Noodles and Rice

Bento Boxes

by Stef on May 2nd, 2006

My hubby left this morning. In his Pyrex portable, shown left, I have put instead the large bento box he brought me home from a Japan trip 5 years ago. Along with 6 colleagues, he’ll be out of town overnight for a project.

My hubby suffers from food allergies, just recently diagnosed. He can’t have wheat, eggs, or dairy. That means, unless they eat at a Japanese or Chinese restaurant on the road, he can’t have anything. No fast food, no Subway or Pizza Hut or McDonald’s for him…. which is great because those aren’t healthy choices anyway for the most part.

So at 6 this morning, his bento box was packed, filled with 2 days’ worth of lunches, including futomaki sushi, coffee “jell-o” made with kanten, a shirataki/spinach combination, and some pickled radish and carrots. Tonight they’ll be eating out, and I’ve mainly given him free rein to order what he likes, as long as it isn’t mashed potatoes. They’ll probably go to a steakhouse somewhere anyway. I’m now kicking myself mentally for not thinking about breakfast, but hopefully the hotel will have some hot oatmeal and fruit for him.

The contents of the bento box did take a bit of planning, starting with my personal Japanese “fast food” favorites, e.g., the shirataki-spinach combo, simmered in some dashi with a bit of soy sauce and sugar. The radish-carrot salad/pickles were inspired by a recipe from Washoku: Recipes From The Japanese Home Kitchen. I wish I had a pic of the futomaki sushi, but I was in a hurry to put them together and they didn’t come out as nice as I would have liked. Besides that hubby was in a hurry to get going. I made three kinds of futomaki for him: a crab-avocado-cucumber combo, similar to a California roll but made with real crab instead of surimi, roasted eel with cucumber and sesame seeds, and soy-simmered shiitakes.

the only pic I got to take, of the pickled carrots/daikon — marinated in a simple vinegar-salt-sugar solution and topped with dried apricot strips

Bento, of course, is basically a Japanese lunch box. You can put anything in it, really, but as with all things Japanese, well-put-together bento box lunches can be considered ART. Quite a lot of thought is put into color combinations, flavors and textures, etc. I must admit I haven’t mastered this art yet, so my usual bento box selections are whatever the kids like to bring on a picnic that will fit into it. Usually I’ll have some kind of wrapped sushi, but because the kids are picky there may be some rolls with just rice, perhaps with furikake, in them. Not very exciting fare, except for my little ones.

Wanna try your hand at packing one? Here’s a virtual bento game you can play!

At any rate, the past several days I’ve been on a bento box mission all over the Internet, so I thought I’d share some of my finds with you.

Eating Our Way Through Japanese History—
A Brief Study of the Obento, written by someone at my alma mater! I was so happy to find this one.
More History, this one from the BBC.
Bento Box history, from Web Japan - Be sure to click on the other links as they have lots of information on their site, such as this:

A well-balanced bento consists of rice and side dishes in a 1:1 ratio. The ratio of fish or meat dishes to vegetables should be 1:2.

Useful to know:)

Bento A-Go-Go, a Bento Fan listing. Who woulda thunk?
Bento Box Gallery
The Bento Store at eBay - haven’t bought anything from this vendor but he’s got great feedback!
A Selection of Bento Boxes and other Japanese food-related items from JBox.com
Cultural anthropologist Mizuki Ito’s blog of her 2 children’s lunchboxes - My children are salivating over these. My 15-year-old even said it almost makes her want to go back to public school just so she can bring a bento box with her everyday. Here’s another article from Mizuki Ito, where she talks about Obentec’s California version of the bento box: the laptop lunch box!

As for me, I am salivating over these, over at the Asian ArtMall. My one and only bento box is a two-level one, with 5 inner compartments. I’d love to get a bento box meant for one, so my hubby can take it to work. At Aoi’s Restaurant in St. Louis, this is how they serve some of their dinner offerings. They’ve got Japanese toilets too, but that’s a topic that does not really fit well here:).

My first encounter with Japanese lunch boxes was in grade school, where several classmates used insulated lunch boxes (not Thermos, mind you!) to school. These stackable containers have little bowls/canisters in them, so you’ve got one for soup, one for rice, one for meat/fish and veggies. There’s even a little flask for juice or water, and the lunchbox won’t be complete without a spork! A modern version, I guess, is Zojirushi’s pictured here:

Asiana West, operating out of New York — sells a number of bento boxes, including the beautiful Hakoya collection (currently out of stock)

For more Bento Box ideas, get the book below:

Other Bento box sites:
PhreshP0rk, a.k.a. leggo my obento! the bento blog
Amazo
kyouben
Scary Bento faces - Yikes! I don’t want to look at these, much less eat them!
Bento Box ideas from RecipeZaar
Rebecca Michaels writes about a Chocolate version available at Buddakan
PBS Feature: Yayoi Brown’s Obento Creations
Sakura Minamoto’s Bento Recipes
Bento Corner, Another mom’s lovely bento blog
My Lunch Can Beat Up Your Lunch — I had to include this one even for just the title of the blog!
Okay, I’ll stop obsessing now.

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POSTED IN: General : Asian Food / Cuisine