Yakitate Japan Ep 51

The servant brings Pierro to see the potrait of his mother who had passed away when he was born and the latter finds out that she used to read the book, The night of the Galaxy Express by Miyazawa Kenji. However, she died before being able to carry Pierro which makes him burst into tears at the thought of his mother.

The last match in the Monaco Cup final begins where there is a large number of spectators due to Pierro's new identity as the successor of the Monaco kingdom. The theme of this round is the nostalgic hometown flavour where Azuma and Shadow have to make bread of Japanese and American flavours respectively.

Shadow amazes everyone at first with his fast dough kneading skills where Kanmuri remarks that he must be trying to make bagel. On the other hand, Azuma pours hemp juice into the dough made from the seeds. However, Shadow retalliates by steaming red crane rice from Yamagata Prefecture which is a top class product and rare in quantity due to difficulty in cultivation. He then mixes it with the dough which leads Pierro to remind Shadow that he should make an American style bread instead of using a Japanese ingredient. Shadow is not bothered at all and shows that he's prepared by using an American health drink, Rice Dream in order to comply with the rules of the contest. Due to the fact that America has a short history and has lots of immigrants, its cuisine was actually developed from other countries. In addition, bagel was first created in New York so Pierro gives Shadow the go-ahead to proceed with his creation.

Meanwhile, Azuma is scattering some powdery stuff into the dough. Shadow continues to grab everyone's attention by cooking his dough in traditional English red tea named Quality Season which is among the best. This gives the dough a strong aroma and unique taste. Finally, Shadow deep-fries his bagel so as to bring out the flavour in red crane rice since baking the dough will make the bagel too hard to be eaten. However, Azuma is still baking his bread at the moment.

Pierro tastes Shadow's bagel and stands still with his eyes wide open. Just then, he sees himself as a child and takes a ride on the galaxy express to meet his mother on a planet. Pierro is shocked to see many faces of his mother on the surface of the planet and has to repeat his life story to each face which makes him extremely exhausted. He finds that there are 50,000 faces of his mother on this planet and suddenly regains consciousness in the real world. Shadow is proud of the fact that he let Pierro see 50,000 faces of his mother where the latter is full of praise for the bagel.

Kirisaki observes that there's something about Azuma's production method which bothers him and calls Yukino to bring forward their plan which makes her bewildered. At the same time, Azuma prepares to deep fry his doughnut after baking so that it would not absorb too much oil. However, Azuma is using oil extracted from hemp seeds mixed with sesame oil for the deep-frying process. Kanmuri is not optimistic about Azuma's chances. When Pierro tries to taste the doughnut, Azuma tells him that this is not finished as he needs to bake it again. Before he puts it into the oven, Azuma sprinkles another unknown powdery substance on the doughnut in order to bring about the caramelization effect. Matsushiro tells Kanmuri that the best bread is not made from combining the best ingredients only and believes that Azuma has a chance to defeat Shadow. When Azuma finally finishes his doughnut, Pierro can hardly wait to taste it...

I can't help but feel that sometimes, the endless incredible ingredients mentioned in this anime do really taste that good after being combined together. Is it just made up of nowhere or is there any theory to prove the authenticity of such recipes? Well, seeing how the characters go crazy about the various delicious bread on display, it just doesn't feel the same when I eat bread in real life. However, Azuma using so much of hemp in his doughnut, is that really healthy as what they claim?

Kirisaki is planning something with Yukino and he knows that Shadow will lose to Azuma. That's why he told her to execute the plan now while the Pantasia gang are all in Monaco so that they can't do anything to stop him. I guess he should be referring to the takeover of Pantasia by force.