For some, it’s whatever they can throw into a paper bag before they run out the door in the morning. For others, it’s a few dollars’ worth of food from the cafeteria. But, for me, it’s a little bit of a ritual. No, it’s not grand or noteworthy, but the truth is that we all have to eat, and if we have to do it, we might as well do it well. I remember that cold December afternoon when I rushed into the house, searching for the bento box that my parents had bought me for Christmas. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, since I had found the site and the model, and had even typed the order in myself, simply passing the computer over to my mom for her to type in her credit card number. Still, the excitement was not any less. Out of care for the precious contents, I slit through the tape, carefully opened the box, took out the crumpled Japanese newspaper, and opened the box within the box to find, well, another box – namely, a bento box. It was even more beautiful than it had seemed in the pictures. It was sleek and black, with an optimistic four-leaf clover on the lid and an even more optimistic message inscribed in gold letters on the cover: “you can do anything if you try”. Naturally, I had no idea how to read the Japanese calligraphy, but I had read the translation on the website and that was good enough for me.
Of course, it’s not only the box that’s important, but also what goes in it. For me, everything is important, because, honestly, I am a little bit of a perfectionist. And generally the things I do in life are quite far from perfect, but with my lunch each night, if I follow a few basic rules, I can find something so nicely put together and compartmentalized that it’s just perfect enough. For me, lunch presents a beautiful concept. Every night, partly by compulsion and partly by necessity, I make sure to fill up my bento box in its entirety, with something on each of the separate levels. Though, honestly, I don’t always abide by these rules, I generally try to fulfil my hybridized food guidelines. In my much-loved vegetarian Japanese cookbook, Kansha, Elizabeth Andoh describes that in each meal there should be five colours: white, green, red, black and yellow. This serves as a rule of thumb that in conjunction with the Canada Food Guide’s food groups of vegetables, grains, fruits and proteins (I don’t consider dairy to be much of a food group) ensures an acceptable level of healthiness in every lunch. The specific foods I include vary in an almost haphazard way based on the food in the fridge, but this adds to the moral, or lesson, for lunch, where food is not wasted but instead married into a whole as a complete meal. Most commonly, however, I will have a simple lettuce salad on the bottom level with either mustard or pomegranate dressing, and always with an eighth of a napkin carefully folded on top so I never have to finish my lunch with an unclean face or hands. And so, as I chew the last bits of my lunch and wipe my hands clean, before an afternoon exam, I can close the lid and remember the encouraging message: I can do anything if I try.
Mustard Dressing (fast-and-easy style)
- 5 tsps oil (I prefer olive)
- 4 tsps vinegar (I prefer sherry)
- 3 tsps mustard
- 2 tsps honey
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon herbes de provence (herbs can be changed based on preference and availability)
- salt and pepper to taste
Reference
Andoh, Elizabeth, and Leigh Beisch. Kansha: Celebrating Japan's Vegan & Vegetarian Traditions. Berkeley: Ten Speed, 2010. Print.
