Bento Fun: the Japanese craft of edible art

Didn't the adults in your life always tell you not to play with your food when you were a kid? Well, it seems the Japanese didn’t listen to that advice. They played with the food and created a new form of cuisine. They carved vegetables and cut nori into cute characters and scenes. And it has become a national obsession. Yes, we’re talking about Bento!

Bento is a Japanese word for an all-in box or container of cooked food, either packed from home or bought from a store or restaurant. The art of decoben, a shortened form of ‘decorating bento’, has gained much popularity in recent years. And Japanese mums are not the only ones to rely on this kitchen craft. Busy students, white-collar workers and people on diets are all major followers of this food movement. One of the most popular forms of decoben is kyaraben, also called charaben, in which food is elaborately arranged to look like children’s popular characters.

Japanese food artist Tomomi Maruo is a "charabentist". Her art is creating edible characters using the ingredients of traditional bento. For up to an hour every day, Maruo works to create bento box lunches for her kids. They feature anything from anime characters to Pokemons, Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, The Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmatians, the Minions, Totoro or Peter Pan. She also creates famous landmarks. The Eiffel Tower Bento is lovely, formed with sliced cheese, food dye on the rice, grape nuts for the gravel and vegetables for the bushes. Could you bring yourself to eat these?

Maruo has been doing her charaben craft for thirteen years. The goal of each bento box is to get every detail just right but Maruo always keeps in mind that the main priority of charaben is something else entirely. "This is a lunch," Maruo says, "so if it doesn't taste good, then none of it makes any sense."