I know people are curious about my school life, and I have been hesitant to share any details to protect student, staff, and my own personal privacy. However! I have been diligently taking pictures of (almost) every single school lunch I’ve eaten for the past semester, and now that it’s summer break after the first term, I will share them with you!!
Japanese school lunches are so much healthier than American school lunches. Every single lunch has plentiful servings of vegetables, meat, and carbs, and the incidence of fried foods and unhealthy sweets is fairly low. In addition, thanks to the Japanese taste palate having low tolerance for spicy foods, all of the “spicy” dishes were well within my “white-girl-no-spicy-tolerance” edibility range. Although, a colleague of mine with a high tolerance for spice complains about the blandness of the meals and regularly adds hot sauce to his meals. I think most of the dishes were plenty flavorful, though… Also, I think it is very funny that meals with things like chicken nuggets, dumplings, or meatballs provided only one or two of these small foods per meal.
School lunches are provided through the Yachimata Board of Education, so the meals at all the public schools are the same in Yachimata. I’m not sure if this is the case elsewhere in Japan. They are very cheap – you only need to pay for the cost of the food materials.
All of the menus are in Japanese, and I will do my absolute best to translate them into English. But there’s only so much my translator can do, and for some of these dishes, I simply have no idea what they are or what’s in them. Stir-fries, curries, and soups with lots of different ingredients are common. As you can see, there is quite a lot of variety in these meals. Milk was automatically added to my lunches at the beginning, but I discontinued the milk to avoid the extra charge, since I wasn’t drinking it.
April 10: rice, grilled mackerel, miso soup, tuna and veggie saladApril 11: bread roll, spinach gratin, pot-au-feu, lemon jellyApril 12: barley rice, dumpling, stir-fry, fruit and soyApril 13: plain bread, bean croquette, corn potage, veggie saladApril 14: rice, fried egg, meat and potato stir-fry, orange sliceApril 17: rice, mapo tofu, konjac salad, purple sweet potato mochiApril 18: bread roll, veggie salad, pork and tomato stir fry, hot dog in eggApril 19 (special, all Yachimata school years have begun): barley rice, soup, flower-shaped tofu burger, strawberry pieApril 20: penne pasta with cream sauce, fried cabbage patty, soy milk donut, mixed nutsApril 21: rice, marinated squid, tofu stir fry, cheese saladApril 24: rice, stir fry, shrimp ball soup, puddingApril 25: hot dog roll with strawberry jam, chicken nugget, corn potage, sweet potato saladApril 26: barley rice, fried mackerel, boiled bamboo and carrot salad, konjac and meat stir fryApril 27: brown sugar bread, meatballs, soup, seaweed saladApril 28: rice, veggie curry, coleslaw, yogurtMay 1: rice, vermicelli salad, grilled chicken in honey mustard, seaweed soup, lemon mousseMay 2: kitsune udon, tuna and potato salad, milk donut, koiboro (little cookies shaped like the pellets you feed to koi fish; represents the koinobori [koi streamers] flown on Children’s Day on May 5th)May 8: rice, chicken soup, veggie salad, soymilk puddingMay 9: hot dog roll, frankfurter, curry with beans, fruit and jellyMay 10: barley rice, fried croquette, miso soup with bonito, veggie saladLook! There are little fish in today’s soup! How cute!May 11: chocolate bread, corn gratin, tomato clam chowder with soybeans, orange sliceMay 12: rice, octopus patty, Korean-style soup, bibimbapMay 15: rice, croquette, miso soup, asparagus saladMay 16: calcium baguette, fish patty, chicken and tomato soup, green tea coated soybeansMay 17: barley rice, Korean pancake, Korean-style meat and potatoes, fruit cocktailMay 18: table roll, Spanish omelet, pumpkin potage, cabbage and corn saladMay 19: rice, soybean and seaweed pancake, taro stir fry, sweet waferMay 22: rice, grilled mackerel, soup, daikon radish saladMay 23: Neapolitan penne pasta, tomato and cheese chicken, veggie salad, yogurtMay 24: barley rice, meatballs, tofu stir fry, veggie and meat saladMay 25: plain bread with chocolate cream, deep-fried tofu with seaweed, cream gnocchi soupMay 26: rice, hamburger (meat only), miso soup, veggie saladMay 29: rice, burdock root and carrot salad, tofu soup, cheese blockMay 30: brown sugar bread, fried.. something, soup, macaroni and cheese saladMay 31: barley rice, sausage burger, pork and veggie curry, clementineJune 1: hot dog roll with caramel cream, chicken nuggets, minestrone soup, corn saladJune 2: rice, fried egg, salted meat and potatoes, radish saladJune 5: rice, fried chicken and cashew, vermicelli soup, jellyJune 6: spaghetti with meat sauce, hashed potato, fruit and mochi ballsJune 7: barley rice, cold tofu with soy sauce, braised chicken and veggies, stamina pork bowlJune 8: fried soybean bread, meatballs, pot-au-feu, yogurtJune 9: rice, grilled mackerel, soup with veggies, stir fryJune 12: rice, beef and green pepper stir fry, seaweed soup, jellyJune 13: table roll, croquette, consommé soup, ratatouilleJune 14: barley rice, curry, veggie salad, jelly (forgot to take a picture until I was halfway through the meal, oops!)June 16: rice, stir-fried bean sprouts, vegetable soup, nattoJune 19: rice, fried something, tofu and veggie stir fry, seaweed saladJune 20: roll, plain omelet, pork and beans, jellyJune 21: barley rice, Chinese dumpling, mapo tofu, veggie saladJune 22: curry udon, chicken sticks, osatsu (fried potato in honey, also called “daigaku imo” or “university potato” because it is a sweet that is very cheap to make when you’re broke)June 26: rice, pork kimchi, dan dan soup, fried herringJune 27: plain bread with blueberry jam, hamburger (meat only), ravioli soup, melonJune 28: barley rice, edamame fritter, Indian boiled meat and potatoes, bean sprouts and boiled veggiesJune 29: brown sugar bread, chicken salad in honey mustard, alphabet soup, lemon custard tartLookie! The letters and numbers are holding together really well!June 30: rice, mackerel (cooked eel style), pork miso soup, spinach and cucumber salad, cheese squareJuly 3: rice, fried egg, chicken dumpling soup, stir-fried veggies and tunaJuly 4: chocolate bread, chili chicken cutlet, champon (noodles), fruit and jellyJuly 5: barley rice, grilled mackerel, veggie and pork miso, apple sliceJuly 6: hot dog roll, hamburger steak, corn potage, mushroom saladJuly 7: rice, Tanabata soup, veggie salad, fried mackerel, star jelly (celebrating Tanabata, aka Star Festival)July 10: rice, stick gyoza, seaweed soup, pork kimchiJuly 11: penne in arrabiata sauce, white fish with veggie sauce, maple pancake, cheese squareJuly 13: French baguette, pumpkin gratin, soybean and tuna in tomato, green saladJuly 14: rice, boiled seafood pancake, miso soup, stir-fried pork and green onionJuly 18: naan, summer vegetable curry, veggie sauté, frozen pineapple
I am proud to say that I ate almost everything in every one of these meals, with two exceptions: cheese (which, anyone who knows me knows that I can’t stand cheese), picked away from multi-ingredient dishes or just plain ignored, and natto. Natto has such a strong, bad smell, and the texture looked so much like melted cheese that I couldn’t try even a single bite. It seems my Japanese colleagues were expecting me to refuse the natto, haha. (Foods that I don’t like that I was able to get down anyway were yogurt, tofu, and mushrooms.)
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