Lunch Box Diaries

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1 LUNCH BOX DIARIES

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Lunch hour confessions from around the world.

Transcript of Lunch Box Diaries

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L U N C H B O X D I A R I E S

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Lunch hour confessions from around the world.

Vedashree Bankar Amruta Buge

Maria De Falco Yinfan Huang

Sara Risvåg

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Sara RisvågNORWAYTromsø,

My family has never been known as “earlybirds,” more like nightwalkers. This as a consequence mean’t that we were never up early and we nev-er had much time in the mornings. Normally I would wake up by my dad saying my name in the door, a bad sign that was, because it mean’t that I had overslept again. As soon as I heard my name I would sit straight up in bed. A horrible kind of waking up that no one deserves. The rest of the morning routines went by in a hurry and this is why my lunch nor-mally was a rather a sad affair.

I would have my lunch in a plastic bag and most of the time the con-tent was consisting of a dry piece of ready sliced brown bread with

a sweaty salami on top. The smell alone was enough for me to loose my interest in food. Sometimes you could even smell it through my back-pack.

At some point I realized that bring-ing the lunch with me too school was pointless. So I would grab the plastic bag my dad gave me as I ran past him to the stairs and throw it in the garbage bin outside our house. It always made me feel bad because my dad had after all gotten out of bed to fix me lunch for school. I did confess this to him many years later only to discover that he had known about this all the time and he kept doing it anyway as he could make sure I woke up that way.

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Iossie Ng LeiUNITED KINGDOMLondon,

My lunch was just a sandwich wrapped in a plastic wrap, a bottle of water, and a snack or fruit.

I used to sit with a group of friends outside. I would always eat my sand-wich first and then the fruit and wa-ter. We were a really big group, like 20 of us. We would always sit togeth-er, or stand up, and walk around.

Sometimes it would be cheese and ham, tuna, tomato lettuce and cheese, sometimes it would be pea-nut butter, sometimes just cheese. When I was in primary my mum

would make it, but when I went to secondary I would make it myself.

When I was younger it was a plastic lunchbox and again it was a sand-wich, juice, and a fruit. I had more lunce when I was little.

I used to be really jeaous of all the kids that would have deep-fried meals or snacks. Some kids got like five chocolate bars and alI got was a fruit. Some of my friends would get frizzy drinks like coca cola and my mum would never give me that.

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My lunchbox as a kid was provided by the school, each of the kids had the possibility to serve lunch to friends. Like to be a waitress, it was a special moment for everyone. My favor-ite food was bastoncini findus, fish sticks. We lunched all together in a room, the lunch room and we could refill our plates how many times we wanted.

Normally we would get them with green peas, puree, smashed pota-toes, salad or vegetables. And at the end of the meal we had budino, a kind of yoghurt at the end of the meal. Sometimes we stole one budi-no to eat at the afternoon period.

We payed for the bonumentsa, they were five mila lire, about 2,50 euros, so we never brought anything else to eat at school.

Everyone had their own towel or apron so that we would not spill on our dress or shirt. During lunchtime we would talk, play and sing. Some-times we even had food wars with bread. This was our break. Now I think the teacher was not even there. It was just Flavia, the lady working to serve us lunch. I love her. They gave us green little coupons, bonumentsa, the size a dollar bill. With these we were able to get food.

Carlotta Albertini

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Maria de FalcoITALYNaples,

If I ever have had a nice lunchbox it wouldn’t last long, because I used to turn every box into a pencils case. However, during the normal school days my mum used to give me some ready made snacks that I hated so much that I happily gave to my class-mates, so then they started waiting for me during lunch.

Since we were three children, my mum prepared huge amounts of food, because she knew we shared everything with friends. What she really loved to prepare was mac-cheroni omlet, potatoes gattò and, my favourite one, chestnut cake with raisins.

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Anna KiryanovaRUSSIASeberia,

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Kiki Kita

I used a lunchbox only when we had field trips. Other than that, the school provided lunch for us in lunch trays. Lunch provided by the school would always include fruits, milk, bread, a main dish, and dessert. Ev-eryday, the main dish and dessert would change. One day we might have chicken curry and pudding, and another day we might have grilled fish, jello, etcetera.

We were allowed to go play once we we finished our food. The teachers made sure we ate everything on the plate, because they were strict on

not having leftovers. I was always one of the last ones to go play. On days of field trips, our moms would prepare the lunch boxes for us, and they would usually take time off from work and join us.

In Japan, it is custom to make your child’s lunchboxes as cute and ap-pealing as possible, and if you don’t, other moms will judge your lunch box. It was more of a competition between the moms than anything else. My lunch box had things like sausages in the shape of octopuses, or fruits cut into star shapes, etc.

JAPANKawagoe,

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Marta KlopfITALYMonza,

I didn’t have a lunch box when I was a kid, because my elementary school offered lunch and we weren’t allowed to bring our own food. My mom used to put a snack in my bag before I left for school. I had two op-tions: chocolate cookies or this sand-wich with olives.

We shared and traded our snacks, so no one felt envious or left out. I don’t have a funny story about my snacks,

but I can tell you that at lunch time we did everything in our power in order for us to not get caught from our teachers. We hid the gross food we didn’t want to eat. I mean, we stuffed our bread with that disgust-ing fish they gave us, we hid it under our lettuce, we rolled it in our nap-kins, and hid the napkins under our plates. I guess it’s not really funny, but it seems so now because of the amount of effort we put into it.

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Jessy LuCHINAJingzhou,

I never brought my lunchbox to school, because I lived pretty close to school, about 5 minutes on bike, so I usually ate my lunch at home. Some-

times, I came back to school from the lunch break early, so I would grab food from my classmates.

I always liked spicy food since I was a kid. Others carried forks and spoons, but I could eat my spicy food with my hands. My mother would give me tradi-tional Indonesian food like tahu (tofu), tempe, and fish. She was always creative with the way she packed my lunch. She would shape the rice in different shapes like a circle or triangle. She would make the food look fancy by making it look like su-shi and by having fish and rice together. I never liked water as

a kid, so my mother would give me iced tea instead in a bottle that had a long string so it was easy to carry when I was young.

The lunch was packed in a box, which isn’t that common in Indonesia now, it was pretty common for when I went to school. When I was studying my under-grad this one lady offered to make my friends and me lunch. That lady packed our lunch in the same kind of lunch box from the 80s, which got all my old mem-ories back!

Azisa NoorINDONESIABandung,

Illustration by Jessy Lu (left).

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Christina HuangTAIWANTaipei,

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Johana Brubeck MEXICOMonterrey,

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Jim YangCHINAShanghai,

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Mert DemirelTURKEYIstanbul,

Whenever lunch started students used to run to the cafeteria for cups. We were favoring these 5 designs on cups that we got milk in. The ‘Teddy bear’ cups were everybody’s

favorite, and nobody ever wanted the ‘Snowman’ cups.”Nobody [the school] expected these cups to cre-ate a hierarchy or sort and a battle for kindergarteners.

My lunch tray consisted of: soup, vegetables, never fish, always chick-en or beef, and fruit juice. I was really taken aback when I moved to the U.S

at the age of 14. I espcially remem-ber having tater tots and potato chips for lunch.

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Dream ChenCHINAHaikou,

I didn’t bring lunchbox to school, because we had a cafeteria in my school. Lunchtime for me then was a happy memory, although I once found a fat vegetable worm in my meal. All of my classmates were disgusted by that, but I just simply

took it out and continued eating. I put the worm under my plate so it was out of my sight. After I finished my meal and took the plate away, I found the worm was flattened by the plate.

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Amruta BugeINDIAPune,

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Vedashree Bankar

“As soon as the bell rang, the recess started! Recess was my favorite time of the day, firstly, because you get to meet the friends who aren’t in your class and secondly the fooood! When I was younger, my mother would send my dad with my tiffin every recess. So, the breads where freshly made, and I got to eat warm food! It was amazing, but most of the times I would forget to take out my tiffin from my bag, so the food would get stale my lunch bag would stink all day. My mother would al-ways have to look for more tiffins to give me! Growing up I was pretty clumsy with my bag and lunchbox. My mom packed curry in my tiffin one time, I dropped it in my bag, and all my notebooks smelled and looked like curry!

As I grew older, my school start-ed having a mid day meal program. Meaning they would serve us food in the school. The food was surprising-ly good sometimes, and the rest of the times it wasn’t the best.

Just some of my friends paid for the mid day meal plan, but we would all eat the food anyways. Recess was always about sharing! One time on my birthday, my friends surprised me with a cake during recess. Lit-erally my entire class, and everyone around came to eat the cake. Later that evening the cake turned into a cake fight and everyone started grabbing the cake with their hands! It was wild, but so much fun!”

INDIAPune,

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Johannes Fuchs

“My mom always packed me healthy food. Mostly vegetables such as cu-cumbers, carrots, etcetera. Once a group of bullies who always went

around asking their peers to open their lunchbox came to me. They came to me… they came to me and said,

GERMANYHopfgarten,

“Hey show me what’s in your lunchbox!”

“What the fuck?!? Uhhhhh gemüseeeeee. Don’t ask him again, he only has vegetables.”

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Jenny Wang

I went to a boarding school in Dong-guan, China. Our lunch was provided by the school and we ate in a cafe-teria. I loved going to the cafeteria because everybody was there. We all used to stand back in a line and talk about the guys, haha. This was the only chance that we got to see them.

The cafeteria is like…we were not allowed to have a boyfriend or girl-friend in school, but since there is no teacher in the cafeteria people were free to sit together. The cafeteria was a place for us all to sit together and chat freely.

CHINADongguan,

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Yinfan Huang

My lunchbox experience is a little bit gross. We didn’t need to bring a lunchbox when I was in elementary school. Instead, the school would order lunch boxes for us. The lunch boxes were made of white disposable foam and we did not have a choice of food. I still remember my first lunch in school, when I opened the box, I

was so surprised and disguised by the food—big pile of meat paste with some tomato sauce. The meat paste looked and smelt like poop to me! It was a big shock for the young me who just ate home-cooked meals. Any food I ate after would be better than that disgusting meal.

CHINAGuangzhou,

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Jacklyn Kim

“I was not a social kid during my ear-ly school years. Lunchtime for me was an escape. I usually sat alone in the classroom at lunch. The food provided by the South Korean school was not that good. Food for me was just food, something to eat in order to live, so I didn’t have a particular fa-

vorite. We usually got small amounts of everything, like kimchi, rice, beef radish stew, and a small Yakult drink. Sometimes we would have pasta and that was when most of the kids got excited, except for me.”

SOUTH KOREASeoul,

“When I was little, our school wouldn’t go on till long, so our lunch break would be more like a breakfast break. My mother would pack tradi-tional Venezuelan food for me like Arepa, pastelitos, tequeños. When I was in high school, I would be giv-

en money to buy food in school, but I didn’t buy food from that money, in-stead I would save it for the weekend. I would then steal some little kid’s food and eat it!”

María Fernanda AlbornozVENEZUELAMaracaibo,

Illustration by Jacklyn Kim (left).

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Connie Kang

Our school provided us lunch in el-ementary school. We would all sit at our desks and eat food. We were expected to get our own plates and silverware. The food was bought to class in three boxes: one of veggies, one of the main course, and the oth-er of dessert. The boxes were so big that two students had to carry each one. The same two students would take the boxes back to the town hall. The food served our entire class. It

would be served on a little stage in front of the class room. We lined up to take the food. It didn’t taste good at all. We also got drinks with the food such as: soup, bubble tea, or yogurt. The yogurt was my favorite! We had a food schedule planned so we would all know what to expect. Wednesdays were our special food days! We were served mini pizzas, chicken nuggets, or spaghetti. So we all looked forward to Wednesdays.

TaiwanTaipei,

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Desiree Niu

I was seven years old when my moth-er packed my first ever lunch box. Every class had a big heating ma-chine, but I didn’t know how to use it or what to do with it. My teacher an-nounced in the class about heating our food, but I was confused. Then later, my friends heated their food and sat down to have lunch. I looked at them and realized that my food was cold, and then figured out what my teacher was talking about. Sadly, I ate my first ever-packed lunch cold.

My mother always liked to make healthy food. She doesn’t like white rice, so she gave me brown rice and she put a lot of vegetables in it! The vegetables were just boiled vegeta-bles, so when I would open my tiffin I would just see lots of green color,

little brown rice and half an egg. As a kid I was always surprised to find this! I also sometimes forgot to take out my lunch box from my bag and give it to my mother to clean. My mother always got mad, but she had some spare lunchboxes for me!

Later, the school started serving food in school. They catered with a restaurant, but the food always tasted the same. So we would sneak out, or tell other parents to get food from other places.

It is weird that some people always showed off their lunch boxes. They would have fancy lunchboxes. I re-member this one kid always had in-feriority complex because his tiffin was simple, as he was poor.

TaiwanTaipei,

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Ornella Padalino

I did not have a lunchbox when I was a child. The only memory I have is the one of this good smelling sand-wich my mum gave to me everyday: she used to provide me a daily bread dressed with olive oil, tomatoes, and oregano. When it was lunchtime at

school I opened the package that covered the sandwich and the scent spread all over the class attracting my companions and my teacher too. I remember everyone was envious of my so good smelling sandwich.

ITALYManfredonia,

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Wenyi Zhen

All students would eat their lunch in the classroom together. After we finished the meal, all of us would take out a fruit to eat, like an ap-

ple or pear. But I remember one girl kept bringing a raw carrot and that’s a weird “fruit” for us. I hate eating raw carrots!

CHINAHangzhou,

My mami would prepare lunch for me and my brother. I was often disappointed with what my mami packed for lunch. It was often healthy foods, like a ham sandwich and some carrots or broccoli. I was envious of my friend who got Nutel-

la sandwiches and delicious ham pre-pared with chili sauce, lime, Maggi, and Knor Suiza. She had it all. One time we started a food fight with all the kids in recess at the moment, and I believe it started with one of my mami’s healthy snacks.

Magdalena CorvesMEXICOJalisco,

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Stephen Lurvey

I remember fights at my school would happen most frequently at lunch and the school got real riled up. I witnessed this wild one with some dudes sitting right next to me.

This is the most vivid memory of lunch at my high school. So, hahaha, so this dude is sitting next to me, and my friend is sitting across from me; they were arguing over some stupid stuff, I don’t even remember, and then outta nowhere...

Hold up, let me get this straight…

Okay, so outta nowhere, my friend throws his milk, like the whole milk carton, at him. It hit him pretty

good, so the other dude chucks his Watchmen book at him and it slaps him right in the face. You just could see the rage building up in him, but he stayed calm and collected; he just sat there for a second. Then he pushed back from the table, jumped, leaped up over the table, hahahah-haha, and fly kicked the dude right in the chest! Like it just happened. It was majestic.

There were cops in the lunchroom, because they know fights break out there, so that fight broke up real quick, but that was the most surreal thing ever. It was intense. The dude got kicked in the chest! And I was just sitting right next to him.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICAMinneapolis, MN

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Haas Al Mashani

I used to carry my own lunch to pri-mary school. My housemaid gave me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, To-mato Ketchup Lays, and Lacnor’s fruit juice, but I never ate the PB&J sand-

wich, so my housemaid started giving me just chips and juice. For about six years of my primary education I just ate lays and drank juice for lunch, so I was a little chubby.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATESAbu Dhabi,

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Antonio MoralesUNITED STATES OF AMERICAMinneapolis, MN

My mum used a paper bag and put all my food in my pokemon lunchbox. Typically I got sandwiches which were wrapped in napkins. And be-cause of the napkins they always got soggy. Other things I would get for lunch would be burritos. We all had a giant cafeteria and we had sec-tions of tables where different clicks would hang out. People were in dif-ferent groups, because I was the only mexican I was usually by myself.

We had this one kid , he had a learn-ing disability. People would always make fun of him. I remember I gave him my lunch once in 2nd grade. Af-ter that we hanged out sometimes.

Twinkles are these vanilla cupcakes with cream. In hispanic cultures we have the same ones only with choco-late. They have strawberry sprinkles on top and a strawberry jelly inside. I would have one everyday, that’s why I was obese as a kid.

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My lunch was normally served in little trays, so we did not have lunch boxes. There would be little sections of fruit and small contain-er of milk. We would be in the caf-eteria like every other kid at lunch time, we had long tables where we would sit. It depends what they had for the week, there usually was a list of the weekly menu. One week we would get mashed potatoes and meat loaf, green beans, or fruit.

After lunch we had recess, so whenever you finished you could go outside and play. Lunch was about 30 minutes and then recess was 45 minutes before we went back to class.

We were happy for lunch, because we got out of class. Though some-times you would be nervous for like things such as where to sit, would there be a spot open and so on.

Maddie StrandUNITED STATES OF AMERICAMandeville, LA

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Carlotta AlbertiniMaría Fernanda Albornoz

Vedashree Bankar Johana Brubeck

Amruta BugeMengqian Chen (Dream)

Mert DemirelMaria de FalcoJohannes FuchsChristina Huang

Yinfan HuangNing Kang (Connie)

Kiki KitaHeeYun Kim (Jacklyn)

Anna KiryanovaMarta KlopfIossie Ng Lei

Jingchi Lu (Jessy)Stephen LurveryAntonio Morales

Tsu Chi Niu (Desiree)Azisa Noor

Ornella PadalinoSara Risvåg

Madeline Strand (Maddie)Yawen Wang (Jenny)Xiaohua Yang (Jim)

Wenyi Zhen

Contributors

Designed and Edited by Amruta Buge Special thanks to Fue Yang, Stephen Lurvery, Haynes Riley, and Iossie Ng Lei

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