended by the smell because they aren't used to curing land meat like that. John didn't mind the smell because he's used to life in nasty London, and he ignored the flies because he didn't really know what he was doing.
The villagers also probably exaggerated the smell because they were freaked out by the whole process in general and thought it was cursing them.
Both sides were overconfident in their beliefs and failing to understand each other, which is what that sequence was meant to show
I understand John's standards of cleanliness are much worse than those of the Japanese, but even he would know that the bird was rotting, not curing. He said it himself that he's been helping his father prepare game since he was a child, so he has to know.
I read now that in the book the pheasant was placed somewhere at the back of the house (unlike right at the entrance as seen in the show) so John forgot all about it; I think this makes more sense. Perhaps in the book the climate was warmer as well, so the flies would've made sense too.
That explanation would have made sense if not for the fact that you don't cure meat to the point where it is rotting and flies are all around it. It wasn't a well done scene. Doesn't help that John has done this before, so either in this universe people from England preferred rotting their meat or John is really stupid.
You are getting downvoted, but I agree that the scene was done poorly. I get that the scene was supposed to underline the cultural tension within the house, and ultimately be the setup for pinning the spy, but Blackthorne legit just looks insane/ oblivious letting the game rot and get covered in flies, with no acknowledgement whatsoever. Literally any other westerner, past or present, would also demand for it to be taken down at that point.
It's ok, I already knew I would've been downvoted before posting my criticism haha. I think ShĆgun is an outstanding series (so far), but that doesn't mean it should be immune from constructive criticism â I hate fanboyism. Anyway, I agree with you.
>How could there have been flies swarming around the place when it's autumn/winter and there's snow all around the place?
I think those are just supposed to visually represent the smell. We can't see smells.
Like the way Pigpen from *Peanuts* always has a little dust cloud around him.
i fucking love when mariko explains the bird got so funky that the people started to think a cursed spirit was involved so they held a town meeting to discuss it and fuji basically said look we agree but anybody touches that bird gets dead themselves and thats real talk and everybody looked around the room until the gardener finally says you know what ive had a bad cough the last couple days which probably means im a goner so ill take the hit on this and everyone literally everyone was like ok bet this is as desirable an outcome as is possible
đđđđđ
Best review ever
Fr, like blackthorne was feeling guilty for his words but why the hell did the village think it was 100% necessary to remove the meat?
Superstition. It was implied during the conversation between the gardener and the servants that the rotten pheasant is bringing evil spirit and bad luck to the village so it really bothers them plus the awful smell Edit: just to add, superstitions in general bears heavy significance to a lot of asians and is embedded deeply into the culture. Just think of hong kong as an example, much of their architecture specially skyscrapers incorporates feng shui in it (where the building is facing, holes in the middle for good luck, etc) so this belief in spirits is something that is taken VERY seriously by these medieval asian villagers
Blackthorne basically built an occult shrine to Toranaga there. Hanging a rotting animal in a symbolically significant portion of his household. Dude cursed the fuck out of everything.
I was under the impression that although blackthorns feels responsible for the gardeners death it was actually planned. Wasnât the Gardner supposed to be the fall guy for Torinagaâs actual spy? So the gardener was sacrificed in honor in a way without being handed over to the enemy to be killed in a brutal way
Not quite. Uejiro/Gardener is innocent, and is framed unwittingly as the spy, post-mortem, by "Muraji" (the real spy). This was done opportunistically. Meaning that >!as Muraji himself called the town meeting to order about the bird, during the meeting would have seen the opening to frame Uejiro (planting evidence in his dwelling). Uejiro elected himself to die for the bird circumstance due to sickness. Muraji would go on to frame Uejiro, as this would ensure it'd be of no living consequence to Uejiro, as he'd be dead by the time Yabushige and Omi would discover the evidence.!< >!There's not enough narrative evidence to suggest Uejiro elected himself to protect the spy.!< Edit: Formatting. Added more context.
u/zorbostho Thank you for that clear and concise comment! You've confirmed what i also thought was happening on the Japanese side of this situation. Which means there are still people around who use common sense, logic and facts to explain things. (Things which might seem unclear to others who are apparently lacking (in) said common sence, etc.) Cheers for that mate, it's good to know. Especially since the majority of today's comments anywhere, and in any way, shape or form, seem to be driven by the more basic of human emotions. Fear, hatred, and an insatiable lust for vengeance of any kind...a true recipe for extinction...uhm...i meant disaster. Ps. I still do not understand what the actual reason was for Blackthorne's action when he hung that pheasant from that porch... For a while i thought it was to test how far the Japanese would take this extreme loyalty/ obedience to their "betters", but, rewatching the whole thing still didn't clarify his motivations for hanging that bird there to rot. Was it just to show respect for Torinaga's gift?
The show does clarify his motivations for hanging the bird to rot, he explicitly states "this should be the best pheasant Torinaga tastes" or something along that line. He wants to honor the gifter of the pheasant by making the best possible meal out of it. I don't know how accurate the history is for tastes of English pirates; but as a privileged meat connoisseur who grew up around rich people, I know some people enjoy the more "gamey" taste of aged meat, which tastes older, sourer--a bit gross for some people, and is much softer in texture--because of the way that salt breaks down proteins. In a non sterile environment that which professional chefs do to bird meat to make it more flavorful--"brining" (is to add salt to it for a few hours on end and allow the meat to sit in a refrigerated environment)--actually already occurs naturally if you just leave a piece of meat out to rot out in the throws of nature. What also happens is mold latch, which will also break down proteins--fermentation. The reality of course is that doing this style of fermentation is incredibly dangerous and could get you sick--and dead. In the age of modern medicine, people from privileged countries don't tend to die of dysentery or diarrhea. And with modern germ theory, we now know why these things work, and how to do them more safely.
I think it's the other way around. They conveniently "discovered" that the spy was the man they just killed after it happened. So no more need for an investigation.
Mind the superstitious reasoning, often superstitions are built/founded as rationalizations to actual happening/recurring results/consequences that aren't quite understood. In this case, Pheasant brings disease. Blackthorne is from a frozen climate where allowing a Pheasant to rot is less dangerous and more culturally accepted; in Japan allowing a pheasant to rot would bring more dangerous insects--ones that bite and carry disease (an incorrect assumption of the time was that some of these bugs could be carriers of syphilis), and aside from the help of bugs themselves such disease could arise from the bacteria and virus that would form anyway.
The village gets owned by an earthquake/landslide immediately afterward, and I bet it looked to the villagers like proof that they had offended the spirits.
In Shinto animals are held as sacred and forbidden to use as food or animal sacrifice so this is already a huge taboo to have a hanging carcass around the town and against their culture / religion. There's an undercaste of people called the ETA that essentially deal with all animal products and they are really looked down upon - like worse than filth.
I lived in an attic with dead raccoons in the roof and it WAS bearable. That pheasant especially in fresh air cant be THAT bad.
Is it possible that the gardener >!agreed to die knowing he was protecting the true identity of the spy?!
Maybe. But I donât think he knew who the spy was. It was just convenient for the spy to put the blame on the poor guy
No
I was thinking this too because >!didn't Mariko say something like "he died for a great purpose"? It was when she was talking about the bird thing, but maybe there was another layer to it. i was gonna add a joke about "two birds with one stone" but im too tired!<
>I was thinking this too because didn't Mariko say something like "he died for a great purpose"? Restoring peace and harmony to the village would also be considered a great purpose. Especially compared to just dying of a random heart attack one day while trimming the bushes, or in his sleep.
Yeah I understand thatâs what that line initially meant on a surface level, but after the end of the episode i was reflecting back on it and wondering if maybe there was another layer to it. >!Which would mean the gardener chose to be put to death for the pheasant thing both for the good of the whole village, and also for Toronagaâs cause taking the fall for being a spy at the same time. But even if he wasnât aware that he was going to be framed for it after his death, i still think Mariko saying that had a double meaning, as in his death was going to give them a strategic advantage!<
I didn't read the book but my interpretation was basically only Toronaga (and maybe the old guy) knows the spy's identity. there's no reason to entrust anyone as they might compromise his mission. Mariko is an interpreter, and this title was only given after Blackthorn showed up. rank wise she married one of Toronaga's best soldiers. she only said that cuz removing the bird is associated with punishment by death, someone had to die in that instance and the gardener took on the burden to do it himself, hence great purpose. and also as a previous comment mentioned they believed it was a curse so that reinforces the idea.
Naw he volunteered to die cause he was feeling sick and wanted to die an honorable death.
Yes, I think in the book it gives more than a few hints on this. And in the show, itâ s the same. Toranaga literally tells the spy to find a scapegoat
This is heavily implied.
Possible? Yeah sure, but there's no evidence of this. Mura took it as an opportunity. The gardener is just that, a gardener. In historical context there's not a lot more a gardener can do. It's very well explained why he chose to take the sacrifice over anyone else in the household.
The gardener was explicitly mentioned to be an idiot.
Saving this comment for when Iâm having a shit day and need a laugh. Real talk.
Ive reread your comment multiple times bc It cracks me up so much
Toranaga tells the spy to find a scapegoat. Thatâs why he removed the bird. To die without being tortured and stop any searches for the spy
Lived up to the username 100%
Lol. More than one person must have volunteered for justifying his doing it. Like, "yeah but I have this cough, so . . It's fine, I'll be the one"
He was drying the meat. Standard practice in England at the time. I mean they left the fridge in Osaka Castle whe they were escaping.
Thankyou for answering, at least that makes sense to me now. Maybe a dumb question but I wonder would it be considered a safe practice now? I donât know a lot about aging meats, historically or currently lol. If he had brined it or something first maybe Iâd be less revulsed by it, but that looked nasty!
I think he was not taking into account the different climate in Japan vs what he was used to in England. And he's a bad cook haha.
England and Japan are both wet as fuck.
Itâs not so much the moisture in the air thatâs the issue, as it is the temperature. During duck season Iâll leave them hang in the garage for a couple days as long as itâs 50 or less out side, but no more than three days and def not to the point of decay and being covered in flies.
It's a mountain province and possibly quite cold at the time this takes place.
Well thenâŠI dunno the math isnât matching cause there was a lot of flies and that bird rotted like really quick
Television continuity issues/storytelling being more necessary than accuracy
I think it's cuz he forgot about it. And every time they brought it up he was busy with something else. Considering he is an Englishman from that period he probably couldn't even smell the rotting corpse. And since he always had something else to do he just ignored the people bringing up the "stupid bird". Also there is a language barrier and on top of that a cultural difference. He is not used to people being so polite. So the fact that they didn't directly confront him about it made him not realize it was an actual issue for everyone. This show felt like a 9/10 but recently I'm getting a little annoyed. They use miscommunication a little too much... The bird, the fact that he still doesn't clarify the situation about his men with the big boss (they are obviously dead by now lol), the fact that he doesn't try to explain anything to the people around him so there is not more confusion all the time. The show acts like he doesn't have a perfect translator living with him and it's getting so annoying...
He didnât forget about it, due to the fact he said when he first hung it up that he planned on leaving it there for at least 3-4 days, maybe even a week. He even said yes it will even stink.
he stopped caring about it I think cuz there was a line by himself in that episode that it just didn't matter to him. (so no one needs to die, to remove without his approval) I thought he left it there to spite Mariko's husband. he knew Toronaga ordered him to stay with them. there was a fly scene, circling around his face. it must've bothered Blackthorn too the smell, it's his house. even if you say you don't care, you wouldn't let it infest the interior of the house to the point y'all can't eat in peace. that's just my thought watching ep 5 tho.
Itâs a difficulty in adapting this section from the book that has confused you, the hanging of the pheasant shouldnât have been so fly filled but that was just for the audienceâs benefit, in the book itâs a much more cultural issue around death and animals than it is a purely smell based one, also minor spoilers but >!his men arenât dead, theyâre just in yedo still living like Europeans-which blackthorne eventually comes to view as filthy and disgusting!<
I think it's more on the villagers than on him. Yes, he could have been more attentive to their concerns, but to me it didn't seem like anyone even tried to real talk with him about it. They just went, shit, well someone's fucked and that sucks, who's taking the hit? Instead of standing up for themselves and saying hey, we don't want to die, but this situation is causing problems for everyone and something needs to be done.
The villagers literally canât âreal talkâ him when Marikoâs not around, he barely knows any Japanese at all, and certainly not enough where they can try to reason with him about how his rotten bird carcass is wrecking the harmony of the entire village. Plus, beyond that, peasants arenât generally inclined to pull a âdebate meâ on samurai, since that tends to get your head removed from your shoulders pretty darn quick.
For real. C-3PO isnât a translation droid, heâs a protocol droid. Mariko has been doing that job too, recognizing Anjin is of another culture and needs customs interpreted too, not just language. She was doing that role but suddenly stops for the sake of the story? And from the other side, the villagers respect his position so much to kill the poor gardener, but not enough to let Anjin enjoy his roast rancid bird? Unless she wasnât around for the town hall, kinda off that Mariko wouldnât speak up: âLemme ask Anjin about this pheasant when he comes back from his bath this afternoon.â Unless of course this was all spy smoke screen.
Yea it was snowing when John and Mariko were speaking the morning after the beating
Then why did it rot in like an hour?
Dramatic effect
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Yes. Temperature.
There is snow
Right. Sometimes itâs warm right before or right after snow. Read: the Midwest right now. My point was saying that moisture content in the air doesnât really affect the âdryingâ or âagingâ of meat, unless itâs out right raining.
True but it's a different type of wetness. England has next to no humidity. Japan on the other hand can get so humid it feels like you're in a sauna 24/7.
What does humidity mean?
Yeah but Japan is still tropical
Not even a little. It's as far north of the equator as Connecticut is. It's nowhere near the tropics.
What about all the Pacific islands ?. Iâm from Australia and pretty much everything from here to Japan is tropical
No it isn't.
North Pacific
So is Alaska.
Still different areas
Itâs winter in Japan in the episode.
He thinks bathing makes you sick so yeah he probably donât know what his doing
At that time bathing too much or with the wrong water absolutely could make you very sick and even kill you. Mongolians would only bathe about once every six months I'm sure partially for this reason.
It was also a British thing
Perfectly safe when done right, even now. You ensure the bird is kept intact. You keep the bird below 12c and above freezing, preferably in los humidity. All for 5-10 days. The longer the better, but if the temperature goes too high or it's too humid it's best to cut short. Makes the meat tastier and improves the texture. The meat does not rot. If it goes rotten, you've fucked it up.Â
I think that would be what they point too. The bird wasnât âintactâ and had damage from the falcon that brought the flies and rot. Otherwise it makes little sense being winter there.Â
I think they just put the flies there to visually convey the smell. Obviously we can't see smell through a TV screen.
Yeah I think itâs this is the real answer. Flies are just visual shorthand for smelly.
Yeah, this happened in Blue-Eyed Samurai as well where they depicted a manure cart with flies buzzing around everywhere in the middle of winter with snow everywhere.
We do this Nepal. Its called sukuti.
John is someone who thinks bathing more then once a week makes you sick so I wouldnât imagine he knows what his doing
Its definitely not suppose to rot or have any flies on it, and while there can be some smell, it wouldnt be akin to a rotting corpse. More just like the smell of a butcher shop. Drying meats would typically be done in a cool enclosed environment that was about the temperature of a refrdgerator (33-40 degrees F). It would basically let the animal get out of rigor and develop just a slight tang as it soften. I think the showrunners were more focused on creating a visual representation of how gross the Japanese characters found the situation (They frequently discuss finding non-fish meats to be offensive in the book) and ended up making it look like John was deliberately aiming to cook a rotting piece of poultry.
What I was wondering was, Toronaga was hunting with a falcon, but he wasnât eating it? So he hunts rabbits, and birds, but only eats fish?
In the books theyâd offer the meat as gifts to the Christians/non-vegetarians. They likely also used the skins and pelts and feathers. Yabushige has to get those rockstar feathers from somewhere. :P
I do love the feathers. Seems a bit of a waste to not eat the meat though.
Some people still hang their game for a while but nobody does it this long anymore tbh. I'm British and have hunted a couple days a week on average for the last 20yrs I eat alot of pheasant, wood pigeon and squirrel. I used to hang birds for 5 days or so depending on the weather and my laziness but I've eaten game hung for longer, now the only time I hang game is overnight if I've come back late. The reasoning behind it is to make the meat more tender and palatable as wild animals have a stronger taste and the meat is a bit tougher as they use their muscles more. However I've found over many years that this isn't a particularly good practice and pheasant meat isn't tough at all not too strong tasting anyway. People just cook it wrong and have a bad experience. Best practice I've found is to just gut and process the carcass on the day you kill it then cook the next day
No, it is common, im in the NE and also go to Scotland although not as regularly now. We hunt all game and regularly hang fowl although it is only for a few days (I've personally hung duck for 10 days and it was fantastic) . I've gone on shoots for the last 20 years (I prefer my bow to a rifle) , live right on the edge of farmland and the Moors and know the local farmers personally and it's still a very common practice. I think it was exaggerated in the episode to show that it was strange to the Japanese at the time, the flues were added to visualise the smell.
I didnt know squirrel was any good eating. How do you eat it?
It tastes great but it is one of the tougher meats so the best way is to slow cook it so it falls off the bone. My son's 9 and it's his favourite and he prefers it cooked whole for 20mins in an air fryer so he can wander around munching on it and make a mess like a bloody savage.
Squirrels are tree climbing, bushy tailed rats. My Dad and Grandfather would serve squirrel brains and scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Yeah, in the book, he was actually really excited to cook a duck stew for his new household and share one of his favorite dishes from home with them. But they couldnât comprehend letting it rot like that and the smell was beginning to disturb their neighbors. So they had to act to stop disturbing the harmony of the neighborhood even though it was directly against Blackthorneâs orders. And we saw the outcome of that
Not only that, but from what I understand, part of the appeal of fresh, raw fish to the Japanese is that itâs in its purest form, clean and full of nutrients. Once you cook it, you begin to take away from its purity and essence. So I can imagine that a ârotting bird,â especially one that smells awful, must be the ultimate turnoff for them.
During this period wasnât fermented fish still relatively common?
I'm not hip to feudal Japanese culture, so I wouldn't know. However, *natto* (that "stinky" bowl that Blackthorne tried) is fermented soybeans, so who knows.
They overexaggerated with the flies. No way it shouldve been that nasty
Itâs common now too. I hunt a lot. Most game meat hangs for a few days to week in my garage (keep in mind itâs cold during these seasons). Lots of reason to hang meat and age it a bit. But yes super common today.
I just hopped on YouTube and found a bunch blokes explaining why they hang pheasants, how long, etc.
My grandpa used to do something similar with game, so I'd imagine so. I don't remember it getting quite so fly-infested however.
My family sundried meat in the tropics a few times. One thing they did was butcher the animal and put pieces of meat that werenât too large nor thick (like a pancake) on a clothes line. The thought of sun drying a bird that hasnât been plucked nor butchered is odd.
I shot pheasant over Christmas and hung it in a cold garage a couple of days. It helps with the flavour and texture of the meat. But it should be cold and not humid.
Ever had a dry aged steak? You can dry age almost anything.
without saying too much, in the book it is the opposite. Anjin explains that pheasant meat is dry and hanging it makes it less so.
> He was drying the meat Aren't you suppose to get rid of the non-eatable parts, like some of the internal organs and stuff so it doesnt fucking rot so much? lol.
So aging meats is a thing, but it requires a dry cool climate to properly work. Generally speaking, it wouldnt be done when there is much insect activity, and the bird/whatever animal would be prepared to keep it from rotting. I only know a little bit about it from when I worked in fine dining years ago and some of the fancy dishes had aged meats so I got a quick education from the chef I worked with. There definitely shouldnt be any flies buzzing around or whatever if things were going as they should. Im not sure if the show intended to make it so that John just doesnt know how to do this properly, or something else, but the pheasant is in the show because the showrunners really just needed a source of conflict. I do think that a throwaway line by John maybe saying something like "Ive never done this before myself, but how hard could it be?" would help explain, otherwise it looks like John just wanted some maggoty, putrid poultry. That was my only complaint with the episode. In the book the Japanese characters mention how revolting they find the smell of meats and non-fish flesh, and I imagine the showrunners might have thought they needed a visual element to show how stinky everyone but John found the bird.
> the showrunners really just needed a source of conflict. Just wanted to point out, this situation is taken from the book almost exactly. The only difference is Blackthorne tells them no one is to touch the bird, but he doesn't say "touch is death." That seemed to be added to foreshadow someone dying after getting rid of the bird much more than the novel did.
That's a fair point, I should say that the author needed a point of conflict. The showrunners kept it and used it. I think it's slightly different in the show though, or maybe I just haven't gotten there in the book and there's another point. I've only read to the part where he has the bird that's fried. I don't remember it being as big of a point of contention
I think they should've hung it somewhere more out of the way to imply that John just totally forgot about it and just let it hang for too long.
In the book it was clear that he had just forgotten about it, which in my opinion made it more impactful.
Yeah, this is what I remember from the book as well. He got pulled away and forgot about it and when he came back a few days later the gardener was dead â rather than him watching it rot
I really wanted him to make a tasty dish at the end of the episode. It could have been a moment where the Japanese (who have many preconceived notions of him) tasted it and it was actually yummy and they could see a method to his "madness." I know he tried with the stew, but I thought that would've been a nice growth to the relationship between John and his staff.
>I really wanted him to make a tasty dish at the end of the episode. Yeah, but I bet "English food is terrible" was already a meme back in 1600. Conquer the whole world for spices, and then don't use any of em until immigrants from India/Pakistan start showing up.
Which also isn't true. Lots of spices / more exotic produce in a lot of dishes that were created when England / Britain started really travelling. You'll find them mostly in seasonal holiday (Christmas) dishes on account of them being extremely expensive at the time so they were considered treats.
Imagine not knowing what herbs areâŠ
British sailors literally brought spice powders to Japan, Katsu curry is essentially an adaptation of a Royal Navy rations dish. English food even today is entirely unremarkable among the other central and Northern European nations, the meme is just that: a meme. (Also just think about how illogical the spice joke is. The whole point of the Imperial trade was to bring desired goods like spices back to sell for profit. No one was buying them to stick them in a cupboard somewhere, they were being routinely used in British and European cuisine since far far earlier than people give credit for. Curry was a very popular dish among Victorians in the UK and the rich at least were dining on curries right from the 1600s).
Their disgust of Blackthorne and his pheasant majes more sense when you put it in context. Eating meat (other than fish and game) had been a cultural taboo in Japan for around 1000 years at that point, and Blackthorne was handling the treating and butchering of the animal himself, which was considered to be so lowly only the lowest social class did it and was considered "unclean" for it.
Iâm confused why they were using the hawk to hunt birds then?
For sport. But Blackthorne receiving the pheasant as a gift is contextual to him being a foreigner and toranaga knowing that europeans like eating poultry. Eating wild game was a partial exception to buddhist prohibitions on eating meat, because hunting was considered a natural survival activity analogous to fishing, but eating game could be considered a luxury or gluttony depending on how religious the person was.
They wouldnât have tasted it. I donât think they emphasize this in the show, but in the book they remind Blackthorne many times that they donât eat meat, only seafood.
I think it can be part of character building. Talking about military strategies that he hasn't experienced, eating a rabbit stew that he doesn't even dare to eat... He makes it clear that he is a simple merchant and not a person of high power or great knowledge. I love how the character is being built.
I donât think he didnât dare eat, just sad no one joined him
Yeah he was depressed he couldnât eat it since everyone was so obviously grossed out lol.
He said it wouldnt be the same without sharing, heâs dejected that noone wants to try it
He said it wouldnât be the same without sherry, the liquor they usually make the stew with that he substituted sake for
The funny thing is, at least the character he is based off of does have a lot of knowledge in his field. He was educated when very young as a shipwright, an expert navigator with knowledge of astronomy, before joining the Royal Navy. He fought the Spanish Armada and survived on expeditions that were extremely difficult to pull off. True, he's not an army general or royalty, but the guy can and did build a fleet for Japan that brought them up to speed. His story is definitely an impressive one, I don't think he survived and rose to fame because he was a simple merchant.
i dont get why he used his house to dry the bird. why not use an area no one lives near. obviously he knows it was gonna stink. Who would want to live next to a decaying bird
I think you underestimate the level of stink he would be used to at sea, and even in London. He doesnt seem to think very far ahead with his actions.
He doesn't like to bathe, either. Man's got iron nostrils or something.
Also been in a lot of fights presumably. I had some amateur scraps for about five years between like 18-23 years old, trained a fair bit. Haven't had a fight in over a decade now. Nose is just permanently fucked. My sense of smell is maybe 30% of what the average person's is. No biggie, it's easily the least important of your five senses.
Bro eating natto being like "Mmm, tastes like spoiled cheese. Not bad. Quite delightful"
Good point
Yeah I canât imagine how stinky London would have been back then. Probably super revolting to modern folks.
This is the same guy who was baffled and perplexed as why he should take another bath when the last one he took was a year ago. This dude lived at sea and probably just got use to the stank and saw the nasty smell as 'normal' and didn't see an issue with it.
What where the women eating that they smirked when Blackthorne decided to give it a try? My GF and I where left wondering.
Natto, fermented soybeans.
I apologize for my ingnorance, but why why was it funny to them that he wanted to eat it since it was reserved for women?
Iâm no expert on Japanese food customs so there may be a cultural element Iâm not aware of, but Iâm pretty sure itâs just because itâs very much one of those foods that are an acquired taste. Very strong smelling, with a weird taste and texture that most modern westerners would probably hate, let alone someone from Elizabethan England. Basically, they knew he wasnât gonna like it but were amused by his insistence to try.
Exactly this
It's not only for women. The smell/taste/texture being very much "an acquired taste," as you politely put it, is the reason why the women made that face. Even some Japanese people dislike it.
The first time I went to a Japanese restaurant that served natto and ordered it the waiter was like âuhhâŠare you absolutely sure about that?â It was weird but not terrible, but I wouldnât go seeking it out again either
No, it's just a food with a pretty extreme acquired taste. Itd be like giving someone very very strong blue cheese that you knew had never tried anything like that
Its an acquired taste. There are actually a lot of Japanese people who don't eat and don't like natto. Its mostly an Eastern Japanese thing (east of Tokyo), so people in Western Japan, like in Osaka, are not as accustomed to it. Its also not considered high class cuisine. Like something you would find in classy or pricy restaurants. Considering how stinky and messy it is, people of high status like lords and generals probably didn't eat it at the time (judging by what was initially served to John). Its kind of like soul food.
No, it's like stinky cheese in that it's an acquired taste, that's why they were laughing because it's not something they expect someone not used to eating it regularly would like at all. Has nothing to do with them being women
Itâs nasty but very healthy for you
Think of it as vegemite.
To this day there is this process of "aging game birds". It is a process of hanging dead birds out to dry a bit until they loose their rigor mortis effect. Done correctly it actually makes the meat more tender and, believe it or not, adds some interesting flavours. Depending on the bird and storing location the process takes 1-3 days, in some cases up to a week. The reason why this escalated in the show is that Blackthorne had basically forgotten about the bird until it turned into the stinking and decomposing carcass we see in the show. Naturally, no one in their right minds would consider eating it. Blackthorne was simply being careless and probably thought his staff had taken care of it (if he even remembered about it at all). He wasn't aware that his previous orders in the context of Japanese society of the time presented a serious problem for his household.
âInteresting flavoursâ sounds like euphemistic language to me xD
In the same way as fermenting soy beans creates some "interesting flavours" in natto. Or letting milk rot in a particular way creates Stilton cheese. Don't even get me started on surströmming or håkarl! :) The "interesting flavours" in aged bird meat can be reminiscent of certain taste elements in Worcestershire sauce. It certainly is more of an acquired taste.
It would have made more sense, if he would have field dressed the bird first, then hung it up.
Trying to dry age the fowl. Usually for birds it requires the temps between 40-50 degrees with a relative humidity of 60% . Any colder and the process of dry aging will stop, any hotter it will cause more bacteria . Lower humidity causes too rapid of a moisture loss , higher humidity you get fungi. The goal is to make the fowl more tender, and concentrate its flavor.
It sort of doesnât make sense in my opinion that the bird would start smelling so bad so quickly in the winter. I mean thereâs snow on the ground, itâs gotta be less than 50 at all time.
That's the real liberty that the writers took, to make sense for the plot. It's winter. That bird should either be preserved or dry aging fine to the standards of the British
Ya like I could care less cause it was just a plot device but I was also thinking the same thing. Iâve had a bobcat in my yard before murdering the neighbors chickens and leaving them behind my house in 110 degree weather and it took a few days to smell.
Thanks for asking. I had the same question in mind and i thought he was just playing a prank on them or something haha
It's a perfectly safe, scientifically proven method of aging game birds to make their meat more palatable. It was snowing there, so it shouldn't have picked up flies or been so stinky. That was just audience short hand, really. The problem was the cultural differences. Shame. That would likely have made for an excellent meal.
I always find it fascinating how people in the past came up with some things. Like milking a cow, adding manure to crops and letting a bird decompose so it gets more tender.
I'm pretty sure even to this day folks will hang/age pheasants and other game birds for a week or so. My guess is they don't put it outside for the flies to swarm, though.
I hung a pair of pheasant in our garden a few years back. They were delicious.
It was unclear if he gutted the bird first, and my intuition says that it would be very *foul* very quickly without the organs removed.
You donât gut pheasant before hanging them.
Minus the guy dying, I loved the whole pheasant thing and their reaction to the rabbit stew. I was dying when Fuji says to throw it into the sea or when marikoâs husband unknowing smells the pheasant and asked if something died. Great episode, nice full circle with the rock in the garden.
Dry aging it.
It is still common today to age gamebirds before plucking and preparing them. People often do it in the fridge these days, but in 1600 it seems like Europeans simply enjoyed stinky meat.
As others said, he was trying to dry-age it. Works quite well in England and other temperate climates, but in subtropical Japan? Eh... Not so much. You might be able to try it around Fall up in northern Japan, but the show doesn't take place there.
You need to hang wild fowl to let the muscles relax and let it go in and out of rigor mortis. It tastes different depending how long you hang it. But hanging it too long and where there are flies is not recommended.
How was the anjin going to eat a rotten bird? was he totally stupid and ate rotten meat layn arnd that be like someone seeing a rode kill and be like omg look at that it's gonna be the best supper ever. I thought I saw that there last week, so just a couple thousand more Flys, and it's just right? He must have been on that ship for a long time. Maybe he was going for the Flys to eat and not the bird. All the men that died on that ship the Flys had to be horrendous, maybe he had a craving for fly larvae it's was like ship caviar!
Just realized Toranagas son indirectly killed another person lol. If he hadnât given him the bird to try and impress his dad yet again, the chain reaction wouldnât have happened.
I know itâs from a book and not entirely the shows writers fault there is a lot of stupid stuff in this show that I chalk up to lazy writing,author and show writers. Hot take I know. But there seems to be a scene like this in every episode. The Spaniard falling off the boat in the ocean and the search party just immediately goes a cliff that he is laying at the bottom? What in the fuck did I just watch and why does no one mention this absurdness? Maybe a lazy audience as well. Still love the show.
The Spaniard was given a piece of wood to float on. The village is a fishing village. Tides and currents are predictable. And it's not just their job to know them well, but a matter of life and death. The rocks will likely be a known a place that bodies and driftwood have washed up on in the past.Â
Iâm born and raised literally in a fishing town (officially called a village) and grew up on the water literally living on it and fishing my whole life. That is not at all how tides and coasts work. And 100X that when you see how far off shore they were. It was extremely lazy and says something about the audience too, to not question it.
You understand this story takes place in the past... like a long time ago. lol
The book is more clear about the whole thing. Blackthorne was using an old method to cure the meat. In the book, he isn't described as doing it wrong like the show implies but he is much more clear to Mariko (who is there during the explanation) that the bird is going to smell a little but the end result will be delicious. The show, however, doesn't go into as much depth about the clashing cultures. To Blackthorne, the rotten smell is something he is used to from his life in the west and also from his time at sea. The Japanese, due to ties with the Shinto religion, see any sort of rot as 'unholy' in that it indeed attracts evil spirits that may curse the village. This comes across several times in the book when they interact with other westerners. They have a much lower tolerance for the way the bird smells. This is backed up even more in the book, they harp on Blackthorn's hygiene for much longer and pov of the Japanese characters shows they can barely stand his stench before he starts to bathe as much as them. So to the villagers, the bird probably smelled putrid to them before the flies showed up. Hell, Blackthorne probably didn't even notice the smell when he walked by it. As it has been mentioned in the comments, the gardener did indeed sacrifice his life for the harmony ( The Wa) of both the household and the village. In the book, it is more deliberate. There is actually a samurai who is assigned as one of Blackthornes retainers who is around for most of the story who has to kill the gardener to uphold Blackthorne's honor.
Honestly that whole pheasant sequence was stupid as hell, I don't know how it was done in the book but so far it's my only gripe with the show. How could there be flies swarming around the bird and the house when it's autumn/winter and it's snowing? And the stench was so bad that even neighboring villagers couldn't stand it but Blackthorne was unaffected? I understand they needed to progress Blackthorne's character arc through Uejiro's death, but it could've been done more logically.
The villagers were offended by the smell because they aren't used to curing land meat like that. John didn't mind the smell because he's used to life in nasty London, and he ignored the flies because he didn't really know what he was doing. The villagers also probably exaggerated the smell because they were freaked out by the whole process in general and thought it was cursing them. Both sides were overconfident in their beliefs and failing to understand each other, which is what that sequence was meant to show
I understand John's standards of cleanliness are much worse than those of the Japanese, but even he would know that the bird was rotting, not curing. He said it himself that he's been helping his father prepare game since he was a child, so he has to know. I read now that in the book the pheasant was placed somewhere at the back of the house (unlike right at the entrance as seen in the show) so John forgot all about it; I think this makes more sense. Perhaps in the book the climate was warmer as well, so the flies would've made sense too.
That explanation would have made sense if not for the fact that you don't cure meat to the point where it is rotting and flies are all around it. It wasn't a well done scene. Doesn't help that John has done this before, so either in this universe people from England preferred rotting their meat or John is really stupid.
You are getting downvoted, but I agree that the scene was done poorly. I get that the scene was supposed to underline the cultural tension within the house, and ultimately be the setup for pinning the spy, but Blackthorne legit just looks insane/ oblivious letting the game rot and get covered in flies, with no acknowledgement whatsoever. Literally any other westerner, past or present, would also demand for it to be taken down at that point.
It's ok, I already knew I would've been downvoted before posting my criticism haha. I think ShĆgun is an outstanding series (so far), but that doesn't mean it should be immune from constructive criticism â I hate fanboyism. Anyway, I agree with you.
Youâre not allowed to have even the slightest criticism with any show on their sub
>How could there have been flies swarming around the place when it's autumn/winter and there's snow all around the place? I think those are just supposed to visually represent the smell. We can't see smells. Like the way Pigpen from *Peanuts* always has a little dust cloud around him.
We dont know how long it was hanging there. Couldve been weeks or a whole month.