Obento Box Creations

Yesterday was our first day in the Husky Den Kitchen, and we created Obento Boxes, Japanese lunchboxes given to children before school and prepared with extreme amounts of detail and thought. Before creating our own obentos, we viewed some extravagant obento boxes we were given some background information by Dr. Andrea G. Arai, a Japanese Anthropologist. I was shocked by the degree to which obento's reflect a child and a mother's status with the school teacher, and with one another.

The time, energy, and amount of preparation involved with the obento's was unlike anything I had ever seen given to a child for lunch. Reflecting upon my own life, my mom threw together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in what seemed to be warp speed in the mornings, added some chips and a piece of fruit and put it in a brown paper sack for me. The contrast between my lunches as a child and the creative obento's we were shown in class was unbelievable.

Once we were able to make our own obento boxes, I was able to see how small they actually are, and that made the details of the ones we had seen even more incredible. I really enjoyed creating my obento box for my friend Sarah, I used pink and yellow radish, cucumber, rice, salmon, edimome beans, and soy sauce in her obento.

Here is a picture of the obento I made for her:


I really enjoyed the obento box process, learning about the Japanese culture of obento's and having a hands-on experience made me understand the meaning behind the obento box.