Caitlin O'Mara's Blog

Japanese School Lunch: Week 11

Jul 24 2008 • Japanese School Lunch

Please note that an American menu will not be provided for comparison because of summer vacation.

If you’ve been keeping up with my Twitter expulsions, it’s pretty clear why there haven’t been a lot of updates…I’ve been playing Sims 2. Yes, I’m one of those people.

Anyway, this is clearly late. There’s a huge gap because a group of exchange students came and rather than go to the various schools, we got shuffled around as guides/interpreters for a week.

July 1, 2008
Japanese Menu

Bread roll
Wonton soup
Fried tofu with chili sauce
Lemon-marinated daikon
Strawberry jam
Milk

July 9, 2008
Japanese Menu

Rice
Miso soup with mountain vegetables
Salt-grilled Arabesque greenling
Broiled tofu
Grapefruit
Milk

Other Notes
Mountain vegetables are pretty popular here and at this time, they’re in season. They wind up in a variety of foods, including pickles. Some are pretty delicious but some look (and taste) like boogers.
July 10, 2008
Japanese Menu

Bread roll
Tomato and egg soup
Crunchy vegetable croquette
Sauteed cabbage and bacon
Chocolate spread
Milk

Other Notes
Chocolate spread was a pain in the butt to hunt down. When in doubt, type in the Japanese word in Google images and see what you get. And make sure safe search is on.
July 11, 2008
Japanese Menu

Rice
Hittsumi (soup)
Skipjack tuna boiled with burdock root
Seaweed salad
Milk

Other Notes
Hittsumi is a Tohoku regional dish. It has a lot of vegetables, usually root ones, torn udon noodles that don’t really look like noodles, and chicken. It’s really delicious and cheap to make. If I had known about this in college, I would have bought far less Cup Noodle.
Tags:

Related Posts

Comments

I see that besides the croquette, there’s a lack of deep fried foods which I’m getting sick of in our cafeteria. Hittsumi sounds really yummy and easy to make… Well if I ever decide to cook in our scary excuse for a kitchen any time soon…

Gotta have milk with every meal. Does a body good and what have you. I personally can’t down milk with a meal, especially when soup is part of the equation too.

@issa-sa: For all the fuss about healthy Japanese food, there seems to be a lot of deep-fried foods in the cuisine today. I remember during my study abroad, the cafeteria was filled with really unhealthy food so I generally stuck to the udon and soba soups.

@Yamcha: It would if there was some vitamin D in it too. I just learned that our local milk doesn’t have that, which means a lot of the calcium is just passing through. :(

Then uh, snack on some tuna or other fish for your Vitamin D! (although fish and milk doesn’t sound too good together)

Some bread have vitamin D, no? Or yogurt or some cereals?

@IcyStorm: I take supplements. ^_^ The cereal is fortified but it’s very expensive. I do eat a lot of seaweed and spinach, both of which have good amounts of calcium.

I think my health has taken a drastic drop ever since coming here… I think I should actually start cooking my own meals from now on… chock full off seaweed and whatever veggies I can find.

@issa-sa: What kinds of things do you like? Maybe I can help. I love cooking and experimenting. ^_^

I love almost all manner of food really… except pickles :P I used to love coking and experimenting myself (well in my case, the 2 come hand in hand -_-”) But I’ve stopped for a while now because sharing the kitchen with a floor-full of dormmates kinda killed that interest.

Leave a Reply

First-time comments are held for moderation. If your comment does not appear, please view the comment policy for more information. This site uses Akismet and Bad Behavior.