Bento

Class description

When was the last time you opened a lunch box that looked like a work
of art? Japanese families make lunches that are beautiful as well as nutritionally
balanced, and it’s easier than it sounds! Learn to make little lunch-sized
food sculptures with a few flicks of a carving knife. Cook Japanese foods
that will keep well for lunches or picnics. Fill your lunchbox (or picnic
basket) with cute food like hard-boiled egg chicks, inari or apple bunnies,
and (for the ambitious) maybe even the Powerpuff Girls (made of ingredients
like ham, omelets, and roasted peppers!) Class meets Oct. 3.

Class outline

[ PPT print version ] [ PPT pictures version ]

  • Japanese bento principles
  • Some bento okazu recipes
  • Color and cooking style balance
  • Decorating
    • Three dimensional decorating
      • Apple bunnies
      • Egg chicks
      • Inari bunnies
      • Temari – onigiri
      • Carrot flowers
    • Two dimensional decorating colors, textures
      • Soboros – egg yolk, egg white, crumbled nori, sesame seeds, furikake, etc
      • Flat surfaces – nori, inari, lunch meat, cheese, roasted peppers, painting bread with egg before toasting
      • Flat precut shapes – olive rings, fruit slices, carrots, beets, Japanese pickles
      • Tools: Little scissors, saran wrap and permanent marker, little cookie cutters, sharp paring knife

Links:

BentoLunch Livejournal community – An active community of English speakers who make bento, from novices to experienced hands.

Lunch in a Box – The personal blog of one of the most experienced posters on the BentoLunch community, and very well tagged and annotated.

E-obento.com – One author’s Japanese-language online diary of her daily bento-making adventures (which led to a book that came out in Japan in October ’05.)

Ekiben.or.jp – Clickable map of Japanese train stations and pictures of their station-specific bento.