Bentos (2003-2008)

[ErinM]

I just ran across this:

http://www.laptoplunches.com/products.html#LaptopLunch

Japanese bento style insulated lunchboxes available in the US

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Oh my. I want one. This would sure beat the gladware container I normally use, which evitably gets turned upside down in my bag, leading to all of my food to congregate on one side! Luckily, nothing has ever leaked.

[torakris]

The dosirak conversation has been moved here.

[Toasted]

Hi! I just read through the whole thread and it's very interesting and informative. My 9 year old daughter is doing a project on Japanese food with a main focus on Bentos. We just received the bento box that I ordered for her today. I have a couple of questions about packing food. We are used to eating rice hot, is rice in Japan usually eaten at room temp. or only in Bentos? I noticed the links to "Hot Lunch" Bentos- do many children use these and do they really keep the food warm? Ok, one more question: do vegetarian bento boxes exist? Our family is vegetarian and I'm trying to think of some cool things to put in the box to make it look authentic- So far I made a "cat" using a cookie cutter with some smoked tofu. Thanks the help.

[torakris]

Hi!  I just read through the whole thread and it's very interesting and informative.  My 9 year old daughter is doing a project on Japanese food with a main focus on Bentos.  We just received the bento box that I ordered for her today.  I have a couple of questions about packing food.  We are used to eating rice hot, is rice in Japan usually eaten at room temp. or only in Bentos?  I noticed the links to "Hot Lunch" Bentos- do many children use these and do they really keep the food warm?  Ok, one more question: do vegetarian bento boxes exist?  Our family is vegetarian and I'm trying to think of some cool things to put in the box to make it look authentic- So far I made a "cat" using a cookie cutter with some smoked tofu.  Thanks the help.

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Most Japanese eat hot rice with meals in their home. The food in the bentos isn't actually cold it is room temperature, cold rice does not taste very good but room temperature is fine. I don't think I have seen children using the "hot bentos", I make one for my husband everyday but it really limits the foods I can put in it, no salads, fruits etc and you have to be careful about certain foods that don't keep well for long periods at semi-hot temps.

Vegetarian bento, can't say I have ever seen one but it should be easy to make, just put in some extra vegetable dishes.　You know, I don't ever recall seeing tofu in a bento....

[Toasted]

Kris, Thanks! No tofu? There is tofu in the miso soup we get here at the local Japanese restaurant. If you have any ideas for my daughter's project I would love to hear them. I'm really happy that she got this one. We're planning on bringing in rice and edameme in little bowls with chopsticks for all the students. We also got some Japanese cookies. I've read that most students in Japan drink milk with lunch. Is there anything else I could bring in for the beverage? BTW: the kids are 8-9 yrs. old. Thanks again.

[Hiroyuki]

Is there anything else I could bring in for the beverage?  BTW: the kids are 8-9 yrs. old.  Thanks again.

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Barley tea (mugicha), of course! Sorry, I'm not Kris.

[helenjp]

1) "hot lunch" bento - my 12 year old son has just started at a new school. Of the 37 kids in his class, only a small handful use the "hot" bento, including him - he uses a thermos pack for the rice and small plastic boxes for the side dishes. Not as heavy as the hot lunch jars which keep everything hot.

This type of hot lunch set doesn't keep the rice really hot, but certainly warm enough that it is soft rather than hard, as cold rice tends to get.

The rest of his class use mostly double-decker lunch boxes, with the rice on the bottom tier and the side dishes on the top tier. These have the advantage of packing smaller for the return journey - the slightly smaller top tier fits inside the bottom tier once they are empty!).

A few use the older style of flat lunchbox, but these are less popular - unless you have the type with individual small containers inside it, the food tends to pack down into one corner on a long commute if not very skilfully packed.

2) Vegetarian bento and tofu.

Tofu itself is watery, so spoils easily and also sheds water through the rest of the bento. I do use "oshi-dofu" - cotton tofu pressed really firmly till about 1/2 its original thickness, then grilled with miso topping, marinated briefly in soy and dashi stock, cubed and tossed in salads or ground sesame, or stir-fried with vegetables.

Vegetarian bento are made by temples, but they are mainly for service inside the temple, and not designed for travel. This type of food is also more influenced by Chinese food - for example, vegetables wrapped in yuba (the skimmed "skin" of heated soy milk) and deep-fried, or simmered in broth.

There's also an agar-agar set tofu jelly known as "fucha tofu" from the fucha style of temple cooking, which is used to make all kinds of seasonally flavored jellies with soy milk. In other cases, arrowroot is used to set vegetable jellies and molds.

Tofu dishes better known are:

"Gisei-dofu" dishes, where the tofu is pressed slightly, sieved, and mixed with a type of grated yam called "tsukune-imo", seasoned and mixed with seasonal vegetables, then fried or steamed.

Hiryouzu or ganmodoki (recipe) are deep-fried, but can then be simmered in flavored stock.

Where ordinary cooking uses sesame seeds, vegetarian food uses a wider variety of nuts and seeds such as walnuts ground into dressings, or poppy seed toppings or coatings.

Other bean dishes - at this time of year, fresh broad beans with a slash in the outer skin and then boiled are often put in lunchboxes. Another non-temple bean dish is sweet beans - dried beans are cooked till nearly tender, then drained and returned to the pot with a little sugar and sometimes soy sauce. Alternatively beans are simmered in dashi broth with sugar and later a little soy, together with cubes of konnyaku jelly, carrot, dried shiitake mushroom, and maybe kelp and burdock root.

Another characteristic of vegetarian cooking is "fu". Fu is a gluten bread - the dough is washed until the starch comes out, leaving just the gluten. This is then baked or simmered. Dried balls or sticks of fu are often used in soups or simmered vegetable dishes in everyday cooking, but fresh fu colored or flavored in seasonal themes is a specialty of temple or high-end kaiseki (formal) dining.

Temple cooking usually includes not only a range of flavors, but a range of textures - deepfrying not only adds calories, but provides crisp textures.

[torakris]

I agree with Hiroyuki, migicha would be the best for an additional drink.

The Japanese eat plenty of tofu, it just isn't something they put into bentos, I am assuming because of the water content.

A typical bento addition (and vegetarian to boot) would be kinpira, lots of pictures and varieties in the kinpira thread.

Another good vegetable suggestion is some kind of green vegetable with goma-ae, sesame dressing, step by step pictures can be found in the eGCI class I did on Japanese Cuisine.

Don't forget eggs!, almost every Japanese bento has eggs of some sort. Lots of egg dish ideas in the tamago thread.

[Toasted]

1) "hot lunch" bento - my 12 year old son has just started at a new school. Of the 37 kids in his class, only a small handful use the "hot" bento, including him - he uses a thermos pack for the rice and small plastic boxes for the side dishes. Not as heavy as the hot lunch jars which keep everything hot.

This type of hot lunch set doesn't keep the rice really hot, but certainly warm enough that it is soft rather than hard, as cold rice tends to get.

The rest of his class use mostly double-decker lunch boxes, with the rice on the bottom tier and the side dishes on the top tier. These have the advantage of packing smaller for the return journey - the slightly smaller top tier fits inside the bottom tier once they are empty!).

A few use the older style of flat lunchbox, but these are less popular - unless you have the type with individual small containers inside it, the food tends to pack down into one corner on a long commute if not very skilfully packed.

2) Vegetarian bento and tofu.

Tofu itself is watery, so spoils easily and also sheds water through the rest of the bento. I do use "oshi-dofu" - cotton tofu pressed really firmly till about 1/2 its original thickness, then grilled with miso topping, marinated briefly in soy and dashi stock, cubed and tossed in salads or ground sesame, or stir-fried with vegetables.

Vegetarian bento are made by temples, but they are mainly for service inside the temple, and not designed for travel. This type of food is also more influenced by Chinese food - for example, vegetables wrapped in yuba (the skimmed "skin" of heated soy milk) and deep-fried, or simmered in broth.

There's also an agar-agar set tofu jelly known as "fucha tofu" from the fucha style of temple cooking, which is used to make all kinds of seasonally flavored jellies with soy milk. In other cases, arrowroot is used to set vegetable jellies and molds.

Tofu dishes better known are:

"Gisei-dofu" dishes, where the tofu is pressed slightly, sieved, and mixed with a type of grated yam called "tsukune-imo", seasoned and mixed with seasonal vegetables, then fried or steamed.

Hiryouzu or ganmodoki (recipe) are deep-fried, but can then be simmered in flavored stock.

Where ordinary cooking uses sesame seeds, vegetarian food uses a wider variety of nuts and seeds such as walnuts ground into dressings, or poppy seed toppings or coatings.

Other bean dishes - at this time of year, fresh broad beans with a slash in the outer skin and then boiled are often put in lunchboxes. Another non-temple bean dish is sweet beans - dried beans are cooked till nearly tender, then drained and returned to the pot with a little sugar and sometimes soy sauce. Alternatively beans are simmered in dashi broth with sugar and later a little soy, together with cubes of konnyaku jelly, carrot, dried shiitake mushroom, and maybe kelp and burdock root.

Another characteristic of vegetarian cooking is "fu". Fu is a gluten bread - the dough is washed until the starch comes out, leaving just the gluten. This is then baked or simmered. Dried balls or sticks of fu are often used in soups or simmered vegetable dishes in everyday cooking, but fresh fu colored or flavored in seasonal themes is a specialty of temple or high-end kaiseki (formal) dining.

Temple cooking usually includes not only a range of flavors, but a range of textures - deepfrying not only adds calories, but provides crisp textures.

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Great information- thank you so much! Is "fu" the same as wheat gluten or seitan? It sounds like it. I make it myself and we eat it in many dishes. Gisei-dofu-Now I know what to look for in when I search for recipes. The Bento box we got has two tiers and the top fits into the bottom tier when empty. Are Japanese chopsticks always smaller than Chinese chops sticks by the way? Maybe it's just the set we got. Thanks for all your help.

[Toasted]

Is there anything else I could bring in for the beverage?  BTW: the kids are 8-9 yrs. old.  Thanks again.

←

Barley tea (mugicha), of course! Sorry, I'm not Kris.

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Great idea! I'm going to try to take some pictures of this project and post them ( even though I suck at taking pictures). Did I mention we almost got the Giant Japanese Salamander instead of food? Close call.

[Toasted]

I agree with Hiroyuki, migicha would be the best for an additional drink.

The Japanese eat plenty of tofu, it just isn't something they put into bentos, I am assuming because of the water content.

A typical bento addition (and vegetarian to boot) would be kinpira, lots of pictures and varieties in the kinpira thread.

Another good vegetable suggestion is some kind of green vegetable with goma-ae, sesame dressing, step by step pictures can be found in the eGCI class I did on Japanese Cuisine.

Don't forget eggs!, almost every Japanese bento has eggs of some sort. Lots of egg dish ideas in the tamago thread.

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I forgot that you did that eGCI on Japanese cuisine. Lots of good stuff there. I just checked out the link to the kinpira thread- more great ideas. My daughter is impressed with all the bento pictures on this thread- she wonders what time the mommies get up to make such good food? I'm now ashamed of the pb&j and apples I pack her most days!

[helenjp]

fu = wheat gluten or seitan, yes.

Kinpira is always a good standby, because it keeps well, even in summer.

Another oldie but goodie is hijiki - here's torakris' recipe. This has the added advantage of freezing well in small, one-serving sizes.

I'll post a couple of recipes later, at the moment I'm just updating my personal file of Very Lazy Cheats for Bentos! The one I like best so far is freezing cubes of tamago-yaki, and adding them frozen to the lunchbox in the morning... .

[helenjp]

vegetarian bentos with all the usual suspects. This is a fall menu.

Top photo:

Top left of the close-ups: seaweed (hijiki), tofu ganmodoki, simmered dish of squash, small taro, and bamboo shoots, deepfried sweet potato (maybe), colored fu

Fresh fu grilled on a skewer with dengaku miso topping (see the miso sauces thread)

black beans simmered in syrup, apple with umeboshi paste

how to make fu - this is pretty much the method I use.

Bottom left of the close-ups: sesame tofu (ground sesame and dashi, seasonings, thickened with arrowroot), okara (tofu lees) croquette, tofu shuumai - a mixed tofu filling in shuumai pastry steamed, fresh tofu "skin", simmered shiitake mushrooms

Bottom right of close-ups: Rice with chopped wakame (sea-lettuce), turned out of a fan-shaped mold - not suitable for a lunch to be carried, only for formal dining, peanuts, probably simmered in sweet liquid, salt-pickled greens.

Fucha style temple cooking bento.

Bit hard to see what's going on...red rice in the back, packed with tempura of vegetables and maybe fu, front left container - maybe sesame tofu or similar arrowroot-set savory jelly in the middle, behind that probably small tofu carved in flowers and simmered, to the left, vegetable wrapped in fried tofu or maybe tofu "skin", and simmered; to the right, a layered simmered dish of vegetables or seaweed layered with dried tofu, simmered in a sweetish broth probably, to the front...hmmm...at a guess, two types of dengaku skewers, probably tofu, some mountain (wild) vegetables, maybe a little dessert of agar jelly and sweet beans?, probably some pretty shapes of fu, and some snow peas; the righthand container...fruit, to the left dressed greens, then left to an orange square of who knows what, in front of that a bundle of veges wrapped in a thin slice of turnip, pickled or vinegared, to the right of that vinegared lotus root, and a skewer of deep fried tofu (at a guess, but could be fu). Beside that, I'm guessing a fucha-style dish of finely shredded root vegetables with a gingko nut, thickened with arrowroot.

Edited May 1, 2006 by helenjp (log)

[_john]

I need a bento! Now that I actually have to be at work during lunch, and sometimes dinner , I need something to save myself from spending a fortune on eating out, or the other option, convenience store bentos. I need something small, sleek, with self contained chopsticks, and hopefully the option to have soup. Right now I ride my bike to work, and soon I will be riding my baiku (motorcycle), so I need something that I can carry in my small bag. I don't recall seeing bentos in any of the stores I have been in, but surely I just overlooked them. Recommendations? maybe I can just order one on the internet to save time on bento browsing? Something stylish and unique would be bonus points!

Edited May 14, 2006 by _john (log)

[torakris]

You should be able to find them anywhere!

Most supermarkets will have a housewares section that sells them but for a bigger selection I always go to DIY/Home Center or a place like Ito Yokado or Jusco, I am not sure what stores they have down there.

[Hiroyuki]

I agree with torakris. To make that kind of purchase, you must actually look at and touch different types of bento boxes. I don't think purchasing one on the Internet is a good idea unless you already know what to look for.

[_john]

GET!

the text reads:

Pleasure Supply

The simple form makes a beautiful and practical lunch box.

You can have full realization of its high quality, use by use.

I totally agree with this message . there is a place to put your chopsticks and the inside has an adjustable divider. tomorrow will be rice with umeboshi and pork with nira.

[Hiroyuki]

GET!

the text reads:

Pleasure Supply

The simple form makes a beautiful and practical lunch box.

You can have full realization of its high quality, use by use.

I totally agree with this message  . there is a place to put your chopsticks and the inside has an adjustable divider. tomorrow will be rice with umeboshi and pork with nira.

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OK, show us your bento tomorrow!

[Toasted]

Thank you for all the support and ideas! My daughters presentation went great. Sorry, no pictures yet, it was too chaotic here on Fri. morning. The kids loved using the chops sticks with the rice and everybody at least tried the edememe and many of them really liked it. The big hit was the bento box. The bottom layer was rice, carrot sticks, and chopped green pepper. I used a cookie cutter to cut smoked tofu into "stars" to put on top of the rice. The top layer was sliced plums and grapes and a diamond shaped brownie which I placed in a muffin paper to keep it dry. It really looked great and Emily loved eating it. It was a bit time consuming though, probably because I'm new at it. I'll try to post a picture of tomorrows bento.

[helenjp]

I was wondering how your bento had gone, Toasted! Look forward to pix.

John, I would never have picked that particular bento box ( because I hate washing out the small chopstick container part times 4 family members!), so just shows how personal the choice is!

Recent trends spotted...

- a double-decker lunchbox which had small plastic containers inside instead of a divider. Up till then, the double-decker lunchboxes I'd seen had very simple interiors.

- a double-decker aluminum lunchbox with an entirely removable inside container, so you can heat the plastic container, then drop it into the metal container, which transfers heat away from the lunchbox and cools it faster (all-plastic boxes do tend to retain heat).

- not so very recent, but lots of insulated lunchbox bags around, some with pockets for frozen cool packs in them.

Edited May 16, 2006 by helenjp (log)

[Hiroyuki]

The new word that I learned recently from a TV show was kyara-ben, short for character bento, which refers to a bento featuring a character(s). I googled kyara-ben (in Japanese), and the first site that came up was the one that caught the eye of Jason Perlow.

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kasumin_yorosiku

http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/2006/04/18/creepy-bentos/

Jason, the guy's name is Hirohide Yakumaru, a member of a singing group called Shibugakitai turned actor. He is now a host of a popular TV morning show called Hanamaru Market.

[helenjp]

Bento blog in English

Looks to be kindergarten-age bentos. The western-Japanese mix makes for some useful bento ideas for other western-Japanese mix kitchens!

[Lynn Shipp]

I have really got into using bentos for many of my meals away from home. I find it a good way to work with losing weight and portion control.

While my bentos are more of a western style (because I can only make a few Japanese dishes .. so far ), I think they are still cool.

I honestly have a lot of fun with them. It unleashes a bit of creativity. I post pictures of my bentos from time to time on my flickr account along with dishes I have made.

My Flickr Page

For Bento Ideas, I use the "search" feature on Flickr. There are more people not just myself that are into Bento here in N. America. There great pictures to be found.

I have been buying bentos and supplies of ebay. There are several people specialize in bento goodies now on eBay. Thank goodness for eBay. Otherwise I might just be bento-less. hehehe

Edited August 1, 2006 by Lynn Shipp (log)

[jasie]

While surfing the net for bento inspiration.. I found this site. Its pretty cute with pictures and recipes. and.. i LOVE the bento calendar(gallery)!

http://www.cookingcute.com/index.htm

[Hiroyuki]

Do you know how to make a well-balanced bento with the number of calories that is right for you easily--without any cumbersome calorie calculation?  Here's how to do it:

Just follow the 3:1:2 law.  3:1:2 refers to the ratio of shushoku 主食 (rice), shusai 主菜 (fish, meat, eggs, soy beans, soy bean products, etc.), and fukusai 副菜 (vegetables, mushrooms, seaweed, etc.). 

1)  Determine how many calories your bento should have.  If 700 kcal, then use a 700-ml bento box; if 500 kcal, then a 500-ml box.  1 ml for 1 kcal.

2)  Pack one half of the box with plain cooked rice.

3)  Pack the other half with shusai and fukusai at the ratio of 1 to 2.

Caution:  Don't pack the box too much, or the number of calories won't be right for you.

Last Saturday, my son (8) and I attended a bento making class aimed at elementary school pupils and their guardians that was organized by the town community center.  The class was intended to teach how to make a bento in the way described above.

Packing bento boxes:

And ours:

I guess that the 3:1:2 law is similar to the food pyramid with sweets and milk removed:

http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/nutrition/nutrition.html

Websites on the 3:1:2 law (Japanese only):

http://www.kochi-u.ac.jp/~harigai/sub1.htm

http://www.nhk.or.jp/gatten/archive/1997q2/19970402.html

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For those who want to follow the 3:1:2 law, here is an innovative bento box.