Who Is The Yam-Soup Shop Wife (The Tororo Soup Shop Wife)?
The teahouse wife who gives as good as she gets
The Teahouse Wife of Mariko
The Yam-Soup Shop Wife is the woman who runs a teahouse serving tororo soup with her husband in the post town of Mariko in Shank's Mare. She is never named, but she is portrayed as a strong-willed woman who talks back to her husband as good as she gets. She is one of the two people who cause an unexpected uproar in front of Yaji and Kita, who had been looking forward to the local specialty.
With no concern for the customers, she gets into an argument with her husband that soon becomes an all-out physical fight. The shop's tororo is flung everywhere, and the couple end up covered in it. Yaji and Kita never get their soup and leave the shop hungry. Coming right after the theft of their money, it is one more blow to the pair, in a scene full of laughs.
This episode also conveys the lively atmosphere of the small teahouses in the post towns of the Tokaido. A real, no-holds-barred fight breaking out in front of travelers is just the kind of everyday humor this work is known for.
