Who Is The Lord (Lord of Meguro)?
A sheltered lord who discovers grilled saury
The Lord is the hero of the classic rakugo tale Meguro no Sanma ("The Saury of Meguro"), a feudal lord (daimyo) who knows nothing about the food of ordinary people. In true rakugo fashion, he is never named, and which domain he rules is never specified.
In Episode 3, he rides out as far as Meguro, finds himself hungry without a packed lunch, and catches the smell of saury (sanma) grilling at a farmhouse. His retainers try to stop him, calling it "a fish for commoners," but he eats the freshly grilled fish and is overwhelmed by how good it is. Later, at a relative's mansion, he is asked his favorite food and answers "saury," but what arrives is a tasteless fish with all its fat and bones removed. When he asks where it came from and learns it was bought at the Nihonbashi fish market, he declares the punchline: "Saury is best from Meguro!"
Meguro Ward in Tokyo holds a saury festival every year in honor of this story.
