Bento Box Lunches – Labors of Love
Healthy idea, but it's clearly a labor of love.
My daughter Annie is really into Japanese manga and anime. That’s why my ears perked up when I learned about Bento lunch boxes for kids. Japanese parents have been making Bento lunches for their children for a long time, and now adults are following the same practice for themselves.
In a typical Bento lunch, you won’t find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of chips, and an apple. Instead, it’s a box that contains small portions of a variety of food from different food groups. There’s a little bit of carbs, fresh fruit and veggies, and protein. You’ll find Japanese sticky rice molded into shapes, fruit and vegetables cut out with cookie cutters, and omelets tied into little bundles. Sushi, naturally, fits into the Bento box culture. The items are packed together tightly so that they stay in place in an attractive presentation, and so that the food doesn’t get mixed up. For young children, parents will cut the food into artistic or cute shapes with faces. You can put together a Bento lunch in a small, shallow container that will enable you to pack the food tightly, or you can purchase a special Bento lunch box . Besides the nutritional value, it’s believed to discourage picky eating habits since the cute food makes even unappealing items look yummy.
To see some beautiful examples of Bento box artistry, you can visit this New York Times article that originally inspired me. As the article states, artistry is what separates Bento boxes from plain leftover containers. As American mothers used to compete to see who could send in the best baked goods to their child’s class, Japanese mothers compete to see who can make the most attractive Bento.
I decided to give this a try for Annie’s lunch this week. First I purchased a simple book called “Kawaii Bento Boxes” to find recipes and combinations to get me started. Annie read through the book and selected a lunch she would like, called Treasure Bag Onigiri Combo. My adaptation of it is in the photo above. It contained Prosciutto Rolled Asparagus (I substituted prosciutto for bacon); Fluffy Potatoes; Strawberries; Treasure Bags – which are very thin omelets with a cooked chicken filling. I substituted leftover chicken from dinner for the cooked ground chicken and peppers. You fill the omelets with the chicken, place them on plastic wrap, pull them up into a sack shape and tie. Both the asparagus and potatoes needed to be cooked, as well. All of the food should cool down before packing into the container. Since Annie is 13, almost 14, I didn’t feel that bunny cut outs would be necessary, so there wasn’t any cuteness to the box. However, she still really enjoyed it. From start to finish (including clean-up) this lunch took approximately 40 minutes to prepare – quite a bit more than the pb&j lunch that Annie makes for herself in the morning.
The next day when Louisa discovered that there was prosciutto in the house, she begged to tear into it. I took my inspiration and offered to make her a Bento box of her own. This one required no cooking, but was more attuned to her food interests. It contained rolled prosciutto, pieces of cheddar, crostini crackers, baby carrots and strawberries.
Bento boxes are a lot of work and are not not something I will do every day. However, I admire their healthfulness and potential for creativity. So I will attempt more in the future, and maybe instead of bunnies, I will try flowers. The next time I may even try a sushi type of box with shaped sticky rice and nori (seaweed wrapper) which Annie is willing to try. Ideally it would be nice to make one of these special lunches for the girls weekly. It’s a labor of love, but they’re worth it.
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