Bento: Japanese Lunch Box

Bento(弁当) is very popular in Japan because of its variation and portability. Most Japanese wives make bento for their children who need to bring it to school, or for their husbands who need to bring it to work. As you can see in the above photo, bento usually contains rice and bite-size portion of side dishes, and those are divided into sections according to each food type, so that the different tastes do not run into each other. The most popular type of food are fish dishes, Japanese omelets, and pickles like umeboshi(梅干) or takuan(たくあん: pickled Japanese radish), but there are unlimited number of food type which can be put in bento. Bento is one of Japanese food culture.

Japanese school children often bring bento to their schools as lunch. Quite a few mothers wake up early in the morning and make bento for their children. They make bento not only for their children but also for their husbands. Especially, the bento which are made by wives for their husbands are called Aisai Bento (愛妻弁当). It literally means “bento made by loving wives”.
Bento is one of pleasures at Hanami especially between couples. Couples often enjoy girls’ handmade bento under the cherry trees. Girls put a lot of efforts to make delicious, elaborate bento for their boyfriends. They are eager to make their boyfriends happy and they want them to say “It’s nice”. Girls are looking forward to eating bento with their boyfriends at Hanami.
People make bento to make someone happy and a person who eat it thanks a person who made it.

Makunouchi Bento from http://homepage2.nifty.com/orangecab/product01.html

Although I have been talking about handmade bento, there are now a lot of bentos which are sold at convenience stores or supermarkets. This type of bento is also popular in Japan. It is said that this type of bento originates from “Makunouchi Bento (幕の内弁当)” in Edo period. People in Edo ate Makunouchi Bento during intermission of Nou (能) or Kabuki (歌舞伎), so it is called “幕(curtain)の内(during) 弁当”. The most typical commercial bento which have rice and other kinds of food divided into each section are still well known as the name of “Makunouochi Bento”.

Ekiben (駅弁) is also one of the popular type of bento. It can be easily got at train stations’ shops, or on the trains. It is especially often found at the stations where limited express and bullet trains leave. People enjoy ekiben during the long time boarding. There are a lot of kinds of ekiben, and people can enjoy unique and own bentos which vary from place to place. You can find each place’s specialty in ekiben. Ekiben is one of pleasures of train trips for Japanese.

Links: Ekiben Museum (You can find ekiben of each area in Japan. )