Monday's Lunch: Fish... again

Okay, so I obviously missed Friday's school lunch, but I have a good reason: I didn't have one. See, usually on Fridays I go to the elementary school for the day, with the exception of about an hour spent next door at the kindergarten. So, I eat the elementary's lunch, which as I mentioned before is the same as junior high's. However, every once in a great while, and this past Friday was one of them, I spend the whole day at kindergarten and I have to bring my own lunch. I don't mind so much. It's a shorter day and I like a good sandwich and salad combination once in a while. But, unfortunately, this past Friday was curry and rice day and that's probably my favorite lunch here. It's not just me though; that lunch consistently ranks in the top three (usually number one) during the annual lunch survey held by the School Lunch Center. Liesje did get to eat the curry and was kind enough to send me a photo (taken with her cell phone):And to add insult to injury, they even got ice cream with it. That's what the little blue thing up top is. *Sigh*

Well, since I missed Friday I decided to go ahead and do today's, Monday's, instead. And I'm glad I did since this was a very typical lunch. [And for the record, I forgot my digital camera so these were also taken with my cell phone.]


Yes, this is an excellent example of the standard Japanese school lunch in many different ways. Allow me to go into a bit more detail...

Main Dish: Sanma no Kabayaki (Broiled Pikefish)

Sanma is one of many dishes that I had eaten several times before ever bothering to look it up in my dictionary (usually at the behest of a Japanese person). And when I do, I realize that I haven't got any better an idea what it is than I did before I looked it up. Is a pikefish tasty? Do we even eat them in America? I don't know.

This is probably the only thing we get here, other then the Japanese "omelets", that I actually don't like. Today's was far better than normal because there was a sauce on top and it was a smaller piece than usual. See, another problem with sanma is just the way it's prepared. They tend to chop off the ends of the fish and then cook it as is. So, the skin is still on and the bones are definitely still inside. I usually take the extra time to pick the skin off of the fish myself. I don't consider myself a picky eater, it's just something I prefer. I have seen other teachers do it here as well, but today I was the only one out of nine people who didn't eat the skin. I also usually take some time to pick the bones out, at least the ones I can see. I know they are cooked enough that they have been softened. I've been told this time and again, even by elementary school kids (who eat them with no hesitation). Again, I'm just not a fan of fish bones. Thanks.

But, like I said, today's was better than normal. The skin came off easily and there were very few bones. And since it was a small piece the whole experience was over quickly. I just don't think that's how you should approach your lunch. And the fact they we get this fish at least once a month (usually twice) casts a shadow upon school lunch that cannot be removed.


Side Dish: Kiriboshi Daikon no Nitsuke (Thinly Cut and Dried Daikon Boiled Hard With Soy Sauce)

Every bit as delicious as the name makes it sound. By the way, "boiled hard" doesn't mean that they only boil it a bit so it's still hard. It means that they boil it hard in order to crush its spirit. Yes, let's take some radish (that's essentially what a daikon is), cut it into strips and then boil it with a dash of soy sauce until it's completely limp and flavorless. Let's also take some tofu and fry that, but then boil it as well to remove any life it might have had. And finally, for color, we can boil some carrots in there. Make sure they haven't got any taste in them when they come out!

I actually pulled out a few of the carrot slices and ate them separately, and they still didn't have any flavor. As much as I hate to say it, this is what I expect from the side dishes in my school lunch. Something with no flavor and a texture that can best be described as "would make good brains or guts for kids to stick their hands in, while not looking, at a haunted house". I get something like this two or three times a week.

Soup: Shirotama Mochi Nyuu Sawani Wan (Sawani [a kind of fish] Soup With White Mochi Balls)


I like mochi. I think it's really pretty good, when prepared correctly. Mochi is what would have happened if someone had made marshmallows out of rice instead of sugar. It would be much more cohesive and heavier, and wouldn't be sweet at all. It's kind of fun to eat, and it's really chewy. It is not, however, bursting with flavor. That's why you typically eat mochi with something on top of it. Sweet bean paste or something of the sort. It is also put into soups, like it was today. But obviously, since it's really just rice that was made with too much water and cooked for far too long, it can't be the centerpiece of the soup. It can't give any flavor to a soup, it can only interact with what the soup already has.

That's why today's soup was not so great. I guess there was supposed to be fish in there. I didn't really notice, so perhaps it was more of a base or maybe it was finely shredded. I did notice the mushroom and burdock; two more things that aren't bursting with flavor. And while I enjoyed eating the mochi like always, it was diminished a bit by being part of such a lousy soup. Again, this is not atypical at all. We get soup like this all the time.

Bonus: Orange

But at least I had some oranges to pick me up when everything was over. No matter how many bones are in the fish, or how slimy the side dish is, or how bland the soup may be, having fruit always makes the meal end on a high note. I mean, you can't mess up oranges, right? All you have to do is pluck and cut. That's it!

And here's where my aforementioned time in Florida bites me on the behind. My last bite of my last school lunch for this blog, and it's a disappointment. I don't think I've ever had oranges this flavorless in my entire life. And considering that this week saw the best citrus I've had in Japan, that's especially disappointing. Still, it only makes sense. Going out like this is sort of poetically perfect for this little project. These oranges sum up what school lunch is all about here: Not bad, but disappointing.

Total Calories: 758

That's is for the week of lunches. I'll write up a summary and wrap-up in a day or two so check back for that.

Thursday's Lunch: Eggs

Oh, lucky you! You get to see one of my least favorite lunches of all time! Not only do we get one of Japan's most egregious takes on Western food, we also get... bread! According to the menu, this is a "butter roll":
I imagine them using one stick of butter for every 5000 of these they made, because that is about how much butter taste makes it into the final product. Basically, it's just a big lump of white bread, but without even the paltry serving of jam we got on Tuesday.

And it doesn't get much better from there...

Main Dish: Omuretsu no Mariana Sosu (Omelet with Mariana Sauce)

This is quite possibly the perfect example of the Japanese adopting things from the West with no real understanding of them. From what I can gather, Japanese people enjoy their version of omelets, so more power to them. For me, it falls near the lower end of "I can eat it if I have to", just barely coming in above "Only if I'm starving". Have you ever had the eggs you get in microwavable breakfasts? The ones that are lifeless and floppy and give you some doubt as to whether or not they actually came from a chicken at all? Well, get a big chunk of those (no, don't break them up or fluff them in any way that might make them look a bit more appetizing), cover it in what is essentially watery ketchup, and then throw some soggy onion strips on top. Voila! Japanese Omelet! What? How is this an omelet at all? There's nothing in it. It's just bad eggs formed into the shape of a croissant. Sadly, this thing shows up on my lunch tray about once a month. As a bonus, you can get little chunks of the same eggs on top of rice at every sushi restaurant in Japan. Because, yeah, when I go out to eat some delicious fish and seafood, I'd like to chase it down with some cold Egg Beaters product. Yeah. Sure.

Side Dish: Sotei (Sauté)

Why this dish is called sauté was not only beyond me, but every other teacher in the room as well. What part of this was sautéed? The whole thing? I find that hard to believe. Considering the only meat in it was actually fish, and even then it was chikuwa (a kind of steamed fish paste), I don't think sautéing came into the picture at all here. Besides the non-sautéed fish paste, it also included bean sprouts, cauliflower and green peppers. Overall, the dish wasn't too bad although they used a bit too much pepper. Actually, now that I think about it, pepper was about all you could taste. Maybe they just forgot to sauté it and threw pepper in instead? We may never know.

Soup: ABC Soup

Pretty much what it sounds like: soup with little pieces of pasta shaped like the alphabet. I have always wondered why they don't have soup with Japanese characters here. Maybe they're too complicated to turn into pasta. Anyhow, this is like a mediocre chicken noodle soup, but with shrimp instead of chicken. You get the little macaronis, shrimp, parsley, carrots and celery. Nothing exciting, but almost the highlight of the meal. Fortunately, I got to finish off with...

Bonus: Iyokan (Tangerine)

Recently there was some discussion in the mailing list for Miyagi Prefecture JETs about what to call different versions of oranges here. Is a mikan an orange? A tangerine? A mandarin orange? A clementine? Or should we call it a mikan all the time? The iyokan didn't come up in the discussion, and it's not in my dictionary either, so I'm calling it a tangerine, because that's what I thought it was until I looked at the menu afterwards. So, yeah, just imagine a tangerine. Pretty tasty, but as I mentioned on Monday, citrus is overall disappointing here as compared to Florida. Still, after the above meal (especially that stupid omelet) this was the best part of lunch today.

Total Calories: 821

It's hard to decide which lunch I liked less: yesterday's or today's. At least today I had the tangerine and the soup, whereas yesterday was completely devoid of any kind of flavor at all. Despite my genuine dislike for the omelet (keep in mind this did not stop me from eating it), I think I will have to say yesterday's bland meal was worse. However, these are both very common school lunches here. Lucky me.

Wednesday's Lunch: Fish

Today was a very typical school lunch for me, meaning that it can be summed up in one word: bland. Probably the tastiest thing about it was the rice, and then only because it was special rice. We get a little metal tin of plain white rice every day except on very rare occasions. Maybe twice a year we get something a little different. Today we had hijiki rice. Remember hijiki from Monday? The type of seaweed? Well, it's back and it (along with a couple of mystery elements I couldn't identify) has been mixed into our rice to add a bit of flavor. Take a look:

I know it doesn't look exciting, and it's not, but compared to everything else...

Main Dish: Katsuo Yakihitashi (Fried Bonito)

Bonito is a kind of fish, for those of you who may not know (I certainly wouldn't have). Actually, it's a kind of mackerel. The name here means that it has been dipped and fried (not deep-fried, mind you). What was it dipped in? I can't say, but I would guess soy sauce if I had to. This isn't something we have particularly often. At least, I don't think so anyhow. We have a non-descript piece of fish for our main dish so regularly that it's hard to keep them straight. It tastes all right though, and has maintained a bit more of the fishy flavor than Monday's tuna, which is kind of nice. Not bad, but nothing I would ever order off of a menu.

Side Dish: Ohitashi (Soy Spinach)

So, I could taste some soy on the fish, but when I eat the dish that is specifically supposed to be seasoned with soy sauce I don't even notice it. Hmmm... This name is a little misleading in other ways because spinach was probably the most minor of all the ingredients. There were definitely more bean sprouts in there than spinach. I genuinely like the flavor of spinach which has worked out well for me since we have it at least once a week. Too bad this dish didn't taste like spinach. Or anything else for that matter.

Soup: Maitake Jiru (Maitake Mushroom Soup)

When the broth is the tastiest ingredient in your soup, you have failed at making soup. This contained two types of bland mushrooms and some tofu. Yeah, tofu can be really good. It is remarkable at absorbing the flavors of whatever you cook it with. Of course, if the things it's being cooked alongside of are also flavorless, then you just get some floppy, bland, white stuff. There was also a slice of sasakama, which is the little flowery looking thing. This is a small disc shaped item made from kamaboko (steamed fish paste) that you almost always see in soup here. I like them, although there are plenty of people who can't stand to eat it (Liesje included). But somehow, today's soup was so boring it sapped what little flavor the sasakama might normally have right out of it. This kind of soup (and its several, nearly identical, mushroom-based friends) is a mainstay of school lunch here. I would say I eat something basically like this twice a week. No wonder they drink their soup here instead of using a spoon; they just want to be done with it.

Total Calories: 633

As usual, there was nothing in today's lunch that I disliked and I was able to eat everything with no trouble. However, this was a very typical lunch in that there was also nothing in it that I actually liked either. Something basically the same as this is served at least once a week, and I've had similar lunches three times in five days before. This is the chili-mac of Japanese school lunch: fried fish with soy, spinach and something else, mushroom and tofu soup. So boring. Soooo booooring.

Tuesday's Lunch: Shrimp

Since today is Tuesday, we get bread instead of rice. For about my first year and a half here, the school secretary made onigiri (rice balls) every Tuesday and Thursday so everyone could get their carbohydrates from a more traditionally Japanese source. However, she transferred out last year and we didn't get a replacement so now it's either eat bread or no carbs for you! Some teachers do choose the "no carbs" route on bread day. It's true.

And sometimes I can't blame them. Two pieces of plain white bread and enough jam to cover half of one of them? Yeah, not so great. I think that many Japanese people assume that, since they eat plain white rice, we must eat plain white bread! Take a look at today's bread:
It's like a big hot dog bun, but with no slit in it. Then it comes with a packet of blueberry jam. Where are we supposed to put it? I always tear it open down the side as best as I can and put the jam in it that way. Other teachers tear off a mouthful and put a little jam on each bite before they eat it. Either way, it's kind of goofy. Even still, it's nice to get a break from the rice. And this jam had extra fiber! Anyhow, on to today's lunch...

Main Dish: Ebi Katsu (Fried Shrimp Patties)

"Katsu" is a shortening of the transliteration of the English word "cutlet" (it becomes "katsuretto" and then just "katsu"). The most common kind of katsu is tonkatsu, or pork cutlets. That may just sound like a bit of meat to you, but it includes the meaning of being breaded and deep-fried here. So, tonkatsu is usually translated at "deep-fried pork cutlets". Of course, that doesn't work well for shrimp, since a shrimp cutlet is kind of ridiculous. But since the shrimp is made into a patty and then breaded and fried in basically the same way, and since the vast majority of Japanese people probably have no idea where the word katsu even comes from, we get to have shrimp katsu, or ebi katsu. It was tasty. Nothing to write home about. Actually, it probably could have used a bit of sauce. Still, a nice main dish for the day and not something we see very often.

Side Dish: Chuuka Ae (Chinese Mix)

I was actually surprised when I looked up the name for this after eating it, and to be honest I've had this several times. Nothing about it says "Chinese" to me. But if the Japanese version of Chinese is as accurate as the Japanese version of Italian tends to be, this dish might have originally been roasted lamb sandwiches for all I know. It was actually quite simple. Just a combination of some small strips of roasted ham, bean sprouts, cucumber and some chanpon-men (a kind of thin, clear noodles). Pretty good to be honest. But did we really need more noodles in there considering what the soup is? I wonder if the simple "just mix some stuff together and call it Chinese" methodology here is why we get this one often?

Soup: Miso Ramen

I'm assuming everyone knows what ramen noodles are. Although we tend to associate them with the cheap, instant kind, they are just a type of noodle in Japan and they are infinitely better here. Today's ramen noodle soup was a miso base, at least according to the menu. I couldn't taste it. In with the ramen we also got some boiled pork, cabbage, carrots, onions, corn, scallions and kikurage mushrooms (again, I'm trusting the menu here because I didn't see any mushrooms anywhere). This was pretty good too and not too salty, which the soup tends to be. Ramen tends to be a bit of a treat since it's something people actually want to eat, and not something we see too often. Maybe only a few times a year.

Total Calories: 760

Although the bread was nothing to write home about (and yet I am), today's lunch was another good one. Not a meal I would normally mention, but for school lunch I certainly can't complain.

Monday's Lunch: Fish

Every day our school lunch is made up of three basic components: a main dish (usually fish or meat), a side dish (usually vegetables) and a soup. This is not set in stone, but 99% of the time that's what we get. In addition to that we get a carton of milk and then either rice (Mon., Wed., Fri.) or bread (Tues., Thurs.). That basic pattern will probably be what you see all week, and today is no exception.

Main Dish: Maguro no Goma-Miso Kake (Tuna with a Sesame-Miso Sauce)

This was pretty tasty actually. The sauce on top was applied lightly, which is a rarity here. For some reason Japanese people tend to slather whatever topping they're using all over their food. Something that will probably come up time and again this week is that they are all about simple flavors being brought out strongly. It's not uncommon for food here to be salty or bitter or sweet, and that's all there is to it with little or no depth. Today, however, the fish was quite tasty, although a bit saltier than it needed to be. The flavor of the tuna was lost a bit but not bad for a school lunch.

Side Dish: Hijiki no Nimono (Boiled Seaweed)

According to my dictionary, "hijiki" is "a kind of edible seaweed that grows in clusters in rocky areas along the coastlines". It tastes better than it sounds. Still, this falls into this large category of foods I have tried since coming to Japan that are neither good nor bad, just edible. I can eat it no problem when it's part of a meal put in front of me, but I'm never going to choose to eat it. There are some carrots and beans thrown in for good measure, to make it a little more interesting. Emphasis on "little".

Soup: Tonjiru (Pork Soup)

The name sounds funny in English, I know. It's basically just some boiled pork, carrots, potatoes, tofu and daikon (a large Japanese radish). Pretty tasty, but again saltier than it needed to be. I've had tonjiru several times and I genuinely like it, despite not being a big fan of daikon. When the daikon is boiled or cooked into something it's fine. But sometimes you'll just have cold, shredded daikon (occasionally as a topping) and that's not something I enjoy. This soup, on the other hand, was quite tasty.

Bonus: Grapefruit

Just a slice of grapefruit, although there was extra so I got two slices. Nothing really worth mentioning. I thought this was some of the best grapefruit I've had here, but coming from Florida I've found citrus to be generally lacking here in Japan.

Extra Bonus: Yogurt

This wasn't part of the school lunch officially, but something the school nurse whipped up. A little over two weeks ago she apparently decided that too much milk was going to waste from students not drinking it, so she began saving it and making yogurt. I don't remember ever having plain yogurt before this. It was only about five years ago that I even realized there was such a thing. Before that I kind of assumed that vanilla yogurt was plain yogurt. This stuff is good, but we've been having it every day for nearly three weeks now, so it's getting a little old.

Total Calories: 822

Overall, today was a good lunch. Part of me is hoping we get something nasty this week to make this more interesting, but mostly I'd rather everyday be something good like today. As interesting as an overcooked, pregnant, whole fish might be for you to see, I'd be just fine if I didn't have to eat it.

A Week With My Lunch

I should probably point out at the onset that this may very well be completely uninteresting to everyone. However, since I can imagine someone finding it amusing, or even actually fascinating (I suppose that person could be out there), and, primarily, because I think it will be fun for me I'm going to barrel right ahead.

Starting next week I'm going to be posting pictures of my school lunch each day along with a description of the food and a basic review of how good it was. Anyone not living in Japan might find this interesting as an example of, not just Japanese food, but exactly what school lunch is like here. And for those of you in Japan, well, maybe you can just compare my school lunch to yours and gloat about how much better off you are. Unless you're Jeff. His school lunch sucks.

So, that's all going to be starting on Monday, but I figured it would be a good idea to spend a little time today talking about the basics of how school lunch works here.

First of all, I'd say the biggest difference between school lunch in Japan and in the States is that, here, everyone eats it. Every single student in the school eats the lunch whether they want to or not. No one brings anything from home. They're not allowed to. I suppose this could be considered one of the advantages of a uni-cultural country: everyone likes the same food. There are no vegetarians or people with religious dietary restrictions. I suppose there might be some of that in Tokyo or other very large cities, but for the most part it just doesn't exist. Because of this, we JETs are also expected to eat the school lunch. If the students were to see us eating whatever they want, they would feel it was unfair and that they, too, should be able to eat what they want. If you came on the JET Program as a vegetarian or Muslim or Jew, well, suck it up. You can either learn to eat it, learn to be hungry, or start keeping snacks in your desk. Since I can eat just about anything you put in front of me, I don't mind. But for others, this insistence on conformity can be a little more difficult to swallow.

Now, this isn't 100%. My girlfriend, for example, simply told her school that she wouldn't be getting school lunch any more. She didn't like it at all and was hardly eating anything each day, leaving her extremely hungry for the last few hours of work. They accepted this (begrudgingly) at her junior high school, but she still has to eat the school lunch at Elementary school, which, of course, led to a lot of red tape concerning how to charge her for eating at one school and not another. (I found that amusing since the same office charges me separately for my junior high and elementary lunches and has been doing so for quite some time.) She has also been pretty well shunned from eating with the other teachers, but I don't think she really minded that too much.

That's probably the second big difference about lunch here: the absence of a lunch room. The students eat at their desks in their homeroom with their homeroom teacher, and the teachers either eat at their desk or they gather in the meeting room (or somewhere similar). In my school, we all gather in the meeting room. Everyone trickles in as they can, but we all wait for every person to finish before we get up and clean everything up.

Of course, not only is there no lunch room, there's no cafeteria. At least, not at my school. Some have them, and some don't. But not having a cafeteria is pretty common here. Our lunches are delivered everyday from the Kurihara City School Lunch Center. They drop everything off in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon. This is the cleanup we have to do. We have to get everything packed back into the giant metal containers so the trucks can take it away and fill it with more lunch the next day.

Other than that, school lunch is school lunch. It varies a bit from place to place, but you probably get the basic idea. It costs me 290 yen per day, which at the moment is about $2.40 US. I pay this at the end of the month and it usually comes out to somewhere around 5000 yen ($42) I think.

And that's my kyuushoku in a nut shell. For a more in-depth analysis of the sometimes awesome, usually bland, occasionally terrible food I have to eat Monday through Friday whether I like it or not, tune in next week.