A bento (弁当, bentō)[1] is the Japanese iteration of a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal, often for lunch. Outside Japan, it is common in other East and Southeast Asian culinary styles, especially within Chinese, Korean, Singaporean, Taiwanese cuisines and more, as rice is a common staple food in the region. The term bento is derived from the Chinese term biandang (便當, pinyin: biàndāng), which means "convenient" or "convenience".[2]
A traditional bento may contain rice or noodles with fish or meat, often with pickled and cooked vegetables in a box.[3] Containers range from mass-produced disposables to hand-crafted lacquerware. Often various dividers are used to separate ingredients or dishes, especially those with strong flavors, to avoid them affecting the taste of the rest of the meal. A typical divider is green plastic grass, also known as the 'sushi grass'. This also works to slow the growth of bacteria.[4]
Bento are readily available in many places throughout Japan, including convenience stores, bento shops (弁当屋, bentō-ya), railway stations, and department stores. However, Japanese homemakers often spend time and energy on carefully prepared box lunches for their spouses, children, or themselves. Outside Japan, the term bento box may be used (e.g., on English menus for Japanese restaurants). Bentos can be elaborately arranged in a style called "kyaraben" ("character bento"), which are typically decorated to look like popular characters from Japanese animation (anime), comic books (manga), or video games. Another popular bento style is "oekakiben" or "picture bento". This is decorated to look like people, animals, buildings and monuments or items such as flowers and plants. Contests are often held where bento arrangers compete for the most aesthetically attractive arrangements.
In Japan, "bento" is written in the Kanji 弁当. The word itself originates from the Chinese Song dynasty slang term 便当 (便當, pinyin: biàndāng), meaning "convenient" or "convenience" (This sense is still used in Wu dialects such as Shanghainese[5]). When it was imported to Japan, it was written with the ateji 便道 and 弁道.[2][6] The word "bento" has been used since the 13th century, and the container itself, also called "bento", has been known since the 16th century.[2] In modern times, the term is commonly used in East and Southeast Asia. In mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, "bento" remains written as the original name 便當 (pinyin: biàndāng). In other Sinophone communities, both biandang and bento are often interchangeably used.
The increased popularity of bento and its term can be traced back to the 12th century during the Kamakura period, when cooked and dried rice called hoshi-ii (糒 or 干し飯, literally "dried meal") was developed, to be carried to work.[3] Hoshi-ii can be eaten as is or boiled with water to make cooked rice, and is stored in a small bag. By the 16th century, wooden lacquered boxes were produced, and bento would be eaten during a hanami or a tea party.
Bentos regained popularity in the 1980s, with the help of the microwave oven and the proliferation of convenience stores. In addition, the expensive wood and metal boxes have been replaced at most bento shops with inexpensive, disposable polystyrene boxes. However, even handmade bentos have made a comeback, and they are once again a common, although not universal, sight at Japanese schools. Bentos are still used by workers as a packed lunch, by families on day trips, as well as for school picnics and sports days. The bento, made at home, is wrapped in a furoshiki cloth, which acts as both bag and table mat.
In recent years, bento has seen a variety of trends in Japan. Often, these trends lead to remarkable transformations in the consumption behavior of the Japanese. The following are examples of some of the trends in Japanese bento and their timeline.
The bento made its way to Taiwan in the first half of the 20th century during the Japanese colonial period and remains popular to the present day.[9] The Japanese name was borrowed into Taiwanese (piān-tong) and Hakka (phien-tông). A modern Taiwanese bento always includes protein, such as a crispy fried chicken leg, a piece of grilled mackerel and marinated pork chop, as well as the side dishes.[9] Taiwan Railway Bento is a well known bento manufactured and distributed by the Taiwan Railways Administration at major railway stations and in train cars. It is estimated that, with five million boxed meals sold per year, the annual revenue from bento distribution is 370 million NTD (approx. 10 million USD).[10]
In Singapore, such packed lunch boxes are often acculturated and localised with cuisines slightly different to Japan. These may include roasted pork (similar to char siew) and soy eggs, as well as fried rice.[12] It has been a common method of meal preparation within Singaporean cuisine as early as the start of the 20th century, which was intensified during the Japanese occupation and cultural influences in subsequent decades, with Japanese-style bento also being common in the country today.
In Japan, it is common for mothers to make bento for their children to take to school. Because making bento can take a while, some mothers will prepare the ingredients the night before, and then assemble and pack everything the following morning before their children go to school.[14] It is often a social expectation of mothers to provide bento for their children, to create both a nutritionally balanced and aesthetically pleasing meal.[15] This activity is expected of the mother and emphasized by society at large,[15] and is common in nursery school institutions.
The traditional bento that is eaten at school or at work is most often prepared by the mother or the wife. However, it can also be bought in konbini (mini-markets) or from street vendors who appear on street corners at lunchtime. For those in a hurry who have to spend their lunch time aboard the shinkansen (bullet train), there is also the bento ekiben which, as its name suggests, is on sale in the train stations. Bento is also present in more solemn moments, even on the Japanese New Year's table for example. Then called osechi, it comes in two or three levels and contains expensive dishes that are eaten at this high point of the Japanese calendar.[citation needed]
Real Bento: Fresh and Easy Bentos from a Japanese Working Mom is a cookbook by a popular bento blogger in Japan called Kanae Inoue. She takes a very pragmatic, streamlined approach to making bentos, based on her years of making them for her three children for many years - a boy (who is now in college and living away from home) and two girls.
She also makes bentos to take to work, and posts them regularly on her social media. I love her bento pics because they aren't style for the camera at all - she just snaps them with her phone - but they look so appetizing and have lots of good ideas. Above all, they are real bentos made and eaten by a busy lady. I managed to convince her to let me post some of her bento pics here. The explanations are my own, based on what she wrote about them.
The Just Bento Cookbook 2: Make Ahead, Easy, Healthy Lunches to Go is the sequel to the best-selling The Just Bento Cookbook. It contains almost all new recipes (with the exception of a handful of "classics"), and is designed to expand your bento making repertoire, as well as increase your knowledge of Japanese home cooking in general.
As you see, the cookbook is very well-organized and there are big pictures of what a final bento looks like on each featured bento and step-by-step pictures will guide you visually.
The cookbook includes Bento Basics and Tools & Accessories if you are new to bento making, and there are many useful tips and tricks that you can use in your bento making right away! The cookbook also includes an additional 100 recipes at the end so you will always have bento recipe ideas for your bento every day!
Hi Nami-san,
I am a superb newbie in bento as recently got highly requested by my son to make bento for him. And came across your superb detailed, comprehensive steps-instruction to do up the dishes. Thank you so much for even sharing the freezing of different item and reheat in different methods. It helps me a lot with all information.
So I'm hanging out with my best friend tomorrow and wanted to make some bentos for us. Im vegetarian/vegan and she eats anything prefers not to eat meat. The stores are about to close down and I don't think I'm gonna get up early tomorrow to buy anything so I'm trying to see what I can do with everything I have at home. I need some ideas because I've never made a bento before :')
"Normal/Animation" Rigs have additional nodes for ease of use with animations, but animation must be done on "mBoneName_DRV" point helper nodes instead of the bones directly. These skeleton files have nodes oriented in a manner that will make joints rotate on their local axis. This is particularly useful for mimicing animation in parts of the bento skeleton such as the hands and face where the bone is not aligned with an axis ( perpendicular to other things in the scene ). Hopefully these skeleton rigs will help understanding of the new joints.
If you have any access to an artifactory (like a company's private network), you should create a .npmrc file in the same folder where the package.json file is. ".npmrc" file is a file without a name, "npmrc" is the extension of the file, be careful! In the .npmrc file you can define alternate download url and credentials of namespaced packages ("@bento" is a namespace). Content could be like:
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