Self-Heating Bento at Your Service

You can find my favorite bento — a lunch in a box — at the train station.

Believe it or not, it’s the best place to get a tasty meal. With so many people snatching boxes before a trip out of town, the lunchbox competition gets pretty heavy here. Bentos featuring cooked seasonal vegetables are some of my favorites.

And now there’s a newfangled box that makes me want to fly out to Japan just to try it. It’s the self-heating lunch! Just pull a string and the box heats up like an oven. You’ll even see hot steam coming out!

Here’s how it works: Underneath the food is a container of tiny white coals (calcium oxide). Pulling the string releases water which mixes with the coal, causing a chemical reaction. Specifically, CaO＋Ｈ2Ｏ→Ca(OH)2.

Youtube has a bunch of home videos of tourists trying out these hot bentos, most containing slices of beef or cow tongue (it’s a delicacy!) over a bed of rice. Yum!

Your usual bento box is strategically prepared to be eated in room temperature, and it actually tastes great at the end of the day. So to me, it’s more of a novelty that you can now get a hot bento. Next time I’m in Japan, I’d love to see a cold bento. Pull a string and your food turns to ice! haha~! \(^o^)/

Himawari

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