Mommy’s Bento Art

Our little one is nearly 4 years old now and growing up so fast. This year we enrolled her in a nice Japanese preschool for a couple days a week, and my wife makes bento lunches for her each of those mornings. My wife tells me that when she was a little girl, her mother used to do the same thing, as did many Japanese moms. For example, little sausages can be sculpted to look like an octopus and other little novel tricks that children enjoy. My wife decided to take it to the next level. Unlike me, she’s very right-brained and artistic, and has a lot of experience with Japanese calligraphy (shodō, 書道) in the past, but she’s turned her talents to a new art: bento lunches.

These are just a couple of the ones she’s made lately. As a proud husband, I thought it only fitting to share:

Mommy's Bento Art

This first one features Hello Kitty made of rice, a bit of ham, and nori seaweed. This is garnished with boiled quail eggs (popular in Japan, and very small).

This next one features another popular heroine, Minnie Mouse;

Mommy's Bento Art 2

Again, similar style as the previous. I thought the wink was especially cute. She told me that the other moms were impressed and she has unwittingly set the bar among all the Japanese moms at school.

Good job, Mommy! :)

As for me, I just make my own lunches and throw leftovers in the Zojirushi “Ms. Bento” I bought a while back. I wasn’t paying attention and bought the smaller “Ms. Bento”, not “Mr. Bento”, but I liked it enough to keep it, but the portions are smaller so sometimes I bring extra fruit and such. Being more left-brained, and a male, my artistic “knack” consists of just getting a well-rounded meal. :p

Update:

After writing post this overnight, my wife made another one for our little girl’s school lunches:

Mommy's Bento Art 3

This one is a pink bear, since my daughter likes pink so much. The bow is made of kamaboko (蒲鉾), which is a kind of fish cake. It tastes better than it looks (and goes well in soups). The egg at the upper-right is cut into a heart shape too. :) The upper-left is mostly nimono (煮物) which is stewed vegetables and really good on a cold-day, and edamame which is boiled soy-beans. Delicious. I was lucky to get a share of the good food for lunch today too, so I am happy too.

P.S. Wife and I call each other “Daddy” and “Mommy”, which sounds weird in English, but makes more sense in Japanese due to the more frequent use of third-person conversation than English.


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5 Comments on “Mommy’s Bento Art”

  1. johnl says:

    Your wife is certainly very artistic. I understand this can be a very competitive field, with ruthless judgements, at least in some schools in Japan. So I hope it remains fun. One criticism might be that the fish cake looks more like kamaboko rather than naruto. Naruto is the name of a famous whirlpool somewhere near Shikoku. So to qualify as narutomaki, I think the kamaboko should have the pink spiral, which seems to be missing in your photo. Otherwise, it is just generic kamaboko. Ok, ok, having told you more than you want to know, I will stop now.

  2. Doug says:

    Hi Guys:

    LiT: Thanks very much. She was happy to see the comment.

    Johnl: Thanks very much. You’re right: it wasn’t naruto. I guessed wrong and she caughtthe mistake too, but I forgot to update. Believe me, I got scolded for it. ;-) . I’ll fix that right away.

    Also she chuckled when I mentioned competition. I don’t thin she will do that anytime soon. She’s happy that her daughter enjoys it. :-)

  3. johnl says:

    by the way, I saw there is an iPhone app for bento planning. I saw it on FB, but I am reluctant to link such things.

  4. Doug says:

    Yeah, I took a quick look and bento and sushi are the rage as far as iPhone apps are concerned. :)


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