Are Bento Boxes the First TV Dinners?
The pop culture and food history book, TV Dinners Unboxed, makes the case that the Bento Box is the original TV dinner, albeit without television.
Here is an excerpt to enjoy.
Fifteen centuries ago, old seed boxes were used to house the lunches of Japan’s farmers and hunters. The portability was convenient and individual sections kept distinct dishes separate. This became the bento box, “a multicompartment box used for containing the different courses of a usual Japanese lunch”. A typical bento lunch has a balance of dishes, most often rice, meat or fish, and pickled vegetables placed in, “a wide tray divided into several compartments, like a dollhouse laid on its side…”
The word “bento” comes from the Chinese term biandang, meaning “convenient” or “convenience”. A ‘convenient box’ is an accurate description of a TV dinner. The dividers that separate dishes, especially those with strong flavors, works well given miso soup is included in modern bento lunches. Green plastic grass, also known as the ‘sushi grass’, is further used to keep foods and condiments like ginger and wasabi separate. When Campbell’s owned Swanson, they added a soup compartment to the aluminum tray. If you were to place a Bento Box and this TV dinner side by side, the similarities are indisputable.
One of the key benefits of the bento box design is portion control and balanced nutrition. The divided compartments serve as visual cues, encouraging the appropriate servings of different food groups. This helps prevent overeating and food waste. By incorporating a variety of food items, such as lean proteins, whole grains, colorful vegetables, and healthy fats, bento boxes provide the physical structure for a well-balanced nutritional profile.
In Japan, bento is served virtually everywhere from Sailor Moon cafés to train-station food carts while dedicated bento stores operate around the clock in Tokyo. Incredibly, five billion bento boxes are prepared at home in Japan each year for parents who work and children attending school. The western equivalent is the lunchbox, a highly practical item that became a fashion statement at schools everywhere. These metal conveyances and organizers began simply. Blue collar workers used them to endure the hazards of busy and dangerous 19th Century worksites that were not safe for people let alone lunches. Still, it was hoped both would get through the day unscathed and unsquished. Kids admired dad’s metal lunchbox prompting cookie and tobacco tins to be adapted for school lunches.
In 1902, the first commercial lunchbox was released with painted scenes of children playing on its sides. Most families chose not to afford such an indulgence until Mickey Mouse appeared on one in 1935 kicking off a mania. The lunch box became more important than the lunch it contained. The craze reached new heights in the fifties when Aladdin Industries established itself as the prominent creator and licensor of lunch box art. The Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox, based on the television show, sold 600,000 units in its first year. An industry was born that would go on to sell 120 million lunchboxes between 1950 and 1970.
Most were metal with a lid opening on two simple hinges. A small interior thermos matched the design. Rudimentary compartments established portion sizes with slots for sandwiches, raw vegetables, and cookies. Metal was replaced for a short time by vinyl stretched over cardboard. This version did not weather the elements or the abuse a lunchbox owner could inflict. The Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia houses nearly four thousand lunchboxes. The collection proves that every show that was on television, ended up on a lunchbox. The Green Hornet, The Addams Family, Six Million Dollar Man, and Little House on the Prairie all qualified. Hollywood was well represented with E.T., Indiana Jones, and James Bond emblazoned on boxes.
Metal gave way to plastic, and, for a time, reusable lunch bags were popular but failed to protect sandwiches and baked items. Early this century, lunch boxes transformed into expensive, insulated carriers in backpack form. Children were weighed down by these and knapsacks of books and supplies. Modern lunchboxes resemble bento boxes and have stolen the name. These are stackable, have multiple compartments, house cutlery, and are microwave safe.
In Japan, traditional bento boxes are personal status symbols like a fine watch or expensive phone. Made of lacquered wood, aluminum, plastic, or bamboo, these are more fashion accessory than dishware. The box is rectangular but there are circular and oval shapes with matching chopsticks held in a decorative carrying pouch.
In school, Japanese children may be judged by the quality of their bento box but critiques of the food are also harsh. School kids enjoy kyaraben, a food designed to look like people, cartoon characters, animals, and plants. These creations keep kids interested in food and eating right. Kyaraben are styled as Batman, Teddy Bears, Minions, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and good old Mickey Mouse. Japanese parents take this seriously spending hours shopping, concocting, and shaping elaborate lunches. The comedian, Highheel Momoko, joked about being exposed to “Bento shaming” when her children’s meals did not measure up to schoolmates.
Culture writer, Kovie Biakolo, observed, “To many Americans, the TV dinner tastes like nostalgia; to others, it still tastes like the future.” With the same sharp insight found in Mark Kurlansky’s Salt combined with the invaluable lessons in The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman, TV Dinners Unboxed, employs frozen meals as a lens to examine our recent history and astonishes and entertains in equal measure.
