I thought I’d start a new part of the blog where I tell you about the school lunch, kyuushoku I eat everyday. Kyuushoku (“kyuu” – supplied, “shoku” – food) is the school lunch Japanese kids usually eat in elementary and junior high schools. The programme is government subsidized and considered a way to teach kids about learning healthy eating habits. In Sasayama, I think it costs about ¥250/meal. Kids don’t really have a choice; they all are required to eat the same thing. No one brings their lunch. Since Japan is pretty homogenous, there’s barely anyone with religious dietary restrictions. I don’t really know what they do in the case of a kid who can’t eat something for religious or allergy reasons. Teachers are required to eat kyuushoku as well. It’s fun for the whole school.

*I’ve rated each meal on a scale from 1 to 5 Shishamo.

Shishamo are these fish that often pop up in the kyuushoku menu. It seems to be the traditional epitome of kyuushoku to most foreigners. In the dictionary it says, “Capelin: a small fish of the north Atlantic, resembling a smelt. Mallotus viollosus, family Osmeriade”, if that means anything to any of you. These little guys are speared in the mouth and grilled in rows with the pregnant ones filled with eggs being the most sought after. They’re not bad and I have found myself ordering them at a restaurant more than once. I just can’t eat the head; it tastes like a charcoal briquette. 

So here is the kyuushoku menu for this week. (Dec 7-11)

Monday

Curry and rice (barley rice) カレーライス（麦ご飯）

Milk（牛乳）

Hard-boiled egg（ゆでたまご）

Tuna and Japanese radish salad（ツナと大根のサラダ）

888 Kcal

30.4 g of protein

Curry rice day is usually a pretty tame day. Nothing too strange here. The tuna salad wasn’t like American tuna salad, but more like a regular salad…with tuna in it. The only thing I didn’t eat was the hard-boiled egg, as they make me vomit. I don’t know why people choose to destroy a perfectly good egg by boiling it and making it the consistency of rubber and chalk dust.

4 shishamo

Tuesday

Bread roll （パン)

Milk（牛乳）

Sweet and sour meatballs（肉団子の甘酢あんかけ）

Boiled, seasoned spinach and bean sprouts（ほうれん草ともやしのナムル）

Wonton soup（ワンタンスープ）

Satsuma orange（みかん）

788 Kcal

37.1 g of protein

Today was the day I had about a pound of the spinach/bean sprout stuff. I usually like it, but a pound of anything is too much. The meatballs were a first for kyushoku and I’m not sure how I feel about them. They weren’t too bad, but they had the texture of burnt.

4.5 Shishamo

Wednesday

Reduced portion of rice with seaweed（減わかめごはん）

Milk（牛乳）

Grilled squid（焼きいか）

Komatsuna (potherb mustard, a type of rape, Brassica juncea var. japonica) and bean sprout with a sesame dressing（小松菜ともやしのごま和え）

Udon noodles in miso stew（味噌煮込みうどん）

756 KCal 

35.7 g of protein 

First of all, that was not a “reduced portion”. Minus one shishamo for lying. Surprisingly enough, I’ve come to almost enjoy grilled squid. I am very picky though, I pretty much only like the way that the kyuushoku ladies grill it. They cut a crosshatch onto a fillet and marinate it with soy sauce or something. It’s not bad. The udon noodle stew was less than amazing. Udon is a Japanese noodle that sort of tastes like really thick spaghetti that is made out of glue paste. I’m not a fan. The salad thing was good as always, nothing unusual there.

2.5 Shishamo  
(reduced 1 shishamo for lying)

Thursday

International food day-Russia

Lil’ Bread Roll（プチパン）

Milk（牛乳）

Borscht（ボルシチ）

Chicken piroshki (チキンピロシキ)

Russian Style Coleslaw（ロシア風コールスロー）

765 Kcal

31.2 g of protein

Pretty much every person who looked at the borscht said “OMFG IT’S RED!” or the Japanese equivalent thereof. The borscht had the color of beets, but not really the flavour. Everything was pretty good though. Russian style coleslaw turned out to be sweet coleslaw with raisins, kind of like the carrot/raisin salad people always try to pass off during a potluck. My favourite quote of the lunch was when the music teacher said, “Wow! It tastes so red!”

5 Shishamo

Friday

Birthday Menu

Rice with adzuki beans（赤飯）

Milk（牛乳）

Grilled salted salmon（サケの塩焼き）

Seaweed and cabbage in a vinegar dressing（わかめの酢の物）

Gathering Cloud Soup (kind of like egg drop soup) （むらくも汁）

Yoghurt（ヨーグルト）

795 Kcal

39.9 g of protein

Rice with adzuki beans, called sekihan, is a traditional celebratory dish in Japan. Adzuki beans are little red soybeans that make the rice a little sweet. Adzuki beans are boiled and simmered with sugar to make anko, which is this sweet bean paste that would kill any diabetic. Everything else was pretty good today. I always like salmon days since I can’t cook fish worth crap and always burn mine.

5 Shishamo