In Japan, the eager joy of lifting the lid of a homemade bento —successful, colorful, and full of vitamins—is a daily ritual for some. Others, however, must make do with the konbini-bento , the semi-industrial bento from the convenience store, whose transparent plastic lid removes all mystery.
The craftsman of the first is most often the Japanese woman. She rises at dawn to prepare her young child's bento, imagining the bright, joyful light in his eyes when he discovers the contents of the box. Today, she might even have delicately written his name with ketchup on the rolled omelet. Cooking is already a form of writing. She could tell him so many things, so many "I love yous" that she can't express out of modesty.
Sometimes a self-sacrificing mother, she pours everything into this box of love: time, thought, promises, and sometimes loses herself in it. She strives to outdo each other in ingenuity to win the competition. The pressure is so intense to always produce something tastier, more creative, more nourishing… than the family next door. Why is my bento always so bland and colorless? She couldn't accept that defeat. What humiliation for the Japanese schoolchild who arrives at the school festival with a less-than-glorious bento and eats lunch next to a classmate whose mother got up at five in the morning to prepare ebi-furai (breaded shrimp), arranged magnificently alongside the rice on a bed of shredded cabbage.
In Japan, the idea persists that cooking at home is healthier, and high school students often enjoy their mothers' bento boxes. Kaori, a single mother, is dealing with her daughter's teenage rebellion; the girl doesn't speak a word at home. She decides to write down what she herself doesn't dare say, using her bento box. When the young girl opens it, she finds a rice ball shaped like an angry face and a piece of seaweed artfully cut into the epithet "Do your dishes!" Kaori makes the daily bento her messenger, her weapon of choice. Direct speech would be futile; the bento maintains the connection. Throughout her three years of high school, the rebellious teenager finishes every meal, her way of responding to her mother's expression of love. She chooses to remain silent. For this reason, her mother has always held onto hope. Rather than withdrawing into silence, Kaori cooks; it's tangible. For their last meal, she wrote to her daughter: "Pursue your dreams!", a magnificent love letter.
For some, the bento box becomes a Pandora's box. The husband opens the bento prepared by his wife and finds only plain white rice, a revenge of the neglected wife. To the husband's astonishment is added his shame in front of his amused colleagues...
For others, the bento is a declaration of love, a declaration from a young woman in love. Every weekend, she prepares bentos for her boyfriend. Actions speak louder than words.
There is also the letter to oneself, from the young single woman who works and now carries what is commonly called the "my-bento", a personal lunchbox, a meal that she prepares just for herself and consumes with avid pleasure.
Finally, there's the train station bento, the ekiben , a national treasure of Japan, filled with local specialties—a culinary journey that evokes nostalgia for the place one has just left. The taste of the local region reminds the traveler of the vibrant memory of that fleeting figure they will never possess… a letter from an unknown life they imagine, seated on the train carrying them far away.
*bento: a takeaway meal, presented in a box.