Two types of eating establishments set the scene here. To the right is a stall selling roasted yams. The lantern advertises with clever wordplay that this winter favorite is "tastier than chestnuts." To the left, a shop offers "mountain whale" (yamakujira), a euphemism for the meat of wild animals. Like other momonjiya ("hairy monster shops"), this establishment would have offered, in addition to the standard fare of boar and deer, such delicacies as bear, monkey, badger, otter, fox, wolf, and weasel. To an Edo clientele, wild-animal flesh had special restorative powers.
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