Tips for Maintaining Satisfaction with Bento Boxes

A talk about tips for making satisfying bento boxes.

Today I had a minced meat cutlet bento.

The satisfaction level was average, and I didn't have any particular insights regarding the taste, but I realized I hadn't written much about bento boxes. The only thing I've written is the article below👇.

For someone like me to write about this with such a title feels presumptuous toward all the mothers—no, everyone—who work hard to make bento boxes for their loved ones, but I think I can write something that might make you think, 'I see,' so I'll give it a try. I'm writing this from scratch, so please forgive the readability.

Since you are making a bento box,there is always someone who will eat it. Whether it's family, a partner, or a friend, it varies, but there is nothing more gratifying for the person making it than having the bento they made be eaten with a 'This is delicious!' It's only natural, yes^^.

If a bento is just for one day, one time, you can aim for the preferences of the person eating it, and the probability of hitting a 'This is delicious!' is high, but when it comes to every day, the probability of that 'delicious!' will surely start to drop.

The reasons are

perhaps? (laughs). Do you have any ideas that come to mind?😅 No, there might be even more.

In any case, the motivation behind all these reasons is the desire to 'have them enjoy the bento.' Because this is at the root, the person eating it is generally happy. But taste is taste, and there are definitely bento boxes that are hard to eat (laughs). No, not hard to eat, or maybe hard to enjoy—as I wrote in the article above, if you try to turn a normal meal into a bento, you will almost always fail. Therefore, there is a way of thinking specific to bento boxes.

One of those isthe temperature of the ingredients. Temperature, that is.

By the time you eat a bento, it is almost cold. Unlike a warm meal eaten at home, a bento is eaten outside, so it is consumed in a cold state. This means that cookbooks and the like probably write,Make things that are delicious even when cold!I think that is what they write.

However, knowing that, I'd like to change the way of thinking a little.

In my opinion, 'food that is delicious even when cold' is,

I think it comes down to this. Oh, if this was written in some cookbook somewhere, please let me know, 'I already knew that.' I must study more (laughs).

And here is where it starts.

Instead of making things so they are delicious even when cold, choose things that don't change even when cold and put them in the bento. The cooking is the same as always. Just by doing that, the satisfaction of the bento you eat every day should be quite sustainable.

To be a bit more specific,

And here are the explanations for each item.

1. Choose ingredients that are already cooked (do not include raw items)
While I would like to include raw vegetables like salads for balance, I have to hold back. If you absolutely must include them, stick to shredded cabbage. Avoid cucumbers and tomatoes as they change the flavor profile. Avoid dressed salads that contain items like imitation crab, as they can develop an odor. Potato salad is fine.

2. If making it yourself, use a seasoning balance that leans away from the standard salt, soy sauce, and sugar ratio
Since the ingredients are generally warm when you are cooking, the balanced flavor profile you achieve at that time will fall apart once it cools down. Therefore, create a flavor profile that leans heavily toward either saltiness or sweetness. Umami does not change with temperature, but if the seasoning is too light, the effect of the umami will drop drastically when the food cools.

3. Determine the color scheme based on the post-cooked appearance
While the person making the bento has a desire to make the colors look nice because appearance is important (lol), if you are going to do that, make sure to adjust it based on the color after cooking. Do not rely on the raw colors of items like tomatoes.

4. Prioritize taste over visual appeal
While visuals are important, taste is even more important for a bento. Bento boxes that are judged by their appearance are usually not very tasty. This is because even though the food is cold, the person eating it has a warm image of it in their mind (most people probably do this unconsciously), so the gap in the first bite is significant. Furthermore, if you put too much effort into making it look delicious, that gap only widens. The smaller the gap between appearance and taste in a bento, the higher the probability that it will be considered delicious.

5. Assume there will be no aroma and exclude it from the flavor profile
You might want to focus on aroma while cooking, but since the food is cold, there is virtually no aroma that reaches your nose when you eat it. Instead, the aroma that travels from your mouth to your nose after you eat is super important. Therefore, focus on taste; if the taste is good, the aroma that travels to your nose will also be good, and as a result, it will feel delicious.

I think that covers it ^^. I feel like there is more, but if I kept writing, it would probably exceed 10,000 characters, so I will stop here for lunch.

I wish you all a wonderful bento life! 😉

Now, what should I try tomorrow?

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