A. 銀杏　B. 酒　C. 寿司　D. 照り焼き　E. 豆腐　F. 松茸　G. 山葵

Hopefully all this talk about food has made you hungry.  Hungry for answers, that is (answers are, sadly, all I have to provide).  I’m not sure where Dragon heard that “sushi” means “rice”–like many traditional Japanese words, there’s some argument about the exact etymology, though the theory I’ve heard most commonly is that it comes from an adjective meaning “it’s sour,” referring to the vinegar used to make it.  But this has nothing to do with why she was wrong when she said that B meant sushi.  As a matter of fact, she picked the closest thing to vinegar that appears on this list: sake, which is pretty important too, I suppose, depending on who you talk to.  The real sushi is hiding out at C, which is only one of several ways to write it, some of which are one character: 鮓 and 鮨.

Theoman–for whom my suggested responses were not crazy enough, apparently–leapt upon D, the only answer to contain non-kanji characters.  KYPC has clearly taught him to seek out whatever hints he thinks he can find, and, for once, these hints did not lead him astray.  D is indeed teriyaki.  I was also glad to see that everyone agrees with me that tofu and mushrooms are gross, because none of you went for E or F, which represent the bean-curd and the fungus, respectively.

Shirley, it seems, had classic comedy on the brain.  Not only did she want to make sure that everyone remembered Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine, she was also clearly thinking about the movie Some Like it Hot, because instead of ginkgo she accidentally grabbed some wasabi.  In this case the stuff at the top of the second character might not represent the faulty memory burdening the small person but rather the clouds of steam shooting out of his ears as he takes a bite of the green stuff.  And yes, I understand that wasabi is not really “hot” or “spicy” in the same way as we usually think of it, but as long you don’t take some of the ginkgo over there at A, you probably won’t remember what I said here anyway.

It’s been a few weeks since we had a geography-themed puzzle, and I know that Dragon loves geography, so I think it’s about time we had another.  This time let’s try to identify some Japanese cities.  And to avoid any wild cards, I’ll tell you what to look for.  Theoman, you get to try to pick out Fukuoka.  Everyone else can hunt down either Tokyo or Kyoto.  They’re more famous, so they should be easier to recognize, right?  Right?

A. 大阪　B. 京都　C. 神戸　D. 東京　E. 名古屋　F. 福岡