for packed lunch at work. This involves some steamed white rice, seaweed flat stuff, maybe I can make some sushi with avacado and fresh vacuum sealed cold salmon (ready to eat raw is available, actually). A couple cheese cubes would also supply decent protein intake. Seaweed salad would also go nicely in there somewhere, and I can always pack in a Kiwi although the occasional overripe persimmon or some black figs would be a boon. Perhaps a lemon or lime and some crab meat or a crab claw (like in the picture; these are fine chilled), served of course with a
of green tea with a little honey. (I keep a 20oz Rikyu tetsubin at my desk)
I think the whole thing is quite shibui; and seaweed wrapped rice could easily become a staple for me.
Thoughts for small pieces of food to pack together?
Grapes and fruit chunks obviously pack together, but what else serves cold? Cheese cubes, seaweed salad I covered. Meat is hard (I mean, sea food maybe; I like sea food), hence the sushi. Rice is excellent.
Sticking a baloney sandwich in the fridge has gone out of style.
All sorts of things could go in that Bento-box. How about some crackers with a rich jam, soft cheese and pickled veg to accompany whatever else gets put in there?
I bought it because of the aesthetic; but admittedly, the pair cost $55 (yeah I got two). High-quality Bento Boxes go for $250+ each; DECENT ones go for $30. Anywhere below that and you get the most hideous looking garbage, unbelievably gaudy. That is not the aesthetic I prefer.
Take these $1100 Go bowls, for example:
Or these $80 ones:
Disgraceful. Far too kitsch for the $80 set; far too noisy for the $1100 set. Consider the $50 set:
Sure there are some very nice $150 bowls-- favorably to me, Kaya:
But the $50 Jujube bowls are quite shibui. As would be this room if those cushions were less gaudy:
A good set of Bento Boxes might cost a bit more than a Rubbermaid set; but it’s more the aesthetic than the price. It is calming to the mind; in fact this is exactly what set my mind in the proper state to envision something more complex than stir fry or a ham sandwich as lunch. I suppose it is a disability that I couldn’t envision anything beautiful to complement a $2 blue plastic Tupperware TV tray.
But don’t we even go so far as to control the color and even the clarity of the beer we brew? Not just to make it light/dark and arbitrarily clear; but to make certain styles cloudy to compliment the stylistic color and traditional serving glass shape, and other styles crystal clear but darker and even more carbonated for an aesthetic change.
Hmm… crackers… hard tac or saltine? Soft cheese… pickled vegetables I can live without. A pickled beet egg maybe, or brown pickled eggs (malt vinegar) depending on aesthetic and flavor profile compliments (those English malt eggs can kick your ass if made strong and hot).
It’s funny, people tell me pickled eggs last 2-3 weeks… but I actually age the damn things for 4-6 months before eating them. Maybe I’ll make some red beet eggs.
This way you can have warm food for lunch. I make a miso in the morning, and that’s the bottom container, it helps keep the container above it warm. So soup, starch n meat in the next container, then veggies or fruit in the top container.
That plastic set is pretty cool. How much was that?
I like the stack able SS ones the Chinese stores have. I used to use them all of the time. I boiled a pot of water on a hot plate and and steamed the stack of containers. Even when working out doors they work well.
Those sushi boxes are nice.Not really for packing lunch though are they? More for table service.
I gather bento boxes were traditionally used as simple lunchboxes…it is the American popularization of Japanese food, particularly sushi, that has turned them into a restaurant specialty. The word itself is a form of “convenient” or “convenience”, I think probably initially aesthetics were secondary to it just being a handy way to carry a diverse bit of lunch.
