Public School lunches in Japan
School Lunch at Elementary SchoolThe day after tomorrow is February 3, it's "Setsubun" here.We will eat sushi rolls, grilled fishand the same amount roasted beans as our ages.In my city, there are school lunches at public elementary school. Kids will have the same menu (but different way of cooking, deep-fried sardine with sweet soy sauce flavor last year) for lunch and dinner tomorrow, haha.I will write about school lunches in Japan!I wonder if there are some differences all over the world. I think this is one ofinteresting topics.Since private schools have their own systems, so I will write about public schools.We have school lunches at both Nursery and Elementary schools(none at Kindergarten), they have cooking staffs at each school besides teachers.All the schools have the same menus and cooking recipes, because all thedietitians from every schools gather and discuss regularly for the only menu while considering kids' health and nourishment balance.All the ingredients and flavors should be paid attention carefully to use domestic meats and vegetables, no artificial additives and be good for the health.Twice a week are bread menu, the 3 times are rice one.The menu is basically a main dish like meat or fish, soup, rice and milk, sometimes a dessert.We have lunch time after the 4th lesson, and students should serve lunches by themselves, from the 1st to 6th grade students.We have rules for decided taking turns to work as serving members in classrooms and getting containers from and to the cooking room.One class has under 40 kids, so lunches are very heavy especially rice and soup for the younger kids.So the 6th grade students help the 1st everyday.The 6th grade will learn they are the superior and should take care of the youngerunconsciously; on the other hand, the 1st grade will admire the superior. It's a good system to understand responsibility each other.At first, the 1st grade students are poor at serving and break many plates, but gradually become better.I think repeating is very important for everything.When I was young, we used to metal plates, but recently changed to ceramic ones to enjoy and taste foods more, though teachers must have many troubles to put away when they break.And at public junior high school and high school, we basically have home made packed lunches every day, though there are school lunches a cooking company delivers too.
