Posts Tagged: lunches

All Posts / Culture / Food — 2 Comments
28
Apr 10

Fish for Breakfast: The Classic Japanese Breakfast

In the West, the classic breakfast could include pancakes, waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, orange juice, milk, cereal, or hash browns—or maybe if we’re in a hurry, just a granola bar, a muffin, or yogurt. In Japan, though, breakfast is taken seriously and, when prepared in the classic fashion, may seem more like what we’d expect for dinner or lunch than breakfast.

While some Western breakfast staples have become a bit more popular in Japan, particularly as an occasional treat, they’re not typically eaten each morning. The closest breakfast item the West shares with Japan is eggs, as the Japanese are particularly fond of dishes such as ome rice, an omelet in which the egg yolks are mixed with (cooked) rice and any choice of vegetables (such as zucchini, carrots or onions) or meat (particularly chicken, pork, or beef) before the mixture is fried into an omelet. If the chef is so inclined, she or he may also decorate the oblong-shaped omelet with a design or message written in ketchup, the most popular condiment for omelets in Japan. Tamagoyaki, another popular style of omelet which is basically just a rolled omelet with or without vegetables and meat, is also served for Japanese breakfasts, usually with soy sauce.

However, the similarities between the Western and the Japanese breakfast end there. In the traditional Japanese family, the mother or wife will wake up before her husband and/or children—as much as an hour beforehand—to prepare a full-course breakfast while she also works on packing them a cold lunch for later. Traditional staples of the Japanese breakfast include:

  • Fish, particularly broiled, dried and salted fish. Popular choices are horse mackerel and salmon.
  • Rice, either just a bowl of steamed white rice or rice mixed with seaweed and/or vegetables. Some families prefer okayu, which is warm rice porridge.
  • Miso soup, complete with seaweed, tofu and onions.
  • Seaweed, either within other dishes or just served in dried rolls or strips. The seaweed on its own is often dipped into soy sauce.
  • Natto, which is a form of fermented soy beans. This sticky, strong-smelling part of a Japanese breakfast is great with soy sauce or on top of rice.
  • Pickled vegetables, which are pickled in brine or salt. Some popular pickled vegetables include cucumbers, turnips, ume (a kind of plum), cabbage and radishes. These can be eaten on their own or mixed with rice.
  • Salad, Japanese style. With lettuce or cabbage and traditional vegetable accompaniments.
  • Green tea (the most popular breakfast drink).

Do you think you would like or dislike to eat so much for breakfast? Does the traditional Japanese breakfast appeal to you? Would you rather have fish or pancakes for breakfast?

All Posts / Culture / Customs — No Comments
16
Apr 10

Japanese Schooling, Part 3: School Life

Uniforms are required at most Japanese middle and high schools (and some elementary schools), public and private alike, but each school makes the uniforms slightly different. Boys’ uniforms can either be similar to a business suit (pants, blazer, tie, dress shirt) or military-style with a high-collared buttoned-up jacket and perhaps a military-style hat that they wear for special occasions.

Girls’ uniforms always consist of skirts but can follow one of two styles: business-style (skirt, blazer or sweater, dress shirt and tie or bowtie) or seeraa-fuku (“sailor uniform”), which consists of a skirt and a shirt with an old-fashioned sailor collar and bowtie or ribbon around the neck. There are usually two types of uniforms for each gender at each school, one for the colder months and one for the warmer uniforms, but girls always have to leave their legs exposed, even during the cold months!

Although it varies from school to school, most Japanese school days last from 8:30 or 8:45 a.m. to 3:50 p.m., although attendance at after-school activities is virtually required, so students usually stay until 5 to 6 p.m. Students get a lunch break for 30 to 45 minutes halfway through the day, during which they can either eat cafeteria food—if the school has a cafeteria—food sold at a snack cart, or food they’ve brought from home. If the school doesn’t have a cafeteria, students eat in the classroom and lunch workers bring wrapped trays of food for those who haven’t brought their own lunches. Older students can usually eat where they want in the public areas of the school (like outside if it’s nice out), but elementary students are usually supervised during lunch.

Instead of teachers generally staying put in one classroom and students moving from classroom to classroom throughout the day as they do in American middle and high schools, Japanese schools even through high school are closer to American elementary schools in that the same group of students stays put in one classroom all day long (expect when headed for gym or perhaps some arts class). Instead, the teachers move from classroom to classroom throughout the day. This means that students are typically stuck with the same group of classmates—for better or worse—for at least the entire school year, if not for the full three years. Each classroom has a homeroom teacher who takes attendance and discusses morning announcements before classes begin.

Do you like the idea of wearing uniforms in middle and high school? Do you think it’s fair that the girls’ uniform requires a skirt? What do you think of the idea of staying put in a single classroom for the entire day?

All Posts / Culture / Food — 2 Comments
30
Mar 10

Lunch in Japan: The Bento

When bringing food from home for lunch at school or work, the menu generally consists of last night’s leftovers in a Tupperware container or a freshly-made sandwich, piece of fruit and juice box in a paper bag. In Japan, the traditional lunch-to-go is called the bento, which, appropriated from an ancient slang Chinese term, means “convenient.”

Bento are served not in bags, but in sturdy square or rectangular bento boxes, which range in quality from storage-container-like durable plastic to wooden boxes to fragile polished lacquerware. The more expensive boxes are often decorated ornately in a classical Japanese design and may be family heirlooms. Bento can also come in disposable plastic bento boxes when purchased pre-made at food stands or convenience and grocery stores.

The main feature of the inside of the box is its separated compartments, so food doesn’t become mixed. Smaller, cheaper bento boxes may have as few as two compartments, whereas larger, more expensive bento like those intended to carry an entire group’s food for an outing, may be three or four stacked layers of two to five compartments each. Bento boxes can be tucked into any school bag or brief case, but they are traditionally carried with a large decorative Japanese handkerchief called a furoshiki. The furoshiki is not used to blow noses or wipe faces and is intended for carrying items. You tie the cloth around the box and carry the box by the knot of fabric at the top.

Bento can contain virtually any Japanese or Western food that is easy to take on the go, but the primary staple is white rice. The largest compartment of the bento box, sometimes 2/3 the size of the box, is traditionally reserved for white rice with a little garnish, strips of seaweed or pickled vegetables. Popular food for the rest of the bento include picked vegetables, tempura meat and vegetables, sausages, chicken, fish, and boiled eggs. Less traditionally, bento may consist of Western food like finger sandwiches.

The most simple of all bento consists only of white rice with an umeboshi in the center. Umeboshi, which is often translated as “pickled plum” but is a pickled ume, a native Japanese fruit somewhat like an apricot, is red when pickled and this gives the bento the effect of looking like the Japanese flag (white with a red circle at the center). Therefore, this type of bento is called the Hinomaru bento, as Hinomaru is the name for the Japanese flag.

Traditionally, bento are cooked by Japanese mothers and wives for their children and husbands to take to school and work. Some women get up an hour or more before their families to make these bento, which not only feature delicious food, but may be elaborately decorated with patterns of colors or shapes or even meant to look like popular cartoon characters. The more ornate and varied the bento, the more “love” the woman is said to be packing for her husband or children and it’s often a joke that those stuck with the Hinomaru bento have unloving wives or mothers. More realistically, it could simply be that the busy career woman doesn’t have time to make elaborate lunches or the lunch was made by the man or student him or herself.

It’s also a traditional for Japanese girls, particularly high schoolers, to get up early before school to cook food and then offer a hand-made bento to their crushes or boyfriends, perhaps in anticipation of one day cooking for them during marriage. Although this is far less common as more women continue to work after marriage and children, an old-fashioned romantic Japanese marriage proposal translates to, “I want to eat your bento everyday.”

Can you imagine eating rice and pickled vegetables every day for lunch instead of sandwiches? Would you think it was fair for your mother, wife, or girlfriend to get up an hour early just to make you lunch?

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10
Mar 10

Eating, Drinking and Shopping at the Japanese Vending Machine

Japan has the largest per-capita amount of vending machines in the world, meaning that for about every 23 people, there’s one vending machine to be found down some alley, at some corner shop, at the train station, or even at a shrine.

Japan makes an ideal environment for the vending machine because crimes such as vandalism are pretty low; most people walk, bike, or use trains to get to places rather than drive; and there are many areas with large population densities. Besides food and drink that’s ready to be ingested, you can buy many things at vending machines, including fresh meat, eggs, and seafood for cooking later (saves a trip to the grocery store or market); MP3 players; potted plants; toys; books; and underwear. (Yes, underwear.) You can even buy items for which you need to be 18 or 20 (the legal adult age in Japan), such as alcohol, cigarettes and porn magazines, and there’s often no one there to check your ID! (However, that may be changing. In 2008, a new “smart card” system called Tapso requires cigarette machines to only sell to those who scan their Tapso card. The Tapso card is issued only to those who can prove they are of age.)

However, the vast majority of vending machines do sell non-alcoholic drinks and food that you can drink or eat the minute you purchase the item. The types of refreshments you’ll find at Japanese vending machines are much different and varied than that you’d find in the West. For one, you’ll find a much smaller selection of soda pop. Bottled tea in multiple flavors is by far the biggest vending machine seller, followed by juice and coffee. You’ll also find health drinks and yogurt-based drinks.

Vending machines that sell food can warm up the food if applicable. So you can grab snacks or ice cream, but you can also get hot soba noodles, french fries, fried chicken, hot dogs, grilled fish, takoyaki (octopus meat in ball-shaped dough), and taiyaki (a red bean paste dessert), to name a few. As for cold food, you can get items like sushi and rice balls, the latter of which is a staple of the Japanese diet.

Coins are the traditional method of payment, but as the Japanese become more and more dependent on their cell phones, newer vending machines have cell phone payment options. You just scan your cell phone reader (Japanese cell phones are a bit more advanced than those in the West) and the amount of the item is added to your cell phone bill!

Have you ever seen a Japanese vending machine? What did you buy? Do you use vending machines often? Would you use vending machines more often if they sold items as varied items as those in Japanese vending machines?

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