Product Description

This book offers an elegant way to enjoy delicious, healthy food on the run. Includes more than 40 main dish recipes and step-by-step illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23499 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9784889960730
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Naomi Kijima is a well known cookbook author and teacher in Japan. She has appeared on Japanese television and her recipes are regularly featured in women's magazines and newspapers there.

Customer Reviews

Nice pictorial intro to bento, but not too practical
I run two food blogs, one focused mainly on Japanese cooking, the other just on bento lunches. (I'm Japanese but live outside of Japan.) I finally got around to taking a look at this book.

The pros: it's a nice visual introduction to fairly traditional bento lunch boxes. (Keep in mind that 'bento' can be something other than a portable lunch.) The presentation is very attractive.

The cons: even as someone familiar with the ingredients and cooking methods I thought that this book looked rather intimidating, because just about every single recipe calls for ingredients that are only available from Japanese groceries. Actually quite a lot of the recipes call for ingredientat that would be very hard to get outside of Japan. Clearly this is a translation of a Japanese bento book, and no consideration is given at all to how available certain ingredients may be or not. (This is something I always try to keep in mind on my sites.)

The presentation feels just a bit outdated to me. Current bento books in Japan have a much simpler, modern feel. The instructions are also rather abbreviated, as if the intended audience is the fairly experienced Japanese cook (which it probably was when it was written originally).

So, I think for most people who don't live in Japan this would be a nice picture book to have around, perhaps as inspiration and eye candy, but perhaps not too useful for everyday lunch making for a typical American.

Simple and to the point.
A Bento box is to the Japanese what the brown bag lunch is to Americans. And the food inside is the same: simple, easy to make, and cheep. Though this book is short (64 pages), it is easy to follow and is accompanied by colorful photos. The recipes are short and simple to follow, most with five or fewer ingredients. Take note, you are not going to find and fancy or exquisite dishes in this book. There is no introduction or explanations for what you are doing or why you do it. Its only recipes and pictures cover to cover. Almost all of the ingredients can be found at your local megamart with a few exceptions. Pickled plum, cod roe, and burdock might be hard , if not imposable to find, but by my count the things I cant get only eliminated seven or eight recipes. And with two to five recipes per page that?s not to bad. At its cheep price and easy to make dishes I lightly recommend this book.

Not for the beginner
While most of the recipes can be executed as described, some are missing key steps or oversimplifying. Case in point the directions for tamago. It says to combine the ingredients and make an omelet in a square pan.

What is left out is that you are supposed to pour part of the egg mixture into the pan. As it sets up, fold it in half so it sits on one side of the pan. Then pour more of the egg into the bare part of the pan. When it sets up, roll the previously cooked half back over the newly added side. Repeat the process.

This changes the texture of the finished product as well as the appearance.

Also as a word of warning, these will take a while to make. Some of the lunches presented incorporate 3-4 separate dishes. However you can mix and match so the book is a great resource in that sense. In addition the photos are beautiful and helps to make up what is missing in the directions.