The YouTube recommendation algorithm is the devil’s handmaiden, but occasionally Satan comes through. A few days ago, the algorithm introduced me to the channel Imamu Room, a Japanese woman’s weekly ...

Everyone from school children to salary men in Japan look forward to when the lunch bell rings, signaling it’s time for bento. The artfully-arranged boxes boast different compartments, each filled ...

We don’t think of the bento box as an important innovation, but we should. Created sometime in 12th or 13th century Japan, the bento box arguably invented food packaging as we know it today. The ...

It always comes to this. Partaking of Japanese food is not just perfunctorily putting food into one’s mouth. There are rituals involved, as well as cultural references, whether pop or much older, more ...

A typical bento box has a balance of dishes, most often including rice, meat or fish, and pickled vegetables. Kate Heddings is an experienced food writer and editor with a deep understanding of chefs, ...

Bento means lunch or lunch box. But for most Japanese home cooks, the act of preparing a bento box can mean much more than that. A bento box represents a mother’s love for her family. For centuries, ...

Growing up outside of Tokyo, Chef Kenji Miyaishi’s mother used to send him off with bento boxes of onigiri rice balls, karaage fried chicken, tamago-yaki egg omelets and vegetables from her garden.

In “Bento Monogatari,” a Belgian short film that was released in 2010, a woman makes her husband a bento box for lunch each day, in an attempt to salvage their marriage. Traditionally, bento is a ...