School Lunch

...kind of.

In Japanese schools, 給食 (kyuushoku), or school lunch, is compulsory. There is a special person at the head of the Kyushoku Center who crafts the menus for all the schools in an area, term by term. These aren't the frozen something-nuggets that our schools threw in an oven, or the limp green beans and french fries we warily ate in American schools (I saw "we" collectively, as I always brought my own lunch to school). Japanese school lunch is in fact made by the people at the centers. The idea is that, by eating the lunch prepared by the lunch centers, the schools can educate children on healthy eating habits.

A typical Japanese school lunch (in my area) consists of:

Rice
Salad
Miso Soup (variety)
Meat (usually fish or chicken)
Milk

(On special occasions, perhaps thrice a year, there's cake or some other sweet.)

This really translates to:

A mountain of rice.
Half a small plate of thin, pickled cucumber salad.
Miso soup with  some vegetables, but mostly potato and konnyaku (a hard, tasteless jelly)
Meat (which, when not chicken or fish, translates to fried medalians full of mystery called 'croquet')
Milk (freezing in the winter, luke warm at best in the summer by the time you can drink it.)

This all adds up to a whopping 1,000  calories. 

That's almost a daily caloric intake, I thought when I first found out. No wonder I felt like I was going to burst.

While granted more delicious than any public school meal I'd had in the States,  I don't need that much food at lunch. I can't eat that much food at lunch! Kyushoku was built with growing children in mind. But teachers in the public system have to heat it, too, as a way to educate the children. And, you have to eat everything, even the things that you don't like (even if you hate it). I guess it's good in a way because it makes children have to try new things, but at the same time I think it can breed resentment. I  certainly felt resentful. There aren't a lot of foods I dislike, and even then I can eat them if the situation calls for it, but having to eat everything on my plate, especially when I didn't serve myself, was extremely taxing.  I was seriously struggling not to fall into a post-lunch coma during my afternoon classes, especially at elementary school where I have to be the most active.

I tried asking the teachers who make the lunches to serve me less, but they kept doing the same thing. Again, and again, and again.

So I quit. And started bringing my own lunches.

I was lucky, since my school still let me eat with the children. I suppose they see it as a form of cultural exposure, but other people who have quit eating Kyushoku weren't so lucky. Their schools made them stop eating with the children so as to not influence them.

In any case, my lunches (now cut down to perhaps a third of its previous caloric value) consist of many different recipes, some local, some Cuabn (when you try to make picadillo in Japan, you learn just how much a difference an olive makes!), and most times my own creations.

This is my most recent Japanese お弁当（o-bento), or "homemade lunch."



かっぱ巻き（kappa maki)Cucumber roll with sesame (I cheated and added prociutto because, well, I had some left!)


いなり寿司(inari-zushi) Sweet soybean curd filled with vinegared rice (and sometimes other stuff).

たくあん(takuan) Yellow, pickled Japanese radish

A little pre-made pasta salad (you wouldn't believe how popular that stuff is here!)