School Lunch Week: The Preparation

Since for a while my post about eating whale was the most popular post on the blog, I decided that people might be interested in what I have for school lunch in Japan.  So whenever I remembered to, I took a picture of my lunch tray.  And since I have so many pictures, and am trying to post every day this month, I decided I would dub this week School Lunch Week.  Be excited!

Today I'll give a general overview of school lunch and then everyday this week I'll post some pictures of lunches that I ate on that day of the week.

In most elementary and junior high schools in Japan there is no cafeteria.  The students eat in their classrooms.  The students are responsible for all of the preparation for lunchtime.  The exact details differ from school to school.  At my smaller school where there are less than a dozen kids per class, all of the kids help with set up and serving every day.  My larger school divides the students into groups for the different classroom responsibilities and they rotate between the different jobs, one being school lunch. 

The students don little coats, caps, and masks and head down to the school lunch room.  Lunch is prepared at the school lunch center and the brought to the school.  Both of my school lunch centers are located next to the junior high schools, and they drive the food to the elementary school as well.  At the lunch center they divide up the food for each class, based on the number of students in the class.  The students come to the lunch room and are inspected by a teacher or other students to be sure they are wearing the proper things.  A few times students have forgotten their masks, so they tape paper over their mouths, like a mask, so they won’t be breathing on the food.  Then they collect all the food and dishes for the day and head back to class.

Meanwhile, a student wipes down all of the desks.  Students usually move their desks into groups for lunch, but at my smaller school we make a circle out of the desks so everyone can eat together.  If there is a flu outbreak going around, students may be asked to eat with their desks facing forward as they are for class, to try to prevent the germs from spreading.  A few of my elementary classes also use this approach for the first and second graders, to keep them from being too distracted while they eat.

 

Every classroom has a lunch table that the students pull out and wipe down.  This is where most of the serving is done.  Exact procedures vary from classroom to classroom, but the students proceed to divvy up the food for every student.  Many of my classes let one student serve each dish (one on rice, one on soup, one on salad) and the others take the trays, chopsticks, milk, straws, and plates of food to each desk.  A few have the students line up with their trays and collect all of the different items assembly line style.  It really depends on the class and the teacher.

My tiny little first graders have this on the board to help them remember where to place everything on the lunch tray. 

Once everything has been served the kids all sit down and wait for the servers to take off and put away their aprons.  Then everyone puts their hands together and says, “Itadakimasu,” together before we eat.  Itadakimasu has no direct translation into English.  It’s what you say before you eat and is basically a way of saying thank you for the food you are about to eat.  This can be thanks to the people who prepared the food, or a more general thanks to god for providing the meal.  It’s polite, and if you’ve learned anything about Japan from my blog it should be that politeness is very, very important. 

If there is any extra food, due to a student being absent usually, there may be a mad dash to claim it.  As with most disputes with children in Japan, if more than one person wants the extra milk or whatever it is the conflict is solved by janken, or rock paper scissors.  This is also often also how the students decide where I will sit during lunchtime, with a member of each group competing for me.