Healthy School Lunches in Bento Box Style
Make Artful Japanese, Low Fat Recipes from The Manga Anime Cookbook
Aug 20, 2009
Parents everywhere are concerned about how to make certain that their children have healthy foods available when it’s time for them to eat. But even when healthy low-fat foods have been prepared, how can parents be sure that kids’ lunches will be eaten?
The Manga Cookbook (2007, Japanime Co., Ltd.), illustrated by Chihiro Hattori, is a delightful book containing authentic Japanese recipes that any Westerner can make from surprisingly common ingredients. What’s more is that these recipes are fun to prepare and stunningly beautiful!
Manga Cooking is Fun
Children will want to get in on the fun and help with meal preparation. Who knows – they may even take over lunchbox prep and learn how to create beautiful, nutritious and balanced diets on their own!
Among young people, Anime cartoons and their characters are incredibly popular. Within the Manga genre in particular, food appears frequently and helps to pique children’s interest. Kids love to role-play and imitate these characters, and trying out the foods they eat is a big part of the fun.
The Manga Cookbook is 144 pages of well organized step-by-step guides to preparing all of the most popular manga dishes, and includes full color photographs of the many recipes.
Included Favorite Recipes
- Onigiri (rice balls)
- Yakitory (chicken skewers)
- Udon (Japanese noodles)
- Usagi Ringo (rabbit apples)
- Tamago Tomodachi (egg buddies – so cute!)
- Tako Sausage (make them look like octopus! or squid!)
- Sushi Rice
- 3 Color Dango (sweet dumplings)
Manga is Good Nutrition
Parents can rest assured that all of the recipes in The Manga Cookbook are as nutritious as they are fun to create, because each of the 27 recipes was specially chosen by Yoko Ishihara (chef and certified nutritionist) and The Manga University Culinary Institute.
The recipes range from traditional to relatively modern Japanese cuisine. Each recipe has illustrations by Chihiro Hattori, cultural notes, suggested variations, and references to the Manga cartoon episode in which the recipe was originally featured.
The Obento (Bento Box) Lunchbox
All of these wonderful recipes are even more fun and attractive when thoughtfully arranged in a Bento Box – the traditional Japanese meal-on-the-go lunchbox. In fact, The Manga Cookbook - Bento Box Gift Set combo is currently available from online retailers at only $15.00.
A variety of easy-to-use egg and rice-ball molds, fruit or vegetable cutters and punches, and other fun tools are also available to make creating an artful bento boxed lunch a breeze. Even children can have professional looking results.
The Manga Cookbook Reviews
- Lynn Andriani writes, “The book is so popular that it’s outselling weighty tomes written by stars of the Japanese TV show Iron Chef (including Masaharu Morimoto)."
- Brigid Alverson of Graphic Novel Reporter remarks that, "The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) chose The Manga Cookbook as one of their Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers, and it’s easy to see why."
Fun in the kitchen, healthy school lunches, and artful food presentations all come together with Manga! Imagine how proud a child would be to say of these lunches, “I made it all myself!”
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