A Bento Lunch Fable (Love, Lunch, and Fancy Shapes)
I have become obsessed with lunch boxes. There. I said it. It’s out there. Now we can all move forward into the dilemma that comes with obsessing over something like a lunch box post elementary school. I think for most people lunch boxes aren’t a big deal, because it’s just lunch. And if you forget lunch you can always run out and grab it. Unless you’re a teacher. And only have half an hour on a good day if everything is running smoothly and on time. If you’re wondering how often that happens, I’m going to go out on a limb and say 70% of the time. The other part of this is that even if everything is going great, and running on time, and no one is sick, injured or otherwise engaged, it’s not like we’re bringing in the big bucks. So for most of us, eating out is both unrealistic and physically impossible.
Of course the upside is we are healthier, right? We’re pulling things out of our pantry and putting together beautiful lunches to enjoy peacefully during the twenty minute downtime, yes? Or are most of us throwing whatever we can find in the morning into a bag in a desperate attempt to not be late yet again? I’m the latter. Thursday I arrived at work with four different containers and am not entirely sure what’s in them yet. I put these in a giant brown paper bag with a fork. It looked like I stopped off to do some weekly shopping on my way into work.
Over the years, I have gone through a number of lunch boxes. Of course when I was a kid I had an awesome one. It was a metal Barbie (1980s Barbie!) with its own thermos that had this fantastic cup thing you could never really use. Then at some point I moved on to lunch bags, and in high school we had an amazing cooking staff so I would never have thought of not eating the food. Really. Edna’s fried chicken recipe made it into Southern Living. College was, well, college. There are probably anthropological studies on what American college students eat. It wasn’t until I was in New York that I legitimately had to figure something out because a girl cannot live on falafel sandwiches alone (even if a girl wants to). So I went old school and started packing my lunch again. And continued it when I returned to NC for grad school. Often I would spend most of the day on campus so it made sense to bring food unless I wanted to return to the college eating habits- and I didn’t.
Are you still reading this? That’s amazing, because I haven’t even really gotten to the meatiest part of this, though I’m sure you’ve guessed where it’s leading. A New Lunch Box, Bag, System, Something. Which is where you, my fine friends, come in. Here is the current situation:
Our Drawer of Containers
Current Lunch Bag (NO IDEA where it came from)
Normally lunch is leftovers from dinner. Typically a couple of veggies (steamed spinach or kale, peas, corn, etc) with some sort of protein or a sandwich. And dessert because that’s really the most important part of a meal. I also seem to eat about fifty percent more than the average person, so I bring a couple of snacks- yogurt or fruit, some nuts maybe. Now we’re thinking about how to organize all of that into a reasonably sized container or bag and not look so ridiculous at the lunch table. So I started doing some “research”. Meaning I googled best adult lunch boxes, and went to Amazon and read some other blog posts about it, like http://wendolonia.com/blog/bento-box-basics/lunch-box-comparison-chart-how-6-popular-boxes-stack-up/ and http://lunchinabox.net/
That’s where things started to go downhill for me. As an obsessive person- and yes, I’ll admit that too- I started thinking about what makes the “perfect” working lunch. This is completely subjective. And changes over time. When I was kid, the perfect school lunch was something that included Oreo cookies at the end. Scratch that- that’s actually still the perfect lunch but my entrée wants have changed. So I spent a lot of time hanging out with a meat sandwich of some sort, or peanut butter and jelly, with carrot sticks and maybe chips too. We didn’t do snack time that I can remember growing up. Or maybe it just wasn’t organized the way it is now. And it wasn't as pretty (see below):
So you see my dilemma. The issue is the container. Is a bento realistic for a regular person? Is there any lunch system that is realistic for a regular person? How can you neatly organize it so you don’t show up with a full size grocery bag full of mismatched containers?? Here are some I have looked at (longingly):
Zojirushi Mr. Bento
MonBento
Could adult bento change the way we eat? This is a call for HELP!! What do y'all do about the second most important meal of the day?
Zojirushi Mr. Bento
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| Kotobuki |
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