A Bento is a single portion meal you pack at home. It’s common in Japanese cuisine and it’s becoming more and more popular in North America. You might have seen photos of cute Bento boxes on various social media sites. I’m here to tell you how to build and create these adorable meals.
A traditional Bento meal consists of rice, meat (including fish), and cooked vegetables in a box container. The adorable Bento meals that have been showing up on social media are called ‘oekakiben’ or ‘picture bento’. These meals have food shaped and decorated like people, animals, places or plants.
First step to making an adorable and yummy Bento meal:
Buy a Bento box! There are a lot of places online you can find cute, geeky, and/or pretty Bento containers. Some even have a couple containers that all snap together. Amazon, ThinkGeek, ModCloth, and JBOX all have some great options! Bento boxes can be found in stores as well, especially as they become more popular.
Second, buy food accessories to shape and decorate your food:
JBOX has a TON of accessories that can be used to shape your food into adorable animals and other things. There are plenty of food picks, paper wrappers, and stamps to ‘decorate’ your food. Of course you don’t have to buy special Bento box tools. You could always use cookie cutters to shape your rice, sandwich or cucumber slices. Cupcake liners and toppers would also work. The options are endless if you let your creativity fly!
Third step is to photograph your Bento box before eating it:
Photograph and share your creation! You never know who you’re inspiring with your cute Bento box meal.
With school started, no matter what your age, a cute Bento meal is a great way to brighten your mid-day lunch break. Plus, it’s guaranteed to put a smile on a child’s face if they don’t know what fun-shaped food lies within their Bento lunch box.
Have you tried making a Bento box meal before? Please share your photos or tips in the comments!
Did you mean Japanese cuisine? Cause, uh, Asia’s HUGE and has several thousand cuisines?
Yes, Japanese cuisine. But from what I read it’s also popular in China and Taiwan. And there’s similar bento lunches in the Philippines and India.
Uh, as the actual Asian living in Asia, bento is a Japanese word. The pictures of kyara-ben originate from Japan (that’s not to say other countries aren’t doing it now that it’s popular but that’s like saying ALL pizza is Italian pizza).
What you’re talking about is a packed lunch culture, which only a tiny minority has adorable cute lunches as it’s traditionally mothers doing so for their grade school kids as it’s seen as childish (there is a local entrepreneur in my city delivering handmade plastic takeout containers of personalised kyara-ben though and it is adorable!).
Saying all of Asia has a bento culture is a gross oversimplification, like saying everyone in America (North and South) eats Pizza Hut.
Certainly Wikipedia lists a handful of other Asian countries but all their names translate into “boxed lunch” or “food provision” or something similar to that. Pretty much most of the Asian countries do have some kind of packed meal culture as they’ve been mostly poor so it’s much more cheaper than having to waste time on your break going out to a location and paying more for food.
Also, it’s Wikipedia which now boasts a majority amount of white male editors since they’ve driven out and pushed out most of the ladies. Accuracy is not their forte, not since GamerGate.
Bento =/= Asia
Bento = Japanese packed meals
Asia = Includes places like Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Thailand and not just East Asia
Thanks for the clarification. I’ve changed the wording.
I recommend the Just Bento cookbook! I’ve used it for lots of bentos and it’s been an amazing resource! I have some photos on my instagram of the bentos I’ve made. https://instagram.com/toastytreat/ They’re so yummy! https://instagram.com/p/6QEu6ByG59/?taken-by=toastytreat