Every day, all elementary and junior high schools in Shikaoi receive a hot school lunch. A company in Shikaoi prepares the food, and transports it to each school via truck in time for lunch. A large metal box on wheels goes to each classroom (if it’s a large school), or to each school (the smallest schools have only 12-16 students). Inside the container is everything from the actual food, to the dishes, trays, and serving utensils.
Each school serves lunch differently. Some do a self-serve assembly line style, while others have a few students or staff serve the food to the rest. Many students wear an apron and hair bandana when serving and handling the food. Students bring their own chopsticks, though sometimes spoons are sent with the lunch depending on the day’s menu.
At the end of lunch, any food scraps are dumped back into one of the containers, which are then packed up in the large metal box along with all of the trays, etc. and are wheeled to where the lunch company truck can pick them back up again.
Each month we receive a calendar detailing the lunches for each day in the next month. The cost of lunch for staff comes to about $2 a day, and is paid monthly. This summer, the new mayor of Shikaoi decided to waive lunch fees for all students!
Lunch time varies at each school, but generally starts around 12:10, and runs for 40 minutes. At Shikaoi elementary and Urimaku elementary, where class sizes are much larger, the English teacher and I will eat in the teacher’s office with many of the other staff. Students and homeroom teachers eat together in the classroom. In the smaller schools, lunch is usually in a cafeteria space with all of the students and staff, though sometimes the English teacher and I will be invited to eat with a specific grade in their classroom.
There are five components to each school lunch.
- Grain
- Soup
- Salad
- Protein
- Milk
Tuesday, December 3rd – Day 1
- Rice. It is very easy to eat this with chopsticks, because the rice sticks together in large clumps. Japanese rice has a slightly sweet taste on its own. We usually get rice on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Sometimes it’s seasoned with vegetables or seaweed.
- Soup with tofu, carrot, cabbage, leek, mushroom, and chicken. “No spoon?!” you might be asking. In Japan, chunky soups like these are eaten with CHOPSTICKS! Eat all of the large pieces first, then pick the bowl up, and drink the remaining broth.
- Potato and pork salad. Boiled potato is one of the trickiest foods to pick up with chopsticks!
- Natto. Natto is fermented soybeans. It is a divisive food in Japan due to its slimy/sticky texture, and powerful smell. We have only had it once before for school lunch, and as a natto-hater, it seemed ironic to get it on the day I started documenting school lunch.
- Milk. Hokkaido milk is famous in Japan, and is very rich. Sadly, I had to start giving it away after a couple weeks due to mild lactose intolerance. 😥
Wednesday, December 4th – Day 2
- Bread. Wednesdays are usually bread days – my favourite! This bread had a smattering of whole sweet red beans inside.
- Soup. Today’s soup was cabbage, spinach, and pork.
- Tomato macaroni salad with corn, peppers, and ground pork.
- Fried fish, with a tartar sauce packet. I find Wednesdays often have more Western-style foods, which might also explain the presence of a spoon instead of chopsticks.
- Milk.
Thursday, December 5th – Day 3
- Ramen. We usually have noodles on Thursday. Today, we had ramen in a dark soy sauce soup. The noodles come cooked and warm in a plastic bag, which we dump into the broth. The soup had pork, cabbage, onion, leek, carrots, and bamboo shoot.
- Cucumber, bean sprout, and chicken salad, with a creamy dressing.
- An orange! We don’t often get fruit with lunch, so this is a special treat! I bought a bag of 10 small oranges like this last week, and it cost ¥450, or about $5.50 CAD.
- Milk.
It’s nice to not have to prepare my own lunch everyday, and to be able to try more authentic Japanese foods. Restaurants, while delicious, are often limited to curry, noodles, tempura, or other popular dishes. Many of the dishes in school lunch are more akin to what would be prepared in someone’s home.
Thanks to school lunch, I have been able to try many traditional Japanese foods that I otherwise would not have experienced, or been aware of. Yum!
Stony Plain in Shikaoi 