Hello my readers, I have been requested to write about the Japanese school lunches I enjoy every day so here is a little blog about it. As a disclaimer, this post will have very few photos in it because of privacy laws surrounding schools in Japan.
Japanese school lunch is called kyushoku (q-show-koo) and it is quite different from what I experienced growing up in America. First, before I discuss the food I will discuss the setup. In Japan, Japanese students take care of the school including cleaning and serving themselves lunch. So, from 1st grade, the students put on their serving clothes, a cloth over jacket, a cloth head cap, and a mask, at the start of lunchtime to prepare to serve the food. Every student has their own set of serving clothes that they bring home on Friday for washing.
After putting on the serving clothes, they go and grab the large metal containers containing their food from a large metal cart. This cart comes from the Kyushoku Center and has the entire school's food in it. Each metal container is labeled with what class it is for and contains the exact proportions for everyone in the class. There is a rice container, a soup container, a main container, a salad container, and a dish container (not metal). Each student is assigned a position in the serving lineup that rotates every once in a while. Someone will be serving rice, another serving soup, etc., and then others will be putting the bowls and plates of food onto the trays and bringing them to the students' desks which another student has wiped down already. The teacher will oversee the process and help where necessary. After all the food has been served, the students sit down and start eating after saying Itadakimasu (Thank you for the meal) together.
While eating, one student in the school will give information on the lunch over the intercom. Most lunches have a theme that the student will discuss along with what each food is. For example, we often have Shimanto City local or Hatano region local food days in which all of the ingredients are sourced locally. Usually, most ingredients are already sourced locally, for example, all the rice served is locally grown. If there is not a particular theme for one day, they'll talk about the nutritional value of one of the foods instead.
After finishing, a student will then clear their tray into the same dish container stacking all the bowls and plates. Food waste is highly discouraged here and so there is usually very little food waste. The milk carton is taken to one of the sinks in the hallway (they have a lot of sinks in the hallways, I could do an entirely different post on the architecture of Japanese schools, but if you are curious I recommend googling it), rinse the milk carton, unfold it, and set it to dry. After it is dry it'll usually go to recycling. Then, after the students have finished cleaning up they have time until lunch is over if they finish early to do whatever. That doesn't happen too much, however, because lunch is 30 minutes total and about 10 minutes of that is setting up and serving so the students have to eat their lunches in 20 minutes (a little fast for my preference). But, once lunch is finished everyone must come back to the classroom to end lunch together by saying Gochisosamadeshita (It was a feast). After that, the students brush their teeth (Yes, everyone brushes their teeth after lunch here), put the metal containers back into the metal cart, and head to recess. The metal cart is then brought back to the Kyushoku Center by truck for washing and use the next day.
Now onto the food.
There are three Kyushoku Centers in the city where I work in. The biggest one prepares over 1,000 meals! The head chefs at the three Kyushoku Centers take turns leading the creation of the month's menus. Every day there is a different kyushoku meal and each one has been carefully crafted to contain the proper balance of nutrients and balance of meat, vegetables, starches, and fruit. The entire month's menus are printed and released to the students and teachers in advance with sketches of the food and extra information. The head chefs are always very thoughtful and create very delicious menus.
They also collaborate with the students frequently. For example, there are requested meals roughly every other week that all of the schools have inputted (it is usually karaage, fried chicken). These are meals the students thought of that they love and sent to the kyushoku center. Furthermore, right now it is coming close to the end of the school year so there are featured menu items requested by the middle school 3rd graders (American high school 9th-grade equivalent) that they wanted to eat one last time before going to high school (there is no kyushoku in high school, it's a little different).
Now let me tell you something. These kyushokus are always. so. flippin'. delicious! I look forward to lunchtime every day and it is often my best meal of the day. I always feel good, healthy, and full after eating kyushoku and most importantly, happy because the food is so delicious. Going into more detail on the themes mentioned above, there are days where the food is more Japanese-style, featuring things like miso soup, plain rice, sauteed fish, and a sesame seed veggie salad. There are also days when it is more Western style like American or French. We have had hot dogs before, pork stew, potato salad, Alphabet soup, bread instead of rice, etc. Another fun theme we had recently was kyushoku through the times. For a week we ate kyushoku which was commonly eaten during a certain time period from 1945 on. The last meal was what kyushoku might look like in the future and that was really fun. Another fun theme was emergency food kyushoku. This kyushoku was to highlight emergency food including packaged rice, canned meat, long-life milk, and (because they still want the meal to be balanced) a regular veggie salad. We even had ramen one day! Lastly, I always enjoy the holiday kyushoku which celebrates a Japanese holiday like Setsubun, New Year's, or Valentine's Day.
There is usually also a dessert. I'd say 4/5 days of the week we have a dessert. The dessert can be a piece of fruit, a fruit jello, a crepe treat, a cake thing, etc. I always enjoy the desserts because it feels like I'm getting a sweet treat while still being healthy. Sometimes the dessert is handmade at the Kyushoku Center and sometimes bought from a company. Since none of the food or desserts have artificial flavors or coloring and no preservatives I never feel sick after eating kyushoku. What is even cooler, is that one of the brands the kyushoku people buy desserts from "Friends Sweet" makes the desserts with no wheat flour, milk, or eggs so that everyone can eat the same dessert even if they have allergies. How do they make the dessert then, you ask? It is made with rice flour and soy milk. I was pretty blown away when I discovered that because the desserts are very delicious.
Because of my curiosity, I asked if I could get a tour of one of the Kyushoku Centers one day and I luckily had the opportunity to the other day. I went to the biggest Kyushoku Center and was able to watch what was happening from above through a glass window. It was incredible! There are huge pots that are used to boil the vegetables for the salads and prepare the main dishes. There are big machines used to slice vegetables. There is another room for baking and frying and an entire room dedicated to rice. There is also a section to prepare the allergen-friendly food. Lastly, the room I didn't see was the dishwashing room with big machines that clean all the dishes and things. This place is a well-oiled machine and all the staff work so hard. I inquired how many people work at the center and only 19 people work there! 19 people prepare over 1,000 meals in a couple hours! It was very impressive to see. I was impressed by how sanitary everything was and that there had been no injuries before. I thought working with these big hot pots with hot water or the big fry station that there might have been cases of burns but I was assured that everything is done in a safe manner.
I was also curious as to how they know exactly how much food to make and how much food to put into each container. Every day, they have an information sheet that states how many people are in each class, at each school, etc. So, if a teacher is taking the day off or it was known that a student would be missing this day of school, the sheet would account for that and they would serve one portion less of food in that container. For example, the ALTs go to a different school every day but eat kyushoku at that school. So, it is noted which school we are at each day, and an extra portion of food is added to the teachers' containers. To clarify, homeroom teachers' food is in their classrooms' containers but teachers like the special ed, principal and vice principal, administration, school management, etc. have their own kyushoku containers and that is what the ALTs kyushoku is added to.
The problem, however, is when someone is unexpectedly absent, i.e. when someone gets sick and can't come to school that day. The Kyushoku Center doesn't know this information so they still prepare the usual amount of food. This means that when serving the food in the classroom, every student gets a little extra per serving. If it it a piece of something, like gyoza or karaage, then the students will play Rock Paper Scissors for it (Rock Paper Scissors rules this country 😂). If more than one student is absent then the teachers will ask the students "anyone want more of this," "how about this," and if there's still some left usually the teacher will end up with a bit of extra food and sometimes there will be some food waste. For the 1st and 2nd graders, the normal serving size for them is served, but before eating the teacher will ask if anyone wants to decrease anything. If so, a bite or two will be taken from the rice, or salad, etc. This only happens with the 1st and 2nd graders though.
I wish I could tell you what my favorite kyushokus have been so far but unfortunately, they are all so good it is impossible to pick 😂 Surprisingly, often the soups or salads are my favorite part of a kyushoku.
I hope this post was informational and please feel free to ask any questions.
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