Dec. 27, 2024
Typical bento bought in grocery stores.
Bento (Japanese: bentō) is a Japanese style of single-serving takeout meal or home-packed lunch, often containing rice, packed in a box with a lid (often in a divided box with different parts of the meal placed in separate sections). Outside of Japan, similar meals are common in other Asian culinary traditions, particularly in Chinese, Korean, Singaporean, Taiwanese cuisine, and others, as rice is a staple ingredient in this region. The term bento comes from the Chinese term biandang (便当, pinyin: biàndāng), meaning "convenient" or "convenience."
Traditional bento usually includes rice or noodles with fish or other meat, often accompanied by pickled and cooked vegetables in the box. Containers range from mass-produced disposable ones to handmade lacquerware. Dividers are commonly used to separate ingredients or dishes, especially those with strong flavors, to prevent their tastes from affecting the rest of the meal. A typical divider is green plastic grass, also known as 'sushi grass'. This also helps slow down the growth of bacteria.
Bento is easily available in many places in Japan, including grocery stores, bento shops (bentō-ya), train stations, and department stores. Japanese housewives often spend time and energy meticulously preparing lunch boxes for their husbands, children, or themselves. Outside Japan, the term bento box may be used (for example, in English menus at Japanese restaurants). Bento can be artfully arranged in a style called "kyaraben" (character bento), which is usually decorated to resemble popular characters from Japanese animation (anime), comics (manga), or video games. Another popular style of bento is "oekakiben" or "picture bento". This style is decorated to resemble people, animals, buildings and monuments, or items such as flowers and plants. Competitions are often held where bento arrangers compete for the most aesthetically pleasing arrangements.
Comparable forms of boxed lunches in other Asian countries, such as China, Taiwan, and other Sinophone communities, are known as héfàn (饭盒) or biàndāng in Mandarin and piān-tong in Taiwanese Hokkien, or in Korea as dosirak (Hangul: 도시락). Other Asian countries may simply use bento as a borrowing or hokben, which means "steamed bento." There have also been discussions about what bento signifies for Japanese society and what it represents. Analyses range from a simple semiotic approach to one that delineates deeper ideological meanings behind bento.
In Japan, "bento" is written in kanji as . The term itself originates from a slang term from the Song dynasty (宋), (pinyin: biàndāng), meaning "convenient" or "comfortable" (this sense is still used in Wu dialects such as Shanghainese). Upon being imported to Japan, it was transliterated with ateji and . In modern times, the term is commonly used in East and Southeast Asia. In China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, "bento" remains written as its original name (pinyin: biàndāng). In other Sinophone communities, both biandang and bento are often used interchangeably.
The rise in popularity of bento and its term can be traced back to the 12th century, during the Kamakura period, when boiled and dried rice called hoshi-ii (干饭, literally "dried food"), which was taken to work. Hoshi-ii could be eaten dry or cooked in water to obtain cooked rice, and it was stored in a small bag. By the 16th century, wooden lacquered boxes were produced, and bento was consumed during hanami or tea ceremonies.
During the Edo period, bento culture spread and became more sophisticated. Travelers and tourists would carry simple koshibentō (腰弁当, "belt bento"), consisting of several onigiri wrapped in bamboo leaves or in a woven bamboo box. One of the most popular styles of bento, called makuno-uchi bentō ("bento between acts"), was first created in this period. People attending Noh and Kabuki would eat specially prepared bento between maku (acts). Numerous cookbooks were published, detailing how to cook, pack, and prepare for events such as hanami and Hinamatsuri.
During the Meiji era, the sale of the first ekibentō or ekiben (駅弁, "station bento") started. There are several records claiming where the first ekiben was sold, but it is believed to have been sold on July 16 at Utsunomiya Station in the northern Kanto region, containing two onigiri and a portion of takuan (pickled radish) wrapped in bamboo leaves. As early schools did not provide lunch, students and teachers would bring bento, as would many workers.
In the Taishō period, aluminum bento boxes became a luxury item due to their ease of cleaning and shiny appearance. Moreover, the movement to abolish the practice of bento in schools became a social issue. Wealth inequalities spread during this period after the export boom during World War I and later poor harvests in the Tohoku region. Bento too often reflected the wealth of the student, and many questioned whether it had detrimental effects on children, both physically from inadequate diets and psychologically from poorly made bento or food wealth. After World War II, the practice of bringing bento to school gradually declined and was replaced by uniform meals provided for all students and teachers.
Bento gained popularity in the 1980s, aided by the microwave and proliferation of grocery stores. In addition, expensive wooden and metal boxes were mostly replaced by cheap, disposable Styrofoam boxes. However, even handmade bento experienced a renaissance and once again became a common, although not universal, sight in Japanese schools. Bento continues to be used by workers as packed lunches, by families during day trips, and also at school picnics and sports days. Home-packed bento is wrapped in furoshiki fabric, which serves as both a bag and a table mat.
In recent years, various trends in bento have been noted in Japan. Often these trends lead to remarkable changes in the consumer behavior of the Japanese. Here are examples of some trends in Japanese bento and their timelines:
Kyaraben (currently) - adorable character-shaped bento.
High-quality nori bento (currently) - luxury bento made from high-quality nori seaweed.
Single-portion bento (currently) - large bento for big appetites.
Taco Rice Bento (currently) - bento with taco rice, a local dish from Okinawa prefecture.
Separate bento (currently) - simple and unique bento boxes are gaining popularity.
The Chinese word for boxed lunches is héfàn (盒饭), although biàndāng as a borrowing from Japan may also be used. There are various regional styles, from Northeast Chinese lunch boxes to Hong Kong lunch boxes "two dishes with rice." Traditional packaged lunches were transported in boxes known as shí hé (食盒), which translate as "food box." Shí hé ranged from basic models to ornate, multi-layered designs.
Bento arrived in Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century, during the Japanese colonial period, and remains popular to this day. The Japanese name has been borrowed into Taiwanese (piān-tong) and Hakka (phien-tông). Modern Taiwanese bento always includes a protein, such as a crispy fried chicken leg, a piece of grilled mackerel, and marinated pork chop, alongside side dishes. Taiwan's bento is prominently produced and distributed by the Taiwan Railway Administration at major train stations and on trains. It is estimated that five million boxed meals are sold annually, generating annual revenue from bento distribution amounting to 370 million NTD (about 10 million USD).
In Korea, boxed lunches are called dosirak (도시락), and they are made at home or purchased from stores. They are similar to the Chinese and Japanese variants with some differences. Korean bento boxes typically consist of several different vegetable and meat dishes, often including kimchi.
In Singapore, such packaged lunch boxes are often acculturated and localized with cuisines somewhat different from Japan. They might include roasted pork (similar to char siu) and soy eggs, as well as fried rice. This was a common way of meal preparation in Singaporean cuisine as early as the 20th century, which intensified during the Japanese Occupation and cultural influences in the subsequent decades, with Japanese bento also being widespread in the country today.
In Japan, it is common for mothers to prepare bento for their children to take to school. Since preparing bento can take some time, some mothers prepare ingredients the night before and then assemble and pack everything the next morning before their children leave for school. It is often a social expectation for mothers to provide bento for their children, creating a meal that is both nutritionally balanced and aesthetically pleasing. Such an activity is expected of mothers and emphasized by society as a whole and is common in preschools.
Traditional bento, which is eaten at school or at work, is usually prepared by a mother or wife. However, it can also be purchased at konbini (mini-stores) or from street vendors who appear on street corners during lunch breaks. For those in a hurry who need to spend their lunch time aboard the shinkansen (high-speed train), there is also ekiben, which, as the name implies, is available at train stations. Bento is also present during more formal moments, even on the Japanese New Year's table, for example. Then it is called osechi, consisting of two or three layers and containing costly dishes that are consumed during this high moment of the Japanese calendar.
Many researchers have written about bento since the late 20th century. The foundation of their approach is the idea that food can carry many different meanings.
In the 1980s, Chie Nakane used ekiben, a specific type of bento sold at train stations, as a metaphor for group organization in Japan. By comparing this variety of bento to groups in Japan, he pondered how various organizations within Japanese society often contain identical components to avoid relying on other groups to achieve success. For O-Young Lee, bento is utilized to illustrate reductionist tendencies of Japanese culture. The entire food in this Japanese-style lunch can only be reduced to fit into a small box, which stems from the fact that it is Japanese food; naturally suitable for tight composition. Roland Barthes, on the other hand, used a symbolic approach to describe the lack of a centerpiece in Japanese food. He described the separate components of the bento box as many fragments or decorations that come together to enhance each other. Joseph Jay Tobin, in the 1990s, explored how careful composition of individual bento was facilitated by the reinterpretation of Western goods, practices, and ideas through a process he termed domestication.
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