駅弁 ~ Station Meal-in-a-Box ~

I recently read a book about ekiben (駅弁, "railway boxed meals", according to Wikipedia—I'd always associated bento with lunch, but I guess you can have it for dinner, too). I was standing in the food studies section at the library and thought I'd pick something up.

The book was titled Ekiben Monogatari (『駅弁物語』, Stories of the Railway Boxed Meal) and published in 1979. Its author, Uriu Tadao (瓜生忠夫), was born in Taiwan in 1915 and worked later as a media critic while also writing about ekiben.

I admit I love ekiben—I get it every chance I get (unless I'm overladen with luggage), mostly when I take the shinkansen. I got one last at the beginning of August (pictured—though I threw away the wrapping and don't remember much about it, except it had something to do with being a light summer meal)!

The book was unexpectedly a great read, despite its moments of sexism. The concurrent rise of the ekiben along with that of the Japanese railway system, the relationship between ekiben and imperialism as the military purchased ekiben from vendors in exchange for supplying them with white rice (hot commodity during wartime), changing nature of trains (e.g., windows that passengers can't open) under modernization and the development of express trains and what it did to the economic structure of platform sales of ekiben... All really interesting and new to me.

In the book Uriu gives a recipe for making "Torimeshi" (「とりめし」), an ekiben he likes from Takasaki Station (高崎駅) in Gunma Prefecture (群馬県) in the Kantō region. Apparently he got the recipe from the (then?) owner of Budō-ya (葡萄屋) in Tokyo, a restaurant that specializes in chicken dishes and yakitori...and what do you know, they're still in business. I'm including a rough summary of the recipe below, just so I won't forget it.


The Meat Half of the Torimeshi Topping

400g ground chicken
8 T sake
4 T sugar
3 T soy sauce

Put meat into a pot, mix the sauce and pour over meat. Cook without stirring. When done, serve over half the rice in a bowl. (If you want to reheat, add sake or water.)


I love recipes like that. Now for

The Egg Half of the Torimeshi Topping

2 eggs
1 T sugar
Salt

Combine ingredients and pour into a pan with no oil. When it begins to cook, mix vigorously with chopsticks. Serve over the other half of the rice in a bowl.


He says torimeshi goes well with a simple chicken soup, made with ginger, garlic, salt, pepper...with a little bit of soy sauce, green onions, and some mitsuba (an herb, kind of like parsley or cilantro). Mmmmmm.