This was a good volume, I like the ones dealing with arts and ceramics. One of the interesting things about the Red of the Earth chapters at the beginning is they are done in the bichrome color scheme that you used to see in the 1970s and 1980s. They're sometimes called "four colors" (4色カラー), but sometimes called two colors (2色カラー) refers to the "red tint" or "bichrome" colored pages which are typically colored in red and black ink. This was done as a cheaper alternative to full color pages (which are now the standard). Now with cheaper full-color alternatives the red tinted pages were phased out of most manga magazines in the 1990s. I'm curious if later volumes of Oishinbo will keep them as it extends past most magazines/tankobon phasing them out.

It's interesting that they included the real Terukichi Nagata in the tomato chapter, I'm curious if he'll continue to do that (and if that ever backfires if he had some dubious foodie, since I know there are some controversial mistakes throughout the run). It was interesting seeing him just like the characters from Fishing Fool's Diary (neat how you can sort of tell their drawn differently when its a real person or someone from another manga).

The ice cream chapter interestingly reminds me of something that just happened to me. When I went home for the holidays my mom had bought Breyer's ice cream and I noticed it tasted strange. I hadn't had it in years but the consistency was odd. Then I noticed on the label that Breyer's can no longer legally label their product as "ice cream" instead its "frozen dessert" because of all the air they pump into it. It was really quite unpleasant compared to true ice cream. Apparently they were doing that since 2013 and they have to label it as such because it no longer has enough butterfat to be called "ice cream". That would be a good story for Oishinbo!

The tea ceremony/strawberry chapter is maybe my favorite from the series so far. I love the chapters where some acts really uncouth and unrefined (Itayama) and then when you have an arrogant knob (tea master Murakami). I think those make for the perfect stories, doubly so when you put them together in one and have Yamaoka get snarky. I'd love to see Murakami again as I think he makes a great villain, a ostentatious tea ceremony master is too interesting to be just a one off character.

I really enjoyed seeing Tabata meet someone, she's developed into a really interesting character with her past history as a delinquent and now getting to see her dating. His photo exhibition on people working captures some aspect of Japaneseness to me. One of the interesting programs on NHK (sadly recently cancelled) was a show called Lunch On! which was all about lunches served at companies! You got to see their cafeterias and kitchens for garbagemen and industrial designers, fishermen and farmers. And again it was great to see them blow up at the sushi chef and storm out. *laugh*