Talk:Utamakura

(Minor) Error Originating in Source

The following passage in the article contains a factual error: "For example, the Tatsuta River is famous for its red autumn maples. Therefore, a menu that includes tatsuta age will have crispy fish or chicken that was marinated in soy sauce before it was dredged in cornstarch and deep fried. The cornstarch coating absorbs some of the soy, so that when it is fried it takes on a burnished, russet color."

Cornstarch is quite uncommon in Japanese cooking, and tatsuta-age is actually made with katakuriko, which originally consisted of the starch from the bulb of a particular species of lily but nowadays almost universally consists of potato starch. (As an unencyclopedic aside, using cornstarch will, indeed, yield similar, though not identical, results and can be substituted in a pinch, but it's not what any restaurant in Japan would use, and, even outside Japan, the proper starch can be found comparatively easily in the kinds of Asian markets from which any restaurant authentic enough to specifically have "tatsuta-age" on its menu would source its ingredients.)

I'm not sure how to the fix this, though, as the erroneous statement that cornstarch is an ingredient in the dish is found in the citation for the passage. It would be easy enough to find alternative citations that mention the correct ingredient, but finding one that does that and provides sourcing for the primary purpose of the passage—discussing the dish in connection to the literary concept that is the subject of this article—would probably not be as easy. If anyone can find such a source, then great. Alternatively, perhaps the passage is somewhat tangential to the actual article subject and should simply just be removed.

--60.94.33.189 (talk) 15:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Dante's Styx

Do we have a source for Dante's Styx being an utamakura? It looks to me just like he's saying that this is the Styx, with no allusion involved. Henry^Flower 11:42, 8 November 2021 (UTC)