Miso Soup & Bento Boxes

My good friends, Miyoko and Akemi, came over to our apartment to teach me how to make Japanese miso soup. Miso soup is a traditional Japanese soup, and is served with almost every meal. The main ingredients are a stock called "dashi," miso paste, and water. Other ingredients vary depending on the region and season. They taught me how to make the soup using regular tofu, fried tofu, seaweed, and onions.

Many foreigners dislike the strong taste of miso, but I absolutely love it! Funny how I've always been pegged as the picky eater growing up, and now I'm eating more foods than anyone would have ever expected!

Slicing the tofu.

Preparing the ingredients.

The finished product!

While eating our miso soup, we had an interesting conversation about making breakfast for our husbands that I thought I would share...

Miyoko: "What do you make for breakfast for Joe?"
Me: "I don't."
Miyoko: "Eehhhh! Who makes breakfast for him?"
Me: "He makes it himself!"
Miyoko: "What about lunch? What do you prepare for him to take to work?"
Me: "Ummm, he makes his own lunch too."
Miyoko: "Wow!! You are lucky!!!"

Miyoko: "What about on the weekends? Do you make breakfast for him then?"
Me: "Yes, on most weekends I do. Although sometimes he makes breakfast for me."
Miyoko: "Eehhh! Wow! You are very lucky!"

I'm always intrigued to learn about the cultural differences, especially when it comes to family roles.

Through this conversation, I learned that it's customary for women to get up earlier than their husbands to make them breakfast. Wives are also expected to prepare lunch for their husbands and kids, so most of the time they get up considerably earlier than the men. And I'm not talking about whipping a sandwich together or brown bagging it - I'm talking about traditional bento style lunches - healthy, detailed, and prepared with thought.

Of course, younger generations are changing this tradition - as more and more women are getting full-time jobs, and couples in general are marrying much later in life. But bento has and continues to be a strong Japanese tradition.

Have you ever seen a bento? It's seriously spectacular! It's crazy to think about the amount of time and thought that goes into preparing a meal. I was always amazed when I was working at an elementary school here with the lunches that these kiddos brought to school - foods shaped like cartoon characters and animals... and overall colorful healthy combinations of foods from every food group. Seriously amazing. I can't even describe it, you need to see pictures....

If you're interested in learning more about bento boxes, I recommend reading (or just looking at the pictures of bentos) from the article A Japanese Life of Bento.