駅中の名物　鞠子　岡部迄二り五町

About this print

A man sitting on a bench at a teahouse raises a bowl to his mouth. The blue shop curtain (noren) bears the word "tororo." In front of the shop is a cherry tree in full bloom, a rickshaw has stopped in the street, and a telegraph pole stands farther back. This is a print of the Mariko post town from Utagawa Hiroshige III's Tokai Meisho Kaisei Dochuki (Famous Places of the Tokaido, Revised Travel Guide), published in 1875 (Meiji 8). The National Diet Library titles it Kaisei Gojusan Eki (The Fifty-three Stations, Revised).

The Mariko post town (also written with other characters) was the smallest on the Tokaido, and its specialty was tororojiru, a soup of grated yam. Matsuo Basho wrote the haiku "Ume wakana / Mariko no shuku no / tororojiru" (plum blossoms and young greens, and at the Mariko inn, grated yam soup), and the grated yam soup of Mariko also appears in Jippensha Ikku's Tokaido Dochu Hizakurige (Shank's Mare).

In Mariko, Chojiya, a tororojiru shop founded in 1596 (Keicho 1), is still open. Whether the shop in the print is Chojiya is not known.

Glossary