Iron Wok Jan 21
June 22, 2009
This book has one of the best shounen manga covers I’ve seen. I just love the comparison between the shark’s teeth and Jan’s own open-mouthed smile. Looking at it makes me feel happy for some reason.
Reading this volume made me feel even more happy, though, as I remembered why I love this series so much. Every time I start a volume, I forget and have my doubts because they’re going through some incredibly boring cooking terminology. But then Jan will jump into a tank of live sharks and judo kick one out, or someone will use an electric saw to gut a gigantic shark, or the story will flash back to a little kid being forced to stand and balance on the edge of a knife while cooking with a gigantic wok, and then I’ll remember why it is I love Iron Wok Jan so much.
This volume is all about cooking sharks, the next stage of the cooking competition. Oitani actually proposes this battle because he doesn’t think anyone can cook an edible dish with shark meat. Aside from the fact that shark meat smells like pee (apparently excess ammonia is not dispersed while the shark is alive and is held in the cells of the creature itself), there’s the fact that harpooning the creatures out of the tank seems to cause them to cannibalize each other and that no knife can easily penetrate shark hide and the meat is not of good quality in general. Aside from the fins and a few other select parts, sharks are apparently entirely disposed of because they are not fit for human consumption. But Jan et al are up to the challenge.
That alone is entertaining, but there are other amusing and extreme things, as there always are. Jan uses a knife grasped between his feet in order to cut a section of chain-link fence to use as a stove, Kiriko uses her super-sharp knife to strip the enamel scales of the shark hide, one of the other chefs crams his hand up the rectum of a freshly-plucked turky to gut it, then graphically squeezes out the contents of its intestines in order to use the organs for sausage casings, et cetera.
Much like any Shounen Champion manga, it goes above and beyond the call of duty to repulse/entertain.
June 24, 2009 at 7:36 am
[...] History of the West Wing (Manga Recon) Lissa Pattillo on vol. 1 of Imadoki! (Kuriousity) Connie on vol. 21 of Iron Wok Jan (Slightly Biased Manga) Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of KimiKiss (Prospero’s Manga) Johanna Draper [...]