#weird task yes i know
I HATE COOKING SOMUCH.
This recipe, although not a horrendous failure like my last tempura experiment,took me over three hours. But I feel Inosuke has been waiting patiently, and I had been gifted some fresh udon to use, so it was finally time to attempt Best Boar’s favorite dish.
As learning the recipe from just about anywhere but me will probably give you better results on Shrimp Tempura (aka Ebi Tempura, Ebi-Ten), I instead present my experience on this experiment, as well as some scattered thoughts and headcanons about Inosuke that I haven’t developed in posts of their own.
Let me start by saying that prep was a huge pain and I remember why I so rarely cook shrimp. At least in Japan, if you’re buying them raw, you typically have to remove the shells and veins yourself. This process, which I generally followed by this recipe (with photos but in Japanese), took me forever.
However, doing my other prep in advance (besides the udon, which would come last, and this also took forever because I have only one gas stove top) made the more stressful parts and parts when my patience ran thin go a lot smoother.
Speaking of prep, I have so many Kimetsu or Kimetsu-esque items that I like to pick those out to wear in accordance with whatever kitchen experiment I’m suffering through. Keeps me motivated, you know? And for this, I wanted to give myself an extra dose of patience for the hard work and good luck in having successful results by bringing in a touch of Aoi. To be a little more neat while cooking, I meant to use my blue butterfly hair accessories from this Closet Play to put my hair up in buns instead of twin tails, but… but I could only find one!! Nooo! The cute look I had in mind would had gone with my blue apron so nicely too, nooooo! I had to use my pink & green butterfly hair accessory on the other side…
It only occurred to me when I was washing dishes hours later that I should had just gone with Hisa’s look. Doing old person stage makeup is tons of fun, after all! And the Gibson-style hair looks fun too! Plus, I like how Hisa-san talks, I wish I had someone to light sparks on my back and wish me “go bu-un wo” whenever I go off to work. I wish I had an old Baaba to make food like tempura for me in the first place.
Speaking of Aoi though…
One thing that I always come back to in thinking about InoAoi is how you can never totally view in a vacuum from TanKana. While I didn’t plan it this way, I’ve made a couple InoAoi fanarts that use TanKana as the premise, with whatever developments are taking place between Tanjiro and Kanao being an impetus for developments between Inosuke and Aoi.
If you think about it in terms of the timeline, both Tanjiro and Kanao mean a lot to both Inosuke and Aoi before they come to mean something special to each other (if we interpret the start of their affection for each other coming at Chapter 204 and later). Aoi of course has had a long and complex relationship with Kanao and will continue to be very close with her as they co-inherit the Butterfly Mansion, and Tanjiro had a very significant emotional impact on her with his offer to take her feelings to the battlefield (plus, Tanjiro was a likeable person long before Inosuke was, at least in terms but being someone Aoi might find endearing instead of annoying or just another active Corp member to see on their way). In Inosuke’s case, Tanjiro is someone whom he is highly attached to, and he had a deep bonding experience with Kanao unlike any experience he ever had, or ever will have with Aoi.
As neither Inosuke nor Aoi have shown much inclination toward romantic relationships, I have to imagine that when they both are starting to pine for each other but don’t know what to do about it, they always find themselves looking to Tanjiro and Kanao for some clue.
Ultimately, that probably won’t get them far, though. I like to think they’ll find their own clumsy way of getting to the point where they truly delight in each other’s company and find each other more special than everyone they already care so deeply about.
Where was I?
Oh yeah.
Cooking.
Bleh, cooking.
Some of the things I prepped in advance were fixings to go with my udon–ginger as a nod to Shinobu, and daikon as a nod to Half-and-Half Haori. That was where the pleasure of cooking stopped as I tore legs and shells off the shrimps and fished their ugly back veins out with toothpicks (Kanao would be so much faster than me at this step, I bet). I also tried to prep the tails as per the instructions, but I don’t even eat the tails. I should had just chopped them off!! Another step to prep them for tempura and make them longer and straighter is to cut several lines across their bellies. Although they looked nice and flat at the time, mind gradually started to curl back up anyway, so my advice is, I don’t know, mutilate them. Don’t cook with shrimp in the first place. I don’t know.
I decided not to take a photo of my cutting board after this step of the prep because it was gross and ugly. But, here are the shrimp before getting covered with salt to sit for about ten minutes:
And after they got a nice wash and dry (this much, I can do):
Still… so… unappetizing…
Speaking of, I have to wonder about Inosuke’s fixation on tempura. Also in the light novels, we see that he took a liking to tempura while staying at Hisa-san’s place, and when he couldn’t remember what it was called, she could figure it out very easily by his simple description of the stuff in a coat. Inosuke, used to eating food however he can get his hands on it, has a wide enough familiarity with food names that he probably had enough scattered interactions with humans to pick up more of that language than just when he was a toddler hearing poems from an old man and rough language from the old man’s grandson (I’ll get to them later in this post).
But, being used to food on the simple side, Inosuke probably had never eaten food that tasted anything like Hisa-san’s cooking; he probably had no idea food could taste as good as tempura.
So anyway. I fried the shrimps.
Some takeaways:
- Yes, you should coat the shrimp in all-purpose flour before dipping them in tempura batter. Otherwise the batter won’t stick.
- Something stressed in every tempura recipe is that you need to use cold water for the batter. Thankfully my water got nice and cold with how long it took me to do all the shrimp prep.
- Maintaining oil temperature remains difficult with my kitchen set-up and general fear of frying things.
- Ebi-tempura and Ebi-fry are two different dishes. Tempura is difficult for being prone to gluttonous clumps. Although I haven’t made it or looked up recipes, I imagine making Ebi-fry would be closing to making katsu with breadcrumbs and stuff. I’m too tried of cooking for today to look it up and see if that’s right.
- Keeping my workspace clean and organization helps a lot.
So about the old grandpa and his grandson, Takaharu…
I’d like to think Inosuke spent the most time with them when he was a toddler, but the visits became less and less frequent as Inosuke got better and better at fending for himself (but that spot was always a reliable place to go for a snack–and company, though he was never conscious that he was looking for this too).
One day, I can imagine Inosuke showing up to the house for the first time in a long while, and Takaharu freaks out at the sight of him, like, “Hashibira Inosuke!! Is that you? Who am I kidding, who else would it be? What are you now, seven? Nine?” and then when Inosuke asks where the Crunchy Mochi Old Man is, Takaharu solemnly tells him that his grandfather has died, and he invites Inosuke into the house for the first time, so that Inosuke can pay his respects at his grandfather’s altar. After all, whether he saw him like a pet or like a younger, cuter grandson, Inosuke was someone who brought joy to his grandfather in his later years. Inosuke takes this all in and follows, but really doesn’t know what to make of all this.
Takaharu knows Inosuke would have no idea so he shows him how to ring the bowl and fold his hands in prayer before the altar, which has offerings of very tasty looking food. Inosuke thinks, ’Old men turn to food when they die?’
Takaharu, with no idea Inosuke is thinking this, has him sit at the table to eat some of the offerings that were on the table, which Inosuke gobbles. Takaharu goes on to announce that he’s getting married, he’s going to move into his bride’s family home in the village, and there won’t be anybody at the house anymore. Inosuke can use for it whatever he wants, it won’t be a home anymore, Takaharu’s taking the ancestral tablets with him and he’s never coming back. Inosuke, used to hanging out in caves like he did with his mother boar, doesn’t really make the connection that he could live more like a human in this setting, and doesn’t really say anything one way or another to Takaharu the whole time, just stares and wonders about the weird stuff he’s saying. Takaharu eventually gets frustrated that Inosuke’s just staring at him like he’s crazy, he yells at Inosuke that he’s the crazy one and always has been, he’s probably just gonna trash the house anyway! And then he shoos Inosuke on his way like old times, though Inosuke has an armful of food.
It remains lodged in Inosuke’s understanding of the world that older generations care for younger generations, giving of their own bodies to support them, just like animals giving milk to their young. If they’re really powerful enough to live a really long time, they attain the ability to turn entirely into food, an achievement worthy of respect.
Hence, years later, Inosuke assuming Zenitsu’s going to eat his Jiichan.
On that note, I finally got to sit down and eat.
I don’t think I’ll be repeating this experiment.
But, after having felt for months that I should attempt it but feeling too afraid to, I’m glad I finally did.
I should make simmered salmon and daikon again instead.
