History Manga / Oishinbo

* BrutalHonesty: Both Shiro and Yuzan tend to act like this whenever they spot a bad dish. Also, despite Shiro being as honest as ever regarding his opinion about bad dishes and other people's unwillingness to voice their opinions, his honesty actually helps him to solve every single problem he encounters.

* {{Expy}}: Kaibara Yuzan's personality is based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosanjin Kitaoji Rosanjin]], a renowned epicure and artist from the Showa era in Japan, down to Rosanjin's RealLife tendencies for being a {{Jerkass}} and prideful artist because of his artistic skills. Funnily enough, Rosanjin also existed in the manga's setting, and even Yuzan was one of his former students who wanted to surpass his achievements.

* NervousWreck: Tomio Tomii, the deputy director of the arts and culture department at Tozai News, might be the most high-strung character in the series, mostly due to Shiro's bluntness with meals potentially ruining chances with clients.

* NiceGuy: Out of all Shiro's superiors, Tanimura is the nicest and most patient one.

* AbsenteeClubMember: {{Discussed|trope}} when Shiro meets his old college senior to purchase some flour. The senior recalls that they're both a part of an Outdoor Club, and they hit off pretty well during the welcome meeting. However, Shiro is too lazy to actually partake in the club activities, which are almost as physically demanding as an athletics club, and would only show up during events to get free food and drinks.

* ArtEvolution: The style in the early comics is softer and feels more expressive. Also, while Kurita looks very young in them Shiro actually looks older than later on.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Without a doubt, [[NiceGuy Tanimura]] is Shiro and Kurita's most kindhearted, patient, and laid-back superiors. But when Shiro and Kurita lost the salmon match against Yuzan, even Tanimura snapped at both of them for not cooperating and threatened to dismiss them from their project if they continued not taking the project seriously. He's actually just playing a character though, but it did cause Shiro and Kurita to seriously talk things over and contemplate their mistakes.

* HateSink: You think Yuzan is bad? Then [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Kanegami]] somehow just made the infamous artist and gourmet ''look like a saint''. For starters, he won't hold back from using downright criminal actions to secure his foothold in the media industry by threatening and blackmailing Tozai News' board members to hand over their shares to him. On another occasion, he attempted to take over Edo Ichiban Brewery after the brewery suffered greatly from the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanshin_earthquake 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake]] that killed many sake specialists in the region. Even though he is later ousted from his media company, Kanegami's apparent lack of remorse for his unsavory actions cemented him as the series' vilest character.

* SupremeChef: Shiro may be rude at times (though nowhere near to Yuzan's levels), but he knows how to prepare the best food.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Being Shiro's mentor in cuisine matters and being a very skilled gourmet, Kaibara always goes one step further than Shiro in countless cooking matches. Nonetheless, Shiro himself manages to make an edge of himself through sheer determination and creativity to balance his own father's raw cooking skills.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: Without a doubt, [[NiceGuy Tanimura]] is Yamaoka and Kurita's most kindhearted, patient, and laid-back superiors. But when Yamaoka and Kurita lost the salmon match against Kaibara, even Tanimura snapped at both of them for not cooperating and threatened to dismiss them from their project if they continued not taking the project seriously. He's actually just playing a character though, but it did cause Yamaoka and Kurita to seriously talk things over and contemplate their mistakes.

* BrutalHonesty: Both Shiro and Kaibara tend to act like this whenever they spot a bad dish. Also, despite Shiro being as honest as ever regarding his opinion about bad dishes and other people's unwillingness to voice their opinions, his honesty actually helps him to solve every single problem he encounters.

* ChekhovsGun: A seemingly harmless ingredient or item that appears at the beginning of several story arcs usually becomes this. For example, after Kinue's mother introduced a traditional Iwate wild grape juice to Yamaoka before the turnip dish match, it became a great help for Shiro in his vegetable dish match.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Yamaoka had a rough childhood, to say the least, in which he had to endure [[TrainingFromHell extremely strict]] culinary education under his father's tutelage starting from his junior high years. Although he managed to endure such training, those years were marked by his father's rampant DomesticAbuse (see below) towards his wife whenever her dish failed to satisfy him, which contributed to his unrepentant hatred towards his father. Yamaoka eventually snapped altogether when his mother died from years of abuse, which drove him to destroy all of Yuzan's artworks and leave the household for good, resulting in the kind of man that we see in the story today.

* HateSink: You think Yuzan is bad? Then Kanegami somehow just made the infamous artist and gourmet look like a saint.
* HiddenHeartOfGold: Despite being abrasive as ever, Kaibara never actually acts like an asshole to Yuko, especially after her marriage with Shiro. After winning a rice ball match, for instance (after Yuko married Shiro), Kaibara only asks about who's the one doing the cooking for her family. When he knew that it was Yuko, he merely stated that she needed to take care of her family well without raising his voice. Kaibara being not a jerkass to Yuko usually comes off as a sight of an anomaly to Shiro, given Kaibara's personality to pretty much everyone else who is below him.

* InsufferableGenius: Kaibara is considered a brilliant artist, and is an expert gourmet. And he takes every opportunity to exploit this, throwing his weight around with no consideration for others. This was the germ of the conflict between [[CallingTheOldManOut him and Shiro]]...

* JerkassHasAPoint: While Kaibara usually chastises Shiro during their food matches just to brag about his skills and opinions for the fun of it, no one disagrees with him when he points out the dangers of using raw salmons in Shiro's raw sashimi dishes. Given the apparent health hazards that may entail to those who like eating raw fish dishes (even though the fish itself has been checked off any parasitic eggs), his heated opinion is justified at that time.

* NiceGuy: Out of all Yamaoka's superiors, Tanimura is the nicest and most patient one.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: In ''Oishinbo: The Japan-America Rice War'', the arrival of a pushy US Senator in Japan to discuss a political dispute regarding rice imports attracted the attention of a Japanese rice purist who considers that American-made rice commodities are below Japan's since he thought that the American ones are produced with herbicides and pesticides, thus nullifying their quality. It took Yamaoka and Kurita to bring him to his senses that Japanese farmers are doing the same thing as well to their rice fields, thus proving that the Americans and the Japanese are not that different in their treatment of rice products.
* NotSoSimilar: Despite their similar outlook on cuisine (high standards for cooking, occasional lamentations over the current state of Japanese cuisine, and desire for culinary aspirations), Kaibara and Yamaoka couldn't be more different from each other. Whereas the former will use his raw skills to assert dominance over others while acting high and mighty, the latter uses his cooking skills to help other people's problems, even though sometimes he has to be told to do it.

** More specifically, Shiro is picky, while Kaibara is violently opinionated. As Shiro points out, he thinks art, fine food included, should serve people, and he's fine with more casual forms of Japanese cuisine so long as they are created with care and appreciation. Another person's worth to Kaibara depends on their palate's refinement and discrimination. In fact, he ''will'' castigate, lash, harrow, etc. you to the nth degree if you make even the ''slightest'' deviation from the way of fine cuisine. How bad is it? ''He drove his wife to an early death because of her culinary errors.'' That is the reason Shiro uses his mother's family name (Yamaoka), rather than his father's.

* ShownTheirWork: Despite the author's insistence on his surprising lack of culinary knowledge, many of the dishes depicted in the story are somewhat realistic and genuine representations of Japan's abundance of regional dishes.

* SupremeChef: Shiro may be rude, but he knows how to prepare the best food.

* TookALevelInKindness: Shiro started off as an apathetic and cynical man who just recently severed his relationship with his utterly temperamental father to a rather lazy but well-intentioned person who genuinely loves food and cares about people around him, even though his relationship with Yuzan is as belligerent as ever.
* {{Tsundere}}: When you think about it, Kaibara is actually a textbook example of this when he has to deal with Yuko. He always gruffs and scolds Yuko's tenacity in asking favors from him, but he never actually manages to reject any of them and opts to help her in some ways. Even Kaibara's own servants notice this. Although, unlike other examples in which characters with the ''tsundere'' trait are seen as somewhat endearing, this trope instead hits its ugly rear in which Kaibara's ''tsundere'' trait is [[DeconstructedCharacterArchetype more detrimental]] to everyone instead of being endearing.

* WomenAreWiser: Although Shiro is pretty much the best cook in Tozai News, it is Kurita's wits and attitude that enabled him to many successes along the way. Her being more emotionally sensitive compared to Yamaoka also contributes to this well. For example, Kurita actually has the gall to ask for help from ''Kaibara'' himself and manages to do that successfully, an action that others would definitely not dare to do.

Also had a successful run as an anime from 1988-1992 lasting 136 episodes, although only some of them have been subtitled for western audiences.

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Being Shiro's mentor in cuisine matters and being a very much skilled gourmet, Kaibara always makes one step further than Shiro in countless cooking matches. Nonetheless, Shiro himself manages to make an edge of himself through sheer determination and creativity to balance his own father's raw cooking skills.
* AwesomeButImpractical: As Shiro points out in several chapters, flashy and faster ways of how food is prepared means nothing if it doesn't end up tasting good. For example, in "Live Fish", he points out having live fish that's cooked and served after will mean nothing if the fish isn't taken care of before it's served, as unhealthy fish will result in bad taste.

* AsiansLoveTea: The first volume, which focuses on Japanese cuisine, has a whole chapter on the tea ceremony. Shiro notes that there are many tea ceremony masters who forgot the essence of humility and subtlety in the modern tea ceremonies, which resulted in him rejecting an experienced tea ceremony master's teachings when the tea ceremony master uses too many additives in his dishes.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Without a doubt, [[NiceGuy Tanimura]] is Yamaoka and Kurita's most kindhearted, patient, and laid-back superiors. But when Yamaoka and Kurita lost the salmon match against Kaibara, even Tanimura snapped at both of them for not cooperating together and threatened to dismiss them from their project if they continue not taking the project seriously. He's actually just playing a character though, but it did cause Yamaoka and Kurita to seriously talk things over and contemplate their mistakes.

* BrutalHonesty: Both Shiro and Kaibara have the tendency to act like this whenever they spot a bad dish. Also, despite Shiro being honest as ever regarding his opinion about bad dishes and other people's unwillingness to voice their opinion, his honesty actually helps him to solve every single problem he encounters.

* CannotSpitItOut: One of many problems that Shiro has to face is the Japanese people's tendency not to express their dislike towards bad food directly and to follow others' opinions about food (even though they're obviously bad) without concern for their own opinion. Shiro laments that this is the reason that many bad restaurants flourished because anyone who has an honest opinion about them gets reprimanded by others.
* CharacterDevelopment: Big time. Shiro started off as an apathetic and abrasive man who was traumatized by his mother's death and who only does things because others told him to pleadingly. Even worse, he referred to Kurita (who was still a new employee at the time) as a naive woman who isn't supposed to stay late for work and a superstition-believer woman who was hindering his work. He eventually got a lot better by the end, being genuinely more caring for others.
* ChekhovsGun: As soon as the wild grape juice showed up during the turnip dish match, it became a great help for Shiro in his vegetable dish match.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Yamaoka had a rough childhood, to say the least, in which he had to endure [[TrainingFromHell extremely strict]] culinary education under his father's tutelage starting from his junior high years. Although he managed to endure such training, those years were marked by his father's rampant DomesticAbuse (see below) towards his wife whenever her dish failed to satisfy him, which contributed to his unrepentant hatred towards his father. Yamaoka eventually snapped altogether when his mother died from years of abuse, which drove him to destroy all of Yuzan's artworks and left the household for good, resulting in the kind of man that we see in the story today.
* DomesticAbuse: Kaibara Yuzan doesn't lower his standards for his own wife, and whenever her dishes fail to satisfy his tastes, he throws out the food, yells, curses at her, and orders her to redo the dish. Shiro recalls that his mother is always fearful and skittish around his father, and ends up dying from the stress. Shiro blames his father for his mother's death because of said abuse.
* {{Eagleland}}: Of the Mixed Version variant.

* {{Expy}}: Kaibara Yuzan's personality is based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosanjin Kitaoji Rosanjin]], a renowned epicure and artist from the Showa era in Japan, down to Rosanjin's RealLife tendencies for being a {{Jerkass}} and prideful artist because of his artistic skills.

* FailureHero: Shiro is this only in his matches against his father. Although curiously, it is an example of DownplayedTrope as he actually managed to conclude his matches in a draw or even outright victory against Kaibara, although these instances are sadly not shown enough in the English-translated versions.

* FriendToAllChildren: Whenever kids are involved, Shiro will do everything to ensure their wellbeing, much to the surprise of his colleagues. Even before his CharacterDevelopment kicked in, during a visit to Dainichi Electronics, he defended a child's opinion when said child stated that the sashimi prepared by Dainichi Electronics' CEO wasn't as good as the one prepared by the child's grandmother. As everyone is pretty much gutless to voice their honest opinion, only Shiro actually stepped in to defend that child, despite his cynical looks at the time.

* TheGamblingAddict: Shiro has a habit of betting on horse races in his spare time.

* HiddenHeartOfGold: Despite being abrasive as ever, Kaibara never actually acts like an asshole to Yuko, especially after her marriage with Shiro. After winning a rice ball match, for instance (after Yuko married Shiro), Kaibara only asks about who's the one doing the cooking for her family. When he knew that it is Yuko, he merely stated that she needs to take care of her family well without raising his voice. Kaibara being not a jerkass to Yuko usually comes off as a sight of an anomaly to Shiro, given Kaibara's personality to pretty much everyone else who is below him.
* ImprobableFoodBudget: One has to wonder how come Tozai News manages to pool up a significant amount of budget to perform regular cooking matches with Teito News.

* LongRunner: Over 100 volumes, which is why the English translation is using the "A La Carte" option.

* MistakenForCheating: "Dishes Prepared By The Bride" focuses on Kurita's college friend Misako, who believes her husband is seeing another woman since he always comes home late. One investigation later reveal it's not the case: her husband doesn't like any of the restaurant foods she makes and has been having dinner at an eatery that cooks home-cooked meals instead. From there, Misako starts learning to cook more conventional meals.

* NiceGuy: Out of all Yamaoka's superiors, Tanimura is definitely the nicest and most patient one.
* NiceToTheWaiter: Shiro and his companions always show appreciation to the cooks and waitstaff that artfully prepare and serve the food they eat.

* NotSoSimilar: Despite their similar outlook on cuisine (high standards for cooking, occasional lamentations over the current state of Japanese cuisine, and desire for culinary aspirations), Kaibara and Yamaoka couldn't be more different from each other. Whereas the former will use his raw skills to assert dominance over others while acting high and mighty, the latter actually uses his cooking skills to help other people's problems, even though sometimes he has to be told into doing it.

* SiblingTeam: Yang Bailong and Yang Honglong are twins that run a ramen shop together. It briefly turned into SiblingRivalry when the two started arguing about who contributed more to their store's reputation. Shiro has to amend the relationship between them by showcasing the flaws in each sibling's cooking skills and how to fix them.

* SupremeChef: Shiro may be rude, but he knows to prepare the best food.

* WomenAreWiser: Although Shiro is pretty much the best cook in Tozai News, it is Kurita's wits and attitude that enabled him to many successes along the way. Her being more emotionally sensitive compared to Yamaoka also contributes to this well. For example, Kurita actually has the gall to ask for help from ''Kaibara'' himself and managed to do that successfully, an action that others would definitely not dare to do.

* NervousWreck: Tomio Tomii, the deputy director of the arts and culture department at Tozai News, might be the most high-strung character in the series.

* MistakenForCheating: "Dishes Prepared By The Bride" focuses on Kurita's college friend Misako, who believes her husband is seeing another woman since he never comes home for dinner. One investigation later reveal it's not the case: her husband doesn't like any of the restaurant foods she makes and has been having dinner at a restaurant that cooks home-cooked meals instead. From there, Misako starts learning to cook more conventional meals.

* MistakenForCheating: "Dishes Prepared By The Bride" focuses on Kurita's college friend Misako, who believes her husband is seeing another woman since he never comes home for dinner. One investigation later reveal it's not the case: her husband doesn't like any of the exotic foods she makes using a microwave, and has been having dinner at a "mother's eatery" instead. Shiro then suggests Misako should start learning how to make home cooked meals instead to save her marriage.

* GamblingAddict: Shiro has a habit of betting on horse races in his spare time.

* AwesomeButImpratical: As Shiro points out in several chapters, flashy and faster ways of how food is prepared means nothing if it doesn't end up tasting good. For example, in "Live Fish", he points out having live fish that's cooked and served after will mean nothing if the fish isn't taken care of before it's served, as unhealthy fish will result in bad taste.

* Jerkass: Kaibara Yuzan is the epitome of this trope in the series, big time.

* SupremeChef

* GreenAesop: This is pretty much one of the most consistent moral messages throughout the series, and it's ''pretty much'' unapologetic when it comes to this particular Aesop. You can at least find the main characters lamenting the state of Japan's current natural state amidst its drastic urbanization attempts, where it is harder to procure natural products that are chemical-free since major agricultural spots only produce commodities for the sake of profit and less about natural health.

* CultureClash: In the Ramen & Gyoza volume, one of Shiro's superiors takes some out-of-towner colleagues from China to his favorite noodle shop; only to have them stop dead when they see the restaurant, accusing him of deliberately insulting them, and threatening to break off relations with the ''Tozai News''. Turns out the restaurant's name uses an old Japanese word for China that many Japanese see as no worse than old-fashioned, but the mainland Chinese consider highly insulting because of its association with the horrors of the WWII occupation. Good thing Shiro has the connections to set things right.

* DomesticAbuse: Kaibara Yuzan doesn't lower his standards for his own wife, and whenever her dishes fail to satisfy his tastes, he throws out the food, yells, and curse at her, and order her to redo the dish. Shiro recalls that his mother is always fearful and skittish around his father, and ends up dying from the stress. Shiro blames his father for his mother's death because of said abuse.

* {{Expy}}: Kaibara Yuzan's personality is based off [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosanjin Kitaoji Rosanjin]], a renowned epicure and artist from the Showa era in Japan, down to Rosanjin's RealLife tendencies for being a {{Jerkass}} and prideful artist because of his artistic skills.

* KimonoIsTraditional: Most of the older characters, like Kaibara Yuzan, Toyama, and Kyogoku, wears traditional kimonos, as befitting their preference for traditional Japanese culture.

* NervousWreck: Tomio Tomii, the deputy director of the arts and culture department at Tozai News, might be the most high-strung character in Manga.

* NiceToTheWaiter: Shiro and his companions are always sure to show appreciation to the cooks and waitstaff that artfully prepare and serve the food they eat.

** More specifically, Shiro is picky, while Kaibara is violently opinionated. As Shiro points out, he thinks art, fine food included, should serve people, and he's fine with more casual forms of Japanese cuisine so long as they are created with care and appreciation. Another person's worth to Kaibara is dependent on the refinement and discrimination of their palate. In fact, he ''will'' castigate, lash, harrow, etc. you to the nth degree if you make even the ''slightest'' deviation from the way of fine cuisine. How bad is it? ''He drove his wife to an early death because of her culinary errors.'' That is the reason Shiro uses his mother's family name (Yamaoka), rather than his father's.

* SiblingTeam: Yang Bailong and Yang Honglong are twins that run a ramen shop together. It briefly turned into SiblingRivalry when the two started arguing about who among them contributed more to their store's reputation. Shiro has to amend the relationship between them by showcasing the flaws in each sibling's cooking skills and how to fix them.

* {{Tsundere}}: When you think about it, Kaibara is actually a textbook example of this when he has to deal with Yuko. He always gruffs and scolds Yuko's tenacity in asking favors from him, but he never actually manages to reject any of them and opts to help her in some ways. Even Kaibara's own servants notice this. Although, unlike other examples in which characters with the ''tsundere'' trait are seen as somewhat endearing, this trope instead hits its ugly rear in which Kaibara's ''tsundere'' trait is more detrimental to everyone instead of being endearing.

* {{Tsundere}}: When you think about it, Kaibara is actually a textbook example of this when he has to deal with Yuko. He always gruffs and scolds Yuko's tenacity in asking favors from him, but he never actually manages to reject any of them and opts to help her in some ways. Even Kaibara's own servants notice this. Although, unlike other examples in which characters with ''tsundere'' trait are seen as somewhat endearing, this trope instead

''Oishinbo'' (literally "The Gourmet") is a manga written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki. It began publication in ''Big Comic Spirits'' in 1983 and ran until 2014, when it was put on indefinite hiatus.

* BodyHorror: The extended discussion of the potential hazards of eating raw freshwater fish is horrifying. And the drawings of flukes and tapeworms are beautiful but ewwwwww. All of the judges are rightfully being scared to death due to the revelation in that discussion.

* BrutalHonesty: Both Shiro and Kaibara have the tendency to act like this whenever they spot a bad dish. Also, despite Shiro is being honest as ever regarding his opinion about bad dishes and other people's unwillingness to voice their opinion, his honesty actually helps him to solve every single problem he encounters.

* CannotSpitItOut: One of many problems that Shiro has to face is the Japanese people's tendency to not express their dislike towards bad food directly and to follow others' opinions about food (even though they're obviously bad) without concern for their own opinion. Shiro laments that this is the reason that many bad restaurants flourished because anyone who has an honest opinion about them gets reprimanded by others.
* CharacterDevelopment: Big time. Shiro started off as an apathetic and abrasive man who was traumatized by his mother's death who only do things because others told him to pleadingly. Even worse, he referred to Kurita (who was still a new employee at the time) as a naive woman who isn't supposed to stay late for work and a superstition-believer woman who was hindering his work. He eventually got a lot better by the end, being genuinely more caring for others.

* CynicismCatalyst: The reason Shiro became a verily cynical man in his outlook for life (especially in the beginning), was because he blamed his father for overworking her mother to death and Yuzan didn't even consider himself being at fault for causing her wife's death.
* DomesticAbuse: Kaibara Yuzan doesn't lower his standards for his own wife, and whenever her dishes fail to satisfy his tastes, he'd throw out the food, yell and curse at her, and order her to redo the dish. Shiro recalls that his mother is always fearful and skittish around his father, and ends up dying from the stress. Shiro blames his father for his mother's death because of it.
* EasyEvangelism: Anyone who is okay with the use of pesticides at the beginning of a story will be converted to a rabid anti-pesticides advocate by one meal of non-pesticide using food--even if their other points besides taste are never addressed.

* FriendToAllChildren: Whenever kids are involved, Shiro will do everything to ensure their wellbeing, much to the surprise of his colleagues. Even before his CharacterDevelopment kicks in, during a visit to Dainichi Electronics, he defended a child's opinion when said child stated that the sashimi prepared by Dainichi Electronics' CEO wasn't as good as the one prepared by the child's grandmother. As everyone is pretty much gutless to voice their honest opinion, only Shiro actually stepped in to defend that child, despite his cynical looks at the time.
* FoodPorn: This could alternatively be titled ''Food Porn: The Manga''. Granted, since the manga was first published in the time where the Japanese society was experiencing a [[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%99%E7%90%86%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AB%E3%83%A1%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB "gourmet boom"]] hype in the 80s and early 90s.
* GreenAesop: This is pretty much one of the most consistent moral messages throughout the series, given the main characters' quest to look for the best cuisine dishes that can be passed on the future generations. You can at least find the main characters lamenting the state of Japan's current natural state amidst its drastic urbanization attempts, where it is harder to procure natural products that are chemical-free since major agricultural spots only produce commodities for the sake of profit and less about natural health.

* HiddenHeartOfGold: Despite being abrasive as ever, Kaibara never actually acts like an asshole to Yuko, especially after her marriage with Shiro. After winning a rice ball match, for instance (after Yuko's married Shiro), Kaibara only asks about who's the one doing the cooking for her family. When he knew that it is Yuko, he merely stated that she needs to take care of her family well without raising his voice. Kaibara being not a jerkass to Yuko usually comes off as a sight of an anomaly to Shiro, given Kaibara's personality to pretty much everyone else who is below him.

* JerkassHasAPoint: While Kaibara usually chastises Shiro during their food matches just to brag about his skills and opinions for the fun of it, no one disagrees with him when he points out the dangers of using raw salmons by Shiro's raw sashimi dishes. Given the obvious health hazards that may entail to those who like eating raw fish dishes (even though the fish itself has been checked off any parasitic eggs), his heated opinion is justified at that time.
* KimonoIsTraditional: Most of the older characters, like Kaibara Yuzan, Toyama, and Kyogoku, wears traditional kimonos.
* LastMinuteBabyNaming: One chapter revolves around the OfficialCouple deciding on names for their twins after the birth. Shiro has to be extra convincing to explain the MeaningfulName he's giving his daughter.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: In ''Oishinbo: The Japan-America Rice War'', the arrival of a pushy US Senator in Japan to discuss a political dispute regarding rice imports attracted the attention of a Japanese rice purist who considers that American-made rice commodities are below Japan's since he thought that the American ones are produced with herbicides and pesticides, thus nullifying their quality. It took Yamaoka and Kurita to bring him into his senses that Japanese farmers are doing the same thing as well to their rice fields, thus proving that the Americans and the Japanese are not that different in their treatment of rice products.

* SiblingTeam: Yang Bailong and Yang Honglong are twins that run a ramen shop together. It briefly turned to SiblingRivalry when the two started arguing who among them have contributed more to their store's reputation. Shiro has to amend the relationship between them by showcasing the flaws in each sibling's cooking skills and how to fix them.
* SingleIssuePsychology: Quite a few stories revolve around a character's IrrationalHatred of food, drink, or eating style, usually because of a bad experience or simply never having gotten "the good stuff." Shiro introduces them to the good stuff and wins them over. For example, one character's hatred of champagne turns out to stem from an inferior wine falsely advertised as "champagne" before Japan made that illegal. It didn't exactly help that his exposure to Western films had led him to believe that [[BrokenPedestal champagne was the next best thing to divine nectar]].

* {{Tsundere}}: When you think about it, Kaibara is actually a textbook example of this when he has to deal with Yuko. He always gruffs and scolds Yuko's tenacity in asking favors from him, but he never actually manages to reject any of them and opts to help her in some ways. Even Kaibara's own servants notice this.

* WomenAreWiser: Although Shiro is pretty much the best cook in Tozai News, it is Kurita's wits and attitude that enabled him with many successes along the way. Her being more emotionally sensitive compared to Yamaoka also contributes to this well. For example, Kurita actually has the gall to ask for help from ''Kaibara'' himself and managed to do that successfully, an action that others would definitely not dare to do.