School Lunches

In Japan, students and teachers subscribe to a school lunch, called "kyushokyu".  Every day, this meal is cooked offsite and delivered to the school in heavy duty metal containers.  Each class (and the staffroom) gets its own allocated portion of food along with accompanying lunch trays, plates, bowls, chopsticks or sporks and a carton of milk per person.

At lunchtime designated members of class don aprons, hats and face masks before collecting the lunch order for their group.  Trays are laid out, food is divvied up and then you sit at your desk and eat it.  Generally, you must finish your lunch and restack your plates/bowls/tray before you are allowed to go anywhere/do anything else at lunchtime.

Initially, I signed up for school lunches at Awa Junior High School (at a cost of about 80AUD per month) but after a dreadful September menu, I cancelled my order and mostly go lunchless at school now.  I have maintained an order for Wednesday's at Elementary School though, as I find the lunches made for the little kids to be a bit more palatable to the Western tastebud.

Check out some of the lunches I've eaten so far:

This is one of the better school lunches, featuring: beef curry, white rice, fruit salad and a carton of milk.

This school lunch was ok: grilled fish, beef and potato miso soup, white rice, frozen pineapple chunk and a carton of milk.

The beef patty in this school lunch made the vegetable soup and pickled cucumber/cabbage bearable.

This is what losing the school lunch lottery looks like: mini raw fish and seaweed salad, pumpkin and seafood stew and rice ice-cream - WTF?

Sometimes the staff receive special bento boxes (lunch boxes) for school lunch.  This usually happens if we have to work on the weekend or for a special occasion.  This bento box was in honour of Setsubun Festival - a day when setsubun beans (the purple beans cooked into the rice) are thrown at "a demon" to try and scare bad luck away.

This is why Elementary School lunches rock - exhibit A.  Cream Stew (almost like Chicken Fricasee), fried rice and an omelette alongside the ubiquitous carton of milk.

Another school lunch win: mince and tofu stew, fried gyoza (Chinese dumplings), white rice, yakult yoghurt drink and a carton of milk.

Spaghetti bolognaise, a bread roll, pickled vegetable, a cup of Japanese tea and a carton of milk.

One of the best school lunches I've ever had: pizza toast, tuna and vegetable salad, creamy pumpkin soup and a carton of milk.

A recent elementary school lunch win: fresh slices of bread, plastic cheese, vegetable patty, pickled cabbage and tomatoe sauce (used to make a burger) with egg/beef soup, a mandarin and a carton of milk.