(TN: Sticky threads. An obvious pun on "akai ito.")
Uzuki: Right... Kei-san. It's said that the first to make and eat thread-based nattou was
Minamoto no Yoshiie, you see...
So she comes to speak as we return to our rooms.
Kei: Umm......
That is... who? And from where?
Kei: You mean like the one who established the Kamakura Bakufu,
Yoritomo, or like
Ushiwakamaru no Yoshitsune... from the Genji family, right?
Uzuki: That's right. He would be the siblings' grandfather.
Uzuki: Yoshiie stands alongside people like
Saka no Ue no Tamuramaro and
Fujiwara no Hidesato as a symbol of pride among warriors.
Hachiman Tarou is still being praised as a formidable warrior today.
Kei: Hmmm...
If I remember correctly, Saka no Ue no Tamuramaro was the first appointee for subjugating the Emishi as the Seii Daishougun (expeditionary shogun), and Fujiwara no Hidesato was......
............
I'm told to line them up, though I don't know the people he's lined up with. I guess if this was a test, I'd get a 50%, but let's leave it at that.
After all, there are so many people in the Fujiwara family that it would be pointless to remember who's who.
Thus, refraining from breaking the conversation at the hips with a question like "What led us from Yoshiie to Hachiman Tarou?" I safely skip the topic forward.
Kei: Right, and then?
Uzuki: Actually Yoshiie, as an oni hunter, led a force to northeast Honshuu to end the oppression of the people there.
Uzuki: At that time, the nimame from their provisions - rather, the feed for the horses - was being transported in straw containers, you see... (TN: Nimame = boiled beans)
Kei: Ah, I get it. Nattou is always wrapped in straw, right?
I usually eat the cheap stuff in the white Styrol containers but, setting that aside...
It's because the nattou germ in straw is said to transform any nimame into nattou.
Uzuki: Since it's so hard to secure provisions in mid-expedition, Yoshiie, on the brink of starvation, wound up eating nattou.
Uzuki: Apparently, in the former battlefield of
Kanazawa, there's a monument for the "birthplace of nattou."
Kei: I see, I see......
With a "ping!" I get a flash of inspiration.
Kei: When you're hungry, you're fighting at the end of your rope. Stickin' it to 'em isn't enough. You gotta pull it together!
Kei: Oh, so you're pulling on strings, are you? Of course you'd be eating nattou!(TN: She just stuck it to Uzuki with three correlated puns. "Himojisa" is "hunger," but "himo" also means "rope." "Mamemameshii" means "dilligent/prudent," but "mame" also means "beans." "Nebaridzuyoku" means "with perseverence," and the kanji "neba" means "sticky." Of course, this ties in with the sticky threads you make while eating nattou. It really is a GOOD pun, and I was at the end of my rope trying to translate it, but it's not really a joke made for gaijin like ourselves, is it?)
Uzuki: ............
Kei: ......Ahaha...... no good?
This must be where Youko-chan would say "oldie gag?" but I rather liked it.
Uzuki: Kei-san, that joke just now...
Kei: Actually, I kind of like jokes and things... If there was a comedy club in our school, I might have joined it.
Uzuki: I see. For an impromptu joke, it was very well done.
Kei: Ehehe, thank you.
Uzuki: Anyway, there are many differing opinions about provision origin stories, so you should think of it on the same level as Yoshitsune,
Katou Kiyomasa,
Date Masamune, and
Shoutoku Taishi - much the same as you would
mayu tsuba. (TN: Basically folk tales.)
Kei: Hmm...
So, even if it's a conversation about nattou, you can only draw it out so far.
Continue...