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| Curry and rice: white rice; chicken and beansprout salad with peanut sauce; Japanese curry with ground meat and veggies; 200ml Hokkaido milk |
October 30, 2015
October 29, 2015
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| Udon soup (kakeudon) with tofu, pork, potato, carrot, mushroom, green onion. 200ml Hokkaido milk. Large fishstick with teriyaki-like sauce. Marinated cabbage and onion. White rice with noritama (seaweed egg) flavour furikake (rice topping). |
The topping is a pretty regular occurrence. kinda fishy, sweet, salty, crunchy all in one. Nice change from the white rice. Not really sure whether or not it's healthy - but the package did mention calcium.
October 28, 2015
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| Egg drop soup wih wakame, green onion, carrot, shiitake. White rice. Pork and ginger stir fry wih carrot. Marinated saba. 200ml Hokkaido milk. |
Pretty good, just the saba (a type of Mackerel) is annoying - had to split it in half and pick out all the little tiny bones. i liked the strong ginger in the stir fry
October 27, 2015
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| White rice. 200ml Hokkaido milk. Fried tofu, pork, green beans, potato, daikon, and carrot. Fried squid rings. Miso soup with cabbage and wakame. |
Back to normalcy after the excessive lunch yesterday. Very tasty.
October 26, 2015
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| Top: cold barley tea, miso soup. Tray: half kiwi, strawberry jello cup. Plate: fried rice, fried fish, fried chicken, fried shrimp, french fries, Hamburg steak, edamame, tuna salad with corn, vanilla cake, match cake, chocolate cake. |
So yeah, it was a lot of food, very good, but very fried. The kiwi and the strawberry cup were highlights. The matcha (green tea) cake was quite good too.
October 23, 2015
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| Wakame rice. Milk. Sweet egg omelette with soy sauce. Potatoes, carrots, onion and ham with cheese in curry cream sauce. Miso soup with fried tofu and butterbur (kinda like celery). |
October 22, 2015
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| Hearty soup with carrot, onion, turnip, hijiki, soybeans, tofu. Milk. Fried fish with sauce. Spinach with smoked fish flakes. White rice. Churros. Chicken yakitori |
October 21, 2015
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| butterscotch hot dog bun?; fruit salad with yogurt; ramen with pork, carrot, cabbage, and bamboo shoot; milk. |
The fruit salad/yogurt thing was funny. The kids giving out the food ran out after giving out like half the bowls, so everyone have to come back to the table and give back half their fruit/yogurt. I was towards the end of the line, so I took very little so the kids after me could take more. I took another whole bowl of ramen the same size though.
October 20, 2015
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| Salmon, wakame, and carrot rice. milk. onion coleslaw-type salad. stew with pork, carrot, onion, tofu. |
It's not much to look at, but lunch today was very tasty. they use a sweet, mild onion in the salad.
There's been a fair bit of national news in Monbetsu over the last week or two:
Woman, 93, found stabbed dead in her home
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/19/national/crime-legal/woman-93-found-fatally-stabbed-hokkaido-home/
Giant bear killed for eating all of a farmer's corn
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201510160074
October 19, 2015
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| white rice, milk, cabbage/corn salad, fried meat of some sort, soup w/ cabbage carrot and weiners |
October 18, 2015
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| Nepalese curry place: chicken wing, mutton, pickle, spicy curry, chicken something curry, naan |
October 16, 2015
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| chahan; hamburg (pork with meatloaf spices); fish paste things with cabbage smokey tasting; soup with fish paste balls, tofu; 200ml Hokkaido milk |
Today's lunch was only okay. off to Abashiri to help with a halloween party for students tonight!
October 15, 2015
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| chicken nuggets; peanut garlic tomato sauce; 200ml hokkaido milk; naan; soup with sliced weiner, spinach, carrot |
October 14th, 2015
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| Pork? chowder (tiny bits of pork, buna-shimegi mushroom, cabbage, and carrot in chowder base); grape ice jelly; maple bread (kinda like a cinnamon bun, but with maple flavour instead); fried chicken with onion and ginger; 200ml Hokkaido milk. |
School festival rehearsal today so no classes. Just watched the elementary school (grades 1-6) practise their plays and music. The brass band is going to osaka for a competition in november!
October 9th, 2015
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| Miso soup with ginger, tofu, wakame, bamboo shoot. White rice. Green apple jelly. Fried pork and shiitake. Bean sprout, wilted spinach and roasted sesame salad. 200ml Hokkaido milk. |
October 8th, 2015
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| 7-11 brand white bread, canned tuna, chili garlic sauce, bacon, kirkland cheddar. |
After work, Mark and I drove around in his car to check out the typhoon. a lot of rain and very strong wind - its been pouring rain for about 12 hours, no signs of letting up. Here's a video or two:
https://youtu.be/Jyf4eTwkCJw
https://youtu.be/Id3OaTn6dmM
October 7th, 2015
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| Udon with carrot, greens, onion, daikon, processed fish cake, chicken. Plain hotdog bun. Kabocha (pumpkin) mochi. Cucumber and cabbage salad. 200ml Hokkaido milk. |
Today's lunch is brought to you by weird-uses-of-western-food. It seems like every time I come to this school, a hot dog bun makes up part of the lunch. One week, we got a packet of peanuts cream to put on it (like a super sweet, whipped peanut butter) but usually it is plain. I went back for seconds of the salad and udon. The kabocha mochi was pretty good, and very season appropriate. it had sort of a sweet brown sugar coating on the outside, the pumpkin flavour and gummy mochi texture inside. Mochi is made from pounding cooked rice until it turns into a gummy solid - there are some cool videos on youtube of the process.
Speaking of mochi, I forgot to take a picture of my lunch yesterday. It was plain rice with a flavour packet, milk, and something called "oden": where you simmer a bunch of different ingredients together in broth. The school lunch version was mediocre at best - it was a mochi, a big slice of daikon, and some tubular processed fish cake served on a plate without the broth. Convenience stores sell a much better version of oden - usually with egg, more vegetables, etc and simmered in a super flavourful broth.
After lunch yesterday, I got to go harvest rice with the 5th grade elementary students - we cut it down, tied it in bundles and hung the bundles under a shelter. They will dry here for 1 month, at which point the grains will be separated from the husk and stalk. Then in December, the students will use that rice to make mochi (for something, I don't know exactly what). Here's one picture I took that doesn't have anyone in it:
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| rice bundles before being tied up |
August 28, 2015
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| Miso soup with aburaage (deep fried tofu); cabbage and tofu salad; fried chicken strips; wakame fried rice (so good!); 200ml Hokkaido milk |
I am at the Board of Education today (this is where I go when I am not scheduled at any of my schools). It's like the schoolboard, it's across the street from my house. I'll be making my own lunch today, likely won't be photo worthy.
October 4th, 2015
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| Left: Large rice, some kinda fish. Centre: pickled onion and orange peel, cod roe, tofu salad, potato salad. Right: fish dumpling, sweet omelette, tempura shrimp with tartar sauce?, soy sauce noodle, marinated tofu, grilled meat. |
October 2nd, 2015
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| large rice with packet of savoury nori paste. miso broth with cabbage, carrot and potato. marinated chicken with veggies (green pepper, onion, carrot). 200ml Hokkaido milk. |
October 1st, 2015
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| October 1st, 2015. fried sanma fish with light teriyaki-esque sauce. tofu carrot salad. cabbage miso soup. large rice. 200ml hokkaido milk. The fish had some small bones in it, the appropriate way to deal with this is to crunch through em i guess. fish is also almost always served skin-on, which is quite tasty. |
School lunch in Japan is called Kyushoku (給食) . Each classroom gets a cart, with trays, bowls, and 3-4 containers of food. Students, from 1st year elementary (~5 years old) to 3rd year junior high (~14 years old) put on their white cap and jacket, and dole out equal portions to their classmates. The trays are placed on the desks, remaining entirely untouched until everyone has been served, seated quietly, and said "itadakimasu". The rest of the whole system can be read about here, in more detail and better written than I care to do. it's a pretty excellent system.
I've taken a picture of most kyushoku since I arrived. I'll post a picture of my lunch every school day, and work through the backlog of others gradually over the next while. Sometimes I'll tag on a bit of extra info or a second picture.
ijou desu.
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