Read: Culture and History of Lunch in Japan (日本人のひるめし)

I recently visited an exhibition "Landscape of Japan’s Food Culture—Tradition of Eating-out" at the National Museum of Japanese History.

Although the exhibition was not significant, it was interesting to learn some facts about Japanese culture regarding eating-out. I never had an opportunity to see Japanese eating-out culture in such a way.

I became interested in one book that was interested related to this exhibition, "Culture and History of Lunch in Japan (日本人のひるめし)." The book is not translated into English, so the title is my translation. Forgive me if it's not accurate.

The book turned out to be super interesting with lots of findings. I had never thought about our lunch culture. As the author pointed out, lunch is the least valued meal of the day in Japan. On the other hand, breakfast is the least valued meal in Europe as the origin of the word breakfast means to "break" "fast" between dinner and lunch on the day after.

The author also introduced a brief history of how we came to have three meals in a day and the evolution of Japan's lunch culture. Also, he referred to the history of school (office) lunch, bento box, noodles, and curry rice, which are all popular forms of lunch in Japan today.

I hope the book gets translated into English some day.

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