Kyushoku

Here is an interesting article about the origin and nature of what may be my favourite Japanese custom, the school lunch. Every month I pay Y3000, or a little less than $30, in exchange for school lunch. School lunch is, if you can believe it, lunch served at school. There is no choice in the daily menu. It is planned in advance, with everyone, teachers and students included, receiving a monthly menu on the first of the month. All in Japanese, the menu lists not only the meal, but the amount of calories and protein in the meal, but the ingredients, broken down into three columns: protein, carbohydrates, and nutrients (vegetables). There is also a little box in the corner listing all the locally produced ingredients that are used in the meals for the month.

I don't think we ever have the same meal in a month. Every day is different. I teach at 8 schools, and all schools eat the same meal everyday. That's because all the food is prepared at the School Lunch Centre, and delivered in cooler-like boxes to each school. Each class gets three coolers. One giant one for rice, one for soup/stew, and one for miscellaneous (usually either some sort of salad or fish/meat). There is enough food in the coolers for 40-so kids. Our plates are aluminum (maybe). They look like they belong in a prison. But I like them better than the dirty plastic plates used at some other schools. Depending on the day, we have either two or three different foods. Usually a soup in a bowl, with rice in a large plate, and the various miscellaneous other on a slightly smaller plate. Sometimes when we have a stew-type food, we don't have the miscellaneous food. On Mondays and Wednesdays we always have a bread. The other days we have rice. Everyone gets a carton of whole milk along with the lunch. I don't drink because of my allergy, and because milk is just gross. Many kids hate it, but they are told from a young age that they have to drink it, so they do. At the elementary schools in Chiran they serve green tea along with milk. I like eating at those schools (only on Mondays), except that then I have to eat everything on my plate in order to be a good role model. Sometimes lunch is amazingly delicious, other times, disgusting. Last week was an anomaly of a week, with at least three amazing meals. Usually there's one fantastic meal a week, one really gross one, and three good ones. Today was a gross one. Unfortunately, I was at elementary school so I had to eat it. It was a gross tomato-based stew, which I knew had powdered cheese in it due to reading the menu. There was also a salad with satsuma-age, which is the local specialty of grated fish mashed into a sausage like form. As well, we had raisin bread. I hate raisins. They look like ants. Yet I managed to eat the whole thing, gagging the whole time. But I still wouldn’t give up school lunch, because all in all it’s awesome. Anyways, here’s the link. Enjoy. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070422rp.html