my lunch box essay

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How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? The Story of Food by Chris Butterworth, illustrated by Lucia Gaggiotti

I know, I know. The food books must come to an end.

But instead, I’ll just force my children to read age-appropriate books to prepare them for the eventual mandatory reading of the food books I can’t put down (I resisted the urge to make a bad pun there with “devouring” or something. You are so welcome). (Also, I would never force my child to read a book. I make no similar promises about how many dinner times they’ll have to suffer through with me talking on and on about food).

how did that get in my lunchbox? by chris butterworth

How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? starts out with a lunchbox filled with a cheese sandwich, vegetables, clementines, apple juice box, and a chocolate chip cookie.

Each page of How Did That Get in My Lunchbox then describes how an element of your lunch is produced. Bread starts with wheat being planted, cut, milled, then baked into bread and shipped to the store. Chocolate chips take a long road to be transformed from a bean. (You will notice it’s a meat-free lunch – what poor children’s author wants to talk about how animals are slaughtered for your ham sandwich?)

Each process hits a nice balance between detailed enough without being overwhelming. And the illustrations are bright and whimsical (even the cows look super happy to be hooked up to milking machines).

How Did That Get in My Lunchbox was just a fun book to look through and one I think kids will enjoy reading (if you don’t mind that you’ll probably spend the next week back-tracing every food item that appears on your table).

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One comment.

Sounds cute. So glad you said you wouldn't force your child to read a book. It seldom works. However, discussing it at the dinner table does. 😉

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, the lunchbox: old school anonymity softens new world discontent.

Only a few times in my life have I wanted to re-watch a movie right away. Ritesh Batra ’s first feature, “The Lunchbox” (2013) hooked me within the first act. Imagine the life you live, when a short note of a few lines becomes your daily thrill. Here, we follow the quiet lives of disconnected people reaching across the urban noise of Mumbai, reaching for anyone who would listen. Centering around food, its is a seamless fusion of Satyajit Ray and Nora Ephron , with hints of Akira Kurosawa . Overall, it reminds me that as our cities get more crowded, we get more lonely.

Ila ( Nimrat Kaur ) cooks lunch for her mostly absent husband ( Nakul Vaid ). An aunty ( Bharati Achrekar ) mentors her on cooking from the apartment above. Through cooking, she mentors her on life, always ready with the perfect recipe for every situation. Ila packs the daily lunch, and hands it over to a delivery man who takes it to a brigade of trains and bicyclists, to her husband’s desk. One day, however, the lunch reaches a stranger.

Saajan ( Irrfan Khan ) sits at a large desk in a large firm, processing claims with that mechanical, abrasive coldness of Kenji Watanabe (from “ Ikiru ”). Set for retirement, he must train the new-hire, the obsequious Shaikh ( Nawazuddin Siddiqui ), who keeps barging into his personal space. Saajan has his noon meal delivered through a local service, but today he receives Ila’s box, as he does tomorrow, and the next day.

Through these lunchboxes, Ila sends short letters to Saajan, first commenting that the lunches are for her husband, not him. He responds, first commenting on her cooking, which is one day tasty, and another too salty.  In these short correspondences, they share reflections, then secrets, then hopes, looking forward to the daily note hiding in the tin, rather than considering the food itself. Those two minutes become the highlight of the day for them, freeing them from the mundane routines.

The big city speaks through the mix of human chatter and motor vehicles. Beneath the sounds, it relies on stability through bureaucracy, which itself relies on the enforcement of routine. Day after day. Week after week. Fiscal year after fiscal year. Two generations ago, in Ray’s “Mahanagar” (1963) families sought to join the industrial machine. To become part of the system is to have income, which yields a good life. Now, as the same machine compresses people together, allowing them to get lost as anonymous voyeurs, lost in experiments in disloyalty (including emotional and physical affairs), this current generation seeks to escape to something fulfilling, perhaps in the world of old.

Iñárritu explored such urban loneliness in “ Babel ” (2006), connecting disparate peoples across the world through the passing and use of a rifle. In that film, the characters were unable to communicate, resulting in a crowded world full of language barriers and silences. In Mendes’ “ Revolutionary Road ” (2008), we watch a couple fantasize about the American Dream, first as a way to find direction, then as a way to avoid reality. In Bahrani’s “Man Push Cart” (2005) we watch New Yorkers meeting for bagels and coffee, meeting for drinks, while maintaining a distance from each other. In Ephron’s movies, we follow couples who meet via distant relationships before letting fate bring them together. Here, we watch one man who grieves through Bollywood reruns, a woman who longs for a smile from the husband who seems to drown himself in work, an orphan who hustles his way through his projects and marriage, and exhausted dutiful women who stay by their ill husbands’ bedsides. In all of these cases, we see yearning; unquenched thirst for something as simple as a hug. We witness so many relationships, so many smiles, yet so much loneliness.

Part of the joy in this film is the wholesome goodness of almost all the characters. I like watching them because—even the ones with sharp edges in their dispositions—they lack malice. Rather, they are contending with a system far, far greater than them, be it the impositions of city life, or something even greater, like mortality. 

Further, a few points in Batra’s work really stand out. He directs eyes so well, as each of the characters think and process. Kaur pauses. Her eyes glance from side to side as she reflects. Khan’s eyes have a fixed, reserved expression in every moment. Siddiqui stares, grinning. His script bounces so well across time within scenes adding dimensions to moments already emotive. The characters relish in flourishes, in the way they might chew words before speaking, or fold their legs as they sit, or even close a window. Those extra steps give this film a life that in other movies might be distracting. Here, the film takes its time to unfold each scene slowly, in an environment always reliant on speed. 

And that slow, deliberate unfolding recalls the film’s implicit lesson: take a moment to give or receive a favor, enjoying the taste in every morsel. Better than that, cultivate your relations, with old school care and compassion.  Otherwise, as we race against time, we always lose.

Omer M. Mozaffar

Omer M. Mozaffar teaches at Loyola University Chicago, where he is the Muslim Chaplain, teaching courses in Theology and Literature. He has given thousands of talks on Islam since 9/11. He is also a Hollywood Technical Consultant for productions on matters related to Islam, Arabs, South Asians. 

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Lunchbox Moment

Apr 12, 2018.

The “lunchbox moment” is a defining moment for most Asian American children. This is the moment when reality comes crashing down around their tiny little ears and they start to question what “normal” actually is. It’s nothing short of a public shaming session in which the entire class takes turns telling them how gross the food in their lunchbox is. I, however, never had this moment.

I never had this moment because my parents predicted it would happen and so, like the protective guardian angels that they were, they never let me bring my own food in elementary school. I ended up eating American school lunch for 10 years. In high school, I remember strategically eating in empty places or with people I trusted when I brought my own lunch. It was my way of avoiding questions and prying eyes because I felt protective of my food. People had a habit of asking what it was with their words, yet already calling it disgusting or weird with their thoughts. There is nothing worse than already feeling the judgment before you can even begin to explain yourself. Sadly, I kind of took this as everyday life and never gave myself the chance to acknowledge what was happening or how I felt. It wasn’t until college that I finally reflected on my feelings and why my parents did what they did all those years ago.

Because 5-year-old An never had her lunchbox moment, 19-year-old An decided to recreate a purely hypothetical one. In many Asian cultures, food is a way of showing love—it’s a bonding rite. And yet this child [me] has to choose between bonding with her mother and fitting in. In the end, she chooses to fit in on an empty stomach. It really isn’t her fault, but she blames herself for not being brave enough to eat her mother’s cooking with the simple question of “Mommy … what have I done”? I displayed my mother’s home-cooked meal in the most ironically American (but also Asian) thing that I could find — tin Spam lunchbox. It was a dig at the American culture and myself. I’d feel more comfortable eating Spam at school than I would eating my mother’s noodles with egg rolls. One meal is fresh and filled with love. The other is full of preservatives and chemicals that as a 19-year-old, I still can’t even pronounce.

In the end, I can’t turn back time to change the moments where I conformed because I was embarrassed. What I can do is spark a conversation here in the present with my art. No one should ever have to feel ashamed of who they are.

UF Photographer

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Poems & Poets

Lunchbox Poems

Some poetic treats to snack on throughout the school year..

BY Julie Danielson

Poetry can be a great way to connect with children. Why not, as Kenn Nesbitt suggests , slip some verses into your children’s lunchboxes to share a giggle or remind them that you’re thinking of them? To get you started, we’ve paired a few poems with momentous days of the school year.

Test Day Even the best-prepared student gets nervous on the day of a test. Ease your child’s anxiety with Kenn Nesbitt’s twist on the idea of a flawless spelling test score in “Perfect.” Too-Much-Homework (Yester)Day Book reports, science projects, dioramas, scale models of the solar system, memorizing the times tables . . . sometimes all that homework is truly daunting. What child wouldn’t love to have a friend do it all for him? That’s the idea behind Phil Bolsta’s poem “Freddie,” in which a child’s grades improve once he hands his homework over to his pal Freddie, who “can’t wait to read my books. . . .” And the fact that Freddie is a dog, who gets rewarded with a bubble bath? Even better! Had-a-Fight-with-My-Friend (Yester)Day Childhood friendships tend to have a lot of ups and downs—a shove on the playground or a thoughtless word in the lunch line can turn best friends into worst enemies faster than you can say “You take that back!” Jack Prelutsky offers a pair of poems about the painful price of friendship. “My First Best Friend” lists a child’s companions, with names like “Awful Ann” and “Monster Moe,” and the unusual ways they show their affection—eye-socking, toe-trampling, pie-swiping. As the saying goes, with friends like these. . . . In “Suzanna Socked Me Sunday,” the narrator gets a punch from Suzanna every day of the week, but after being asked to stop hitting, Suzanna takes up biting instead. These poems might win a child a few new (hopefully less violent) friends when they get passed around the lunch table. Art Day Most students look forward to art class—there are endless possibilities in all those jars of poster paint and cans of glitter. Not to mention: no tests! But sometimes things can get a little . . . messy , as illustrated by Constance Levy’s limerick “How awkward when playing with glue.” This one begs to be memorized, so be prepared—you’ll probably hear it over and over. First Day with a New Sibling Mary Ann Hoberman writes of the trials of having a new sibling in “Brother.” The narrator pleads with her parents to exchange her little brother for another, and reports their deadpan responses. Hoberman’s use of rhyme, meter, and alliteration make for a perfect read-aloud that builds to a tongue-twister of an ending. Halloween Party Day Carl Sandburg’s haunting ode to the jack-o’-lantern, “Theme in Yellow,” is a tribute to the season, highlighting the natural beauty of pumpkin fields and the near-reverence that children have for this symbol of the holiday. It’s a nice reminder to look past the candy and mayhem for a moment. For a lighter Halloween verse, Kenn Nesbitt delivers “Halloween Party,” in which the narrator has spent the morning perfecting a Dracula costume. Cape? Check. Fangs? Check. Blood-red nails? Check. On arriving at school, the child discovers that the costume may be perfect—but the party is still a week away. Lost-a-Tooth Day Celebrate that childhood milestone, losing a tooth, with “The Toothless Wonder” by Phil Bolsta. Most children would be horrified—not to mention furious—if a little brother pulled out all their teeth while they slept. But not our narrator, who thinks a big payoff from the Tooth Fairy is in order. In a lunchbox, it is best paired with a crunchy apple or a bag of toffee. Thanksgiving “Over the river and through the wood / To grandfather’s house we go.” You know the song; now surprise your child with the original poem on which it’s based. The joys of the Thanksgiving holiday celebrated in this poem have not changed since it first appeared over 160 years ago—the thrill of a big snow, the anticipation of visiting family, and pumpkin pie. Mmm . . . is it Thanksgiving yet? Music Concert Day Let Robert Pottle take you to an unruly elementary performance in “The Kindergarten Concert.” The students sing their song, but not without some nose-picking, pants-wetting, burping, and much more. And Bruce Lansky provides a portrait of a young child coerced into violin lessons, only to send family members fleeing the room in tears ( “My fiddle squeaked, my fiddle squawked. / The notes came out all wrong” ). At the poem’s conclusion, the inept musician’s father puts an end to all the noise. Christmas In “December Substitute,” Kenn Nesbitt tells of classmates mesmerized by their substitute teacher’s resemblance to Santa Claus (the snowy beard, the boots, the round belly, and his talk of reindeer and elves and everything in between). Or there is E.E. Cummings’ tribute to a Christmas tree , decorated with “the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads . . .” Hanukkah In 1967 Aileen Fisher wrote a tribute to the Festival of Lights, “Light the Festive Candles.” The poem jubilates in the anticipation of the holiday and is the right read for the kindling of lights commemorating “the joyous day / when we regained the right to pray / to our one God in our own way.” Substitute Day Viola Swamp, meet Mrs. Stein. In this reminder to pray that your regular teacher remains in good health, Bill Dodds introduces us to a nightmarish substitute teacher, “Mrs. Stein,” as her students suffer through what feels like the Longest Morning of the School Year. Presidents’ Day or George Washington’s Birthday Bobbi Katz pokes fun at the tried-and-true fable about our first president in “George Washington’s Birthday: Wondering.” The narrator imagines the excuses that could have been used to explain away that downed cherry tree: a herd of elephants, woodpeckers, even a hippo. The last line turns the fable’s moral on its head and supposes that maybe young George lacked imagination. It’s a comedic take on an otherwise not-particularly-funny holiday. Standardized Test Day Oh, the horror of a standardized test. In “I Left My Head,” Lilian Moore takes us into the mind of a child trying to compose herself on what could be a stressful day: “I left my head / somewhere / today. / Put it down / for / just a minute. . . .” Adults will chuckle too at this attempt to pull oneself together. April Fool’s Day

“Good morning, dear students,” the principal said. “Please put down your pencils and go back to bed. Today we will spend the day playing outside, then take the whole school on a carnival ride.”

Starting with those attention-grabbing opening lines, Kenn Nesbitt’s “Good Morning, Dear Students” describes the ultimate fantasy school day, complete with candy, TV, drawing on walls, and an invitation to “copy your face on the Xerox machine.” But then, of course, the cruel punch line—it is April Fool’s Day. Played-Hooky-the-Day-Before Day “Michael O’Toole hated going to school / He wanted to stay home and play. . .” Thus begins Phil Bolsta’s exaggerated cautionary tale about the dangers of playing hooky. Michael might be a bright student, but he’s doomed to a life of sitting at home with nothing to do, having never learned how to read or write. Got-in-Trouble-and-Saw-the-Principal (Yester)Day Dave Crawley’s “My Doggy Ate My Homework” is the tale of a trip to the principal’s office. Crawley tops it all off with a wink-wink, bah-dum-ching ending involving the underappreciated homework-eater of the animal kingdom. And for the more run-of-the-mill offenses that send your child to the principal, one can always turn to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic nursery rhyme “There was a little girl.” Ah, yes—“When she was good, / She was very good indeed, / But when she was bad she was horrid.” Teacher Appreciation Day Let Kalli Dakos share with your child the perspective of the tired teacher who hears every excuse in the book regarding homework assignments, and can relate: the poor thing left her own work at home in her study drawer. This one can be appreciated by your child’s teacher as an end-of-the-year surprise. And for another perspective on a teacher’s ability to relate to her students’ lassitude, try Bruce Lansky’s “Confession.” Last Day (before summer) The last day of school before summer has to be the most blissful day of the year for children. If you want to help them rejoice with a bit of poetry, you have three options: 1) Kenn Nesbitt’s “Swimming Ool,” which includes the creative use of certain letters of the alphabet (yes, you guessed it: there’s a reason the “p” is missing!), all in celebration of the upcoming days of summer, to be spent splashing in a pool. 2) Lilian Moore’s “Mine,” which anticipates play on the beach, a time-honored summer ritual for many families—sand castles, sand tunnels, and the sand-pail-hungry sea . . . 3) Frank Asch’s tribute to sunlight and the days of midsummer. Through this play-on-words poem, Asch asks your child to ponder: What exactly would a sunflake feel like?

Home — Essay Samples — Education — School — School Lunches: An Persuasive Essay On School Lunches

School Lunches: an Persuasive Essay on School Lunches

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This Was My “Lunch Box Moment” and Here’s Why It’s Important

Last year, NBC Asian America released a five-episode series titled “ Jubilee Project: Voices .” The series is a part of a larger project called “ NBC Asian America Presents… ,” which is a video channel that sheds light on common themes and experiences within Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. A while ago, I stumbled across a video in this project called “ Lunch Box Moment .”

In these 2 minutes and 50 seconds, Asian Americans share their experiences of being shamed for the food they ate as kids, just because it looked different from the American standard. Suddenly, memories from my own childhood made so much more sense. For the first time, I realized that the feelings I had while eating Asian foods as a kid in grade school were not unique to me, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

My first “Lunch Box Moment”

Growing up in the midwest, I was one of very few Asian kids in my elementary school. I usually bought school lunch, but one night, my mom had made some extra sushi and asked if I wanted to bring some for lunch the next day. I was beyond thrilled—I loved sushi, and I couldn’t wait to introduce my friends to one of my favorite foods.

When lunchtime rolled around the next day, I unpacked my Hello Kitty lunch box and pulled out my tupperware filled with my awesome meal. Excited, I opened the lid and popped the first piece of sushi into my mouth when I heard, “Ew, what is that?”

I was so startled by the comment and felt absolutely mortified. What was wrong with my sushi? Why were people staring at me? Why would they say something like that? I quickly closed the lid and tried to hide the rest of my food, while sneaking bites when I could so that I wouldn’t be hungry. I never brought sushi to elementary school again. 

My second “Lunch Box Moment”

During 8th grade, I had a really late lunch period, but in the class before it, we were allowed to bring food. Naturally, as a future Spoon foodie, I would take full advantage of that opportunity. Usually, I’d settle for bringing a bag of grapes or chips to class, but my family had made dumplings by hand one night, and cold, next-day dumplings were my favorite. I packed myself a tupperware container full of dumplings, and felt excited about my special snack.

When I got to the classroom, I took my food out and opened the box. The aroma of my dumplings filled the room, and I was so happy. That was, until someone said, “Oh my god, what’s that smell?” Another classmate joined in by saying, “Ugh, it smells like butt.” I was so confused. Everyone loves dumplings—it’s not like it was a bizarre or rare food, so why was everyone reacting this way?

I realized that my handmade dumplings had leeks in them, which was an ingredient not typically included in Americanized versions of the dish. Having grown up around this ingredient, I loved the smell—it smelled to me like home and happy memories of my family making these dumplings from scratch together. But to others who weren’t used to it, it was just a weird alien smell. I pretended to be confused like my other classmates, and claimed to not know where the smell came from either. On the inside, I was dying of shame and embarrassment. 

So what’s the big deal?

You might be thinking, it’s just food, why should I care? Well, this is why. Being an Asian American, I’ve never been ashamed of my culture or where I came from until my first “Lunch Box Moment” happened. And the reason I felt this way was because my food,  of all things, was different from the food of my classmates. To me, it didn’t feel like they were just attacking the things that I ate. It felt like they were attacking my family, my heritage, my culture, and above all, they were attacking me. There was no way I couldn’t take their comments personally.

Over the years, I have grappled with my identity and my confidence, as most adolescents do. I have become more sure of myself and what it means to me to be an Asian American. Today, if someone were to criticize something I ate, I wouldn’t even bat an eye before replying with something along the lines of, “Well, sucks for you. It’s great, and you’re missing out.” But the point is, it took me years to get to this stage, and honestly, it was pretty damn hard.

So, the “don’t judge a book by its cover” saying applies to food, too. Food is a wonderful, wonderful thing that keeps us alive, brings people together, and brings everyone joy. If you’re weirded out or disgusted by some food item, at the very least, don’t be mean about it. You may not think much about your food commentary in the moment, but being on the receiving end of those thoughtless jibes leaves a permanent impact.

So, just let the little elementary school girl enjoy her sushi in peace.

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Essay on Lunchbox Within 10 Lines for Class 1,2,3,4,5 Kids

10 lines on lunchbox.

• I have a tiffin box. 
• I usually carry my lunch meal into this tiffin to my work location. 
• I also call it my “Lunchbox.”
• The color of this lunchbox is white and red. 
• It is made up of plastic.
• It consists of three plastic boxes and a zip cover. 
• I carry this box to other purposes like picnics, trips, visits as well. 
• My lunchbox is very useful for me. 
• It helps me to take care of my health and remind me to eat on time. 
• We all should carry our lunch box with us everyday, as lunch is also a very Important meal. 

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The Limits of the Lunchbox Moment

Not all children of immigrants grew up embarrassed about their food, but pop culture convinced them they should be

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“Booger-gi” is what the kids call Justin’s bulgogi in The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig, a picture book published in 2013. Justin is new, and when the other kids make fun of his food and his chopsticks, Brian, a shy, lonely white boy who longs to be included by his classmates, decides to leave him a note, telling him he isn’t like those kids; he’d love to try bulgogi. Justin, whose food has not kept him from making other friends in the class, starts including Brian in activities based on this act of kindness, and all ends well, all because Brian said he’d be willing to eat bulgogi, objectively an incredibly flavorful and popular meal.

As a plot device in The Invisible Boy , the cafeteria scene works because the structure is familiar — Brian’s kindness is only noticed as kindness if the standard response is disgust. That’s because the story of that interaction has been told, in fiction, memoir, and across food media, by first-generation Americans, children of immigrants, and members of various diasporas hundreds of times. The image of a child opening their lunchbox to reveal an “ethnic” lunch and immediately being bullied for that lunch is everywhere, whether it’s Toula in My Big Fat Greek Wedding getting teased for her moussaka, Eddie Huang recalling how “no one wanted to sit with the stinky kid” when his mom sent him to school with Chinese food, or Margaret Cho joking , “All the other kids got Ho Hos and Ding Dongs. I got squid and peanuts. You can’t trade that shit.” It gained its own name around 2016, “the lunchbox moment ,” and has become the subject of endless personal essays . Even in the video launching the “new era” at Bon Appétit , editor-in-chief Dawn Davis said this anecdote was part of “every memoir” she ever published by an immigrant, and she has stated plans to launch a column around the concept of “the painful experience that was lunch.”

The lunchbox moment has become such a touchstone both because it’s recognizable for many and because it’s an editor’s dream. It cleanly illustrates, in personal essays, children’s books, or standup routines, how food that’s delicious in the context of the home becomes disgusting in public, the moment a brown child recognizes this divide, and the heartbreak of the child (usually) choosing to perform whiteness rather than get bullied again. “The odd thing was that I actually loved Chinese food, especially my mom’s cooking,” wrote Eddie Lin about his lunchbox moment. “I just wanted to fit in, like any other kid. … If it was Asian, it wasn’t cool.” And while rejecting tradition, religion, or language in favor of white, American culture is all part of that struggle, you can’t find a neater, easier-to-digest example than being told your lunch looks gross.

The story of being bullied in the cafeteria for one’s lunch is so ubiquitous that it’s attained a gloss of fictionality. It’s become metonymy for the entire diaspora experience; to be a young immigrant or child of immigrants is to be bullied for your lunch, and vice versa. Other food experiences have become almost as common in immigrant literature — the realization that your cuisine has become “trendy” ; the moment when a white friend tries to explain your favorite food back to you; the decision to recreate your family’s signature dish, thereby shedding the shame you’ve carried over your culture’s cuisine — and can be sources of bonding across immigrant communities. If “you can’t be what you can’t see,” an oft-repeated phrase about the importance of representation in media, then these stories are allowing more people than ever to be seen. But the “lunchbox moment” is the anecdote that’s probably the most widely employed, the background assumption at the base of these other stories.

This story, in which the bullied children age into a world clamoring for the flavors they grew up with and come to embrace the cuisine they tried to reject, is true for many. But in its retelling and fictionalization, it’s been filed down to its most obvious and recognizable parts. There is no nuance to the “lunchbox moment,” and while the trope-ification of these real-life experiences conveys trauma and discrimination to often white readers or viewers, it leaves no room for the people whose lives did not fit that template. Yes, we can’t be what we can’t see. But what are we seeing? And what do we lose when we reduce our culinary experiences to one story?

“As a kid, when I started reading Asian-American stories , [the lunchbox moment] was always the part that struck me as bizarre,” said Zen Ren, who was born in China but moved with their family to Dallas when they were 3 years old. Much of that is because Ren grew up surrounded by other Asians, immigrants, and people of color. “In elementary [school] my closest friends were all Chinese American … so of course they weren’t going to make fun of our food,” they said, and as they grew up, they made other friends from different backgrounds who were accustomed to trying new cuisines. “People were curious about what I ate or didn’t notice at all.”

The lunchbox moment is a story about norms, with the assumption that the person of color is the odd one out — which it’s easy to be. According to the United States Census Bureau , 76.3 percent of Americans identify as White (with 60.1 percent identifying as both White and not Hispanic or Latino). But that doesn’t account for non-white people who grew up around others of their background, or in diverse neighborhoods where no one race is in the majority. And while most people of color have some moment of feeling othered or different, it doesn’t always happen around food, nor does it happen with the same intensity. “I absolutely never [felt shame],” said Ren. “I felt bad for my white, American friends and the boring-ass food they ate.”

Annu Subramanian seems like the archetypal protagonist in a lunchbox-moment story. She was born in Nebraska to Indian parents, and for about 10 years she and her parents lived in a small town in South Dakota, before moving to San Diego. “My skin is brown and my name is 21 letters long. I clearly stuck out in South Dakota,” she said. And yet, stories about children of color being belittled for their food never resonated with her, because they never resembled her experience. Her parents sent her to school with both Indian and non-Indian food, and her classmates responded to her Indian lunches with either genuine curiosity or “at worst boredom,” not derision. They even asked for it when they came over to her house. “I never ran into that ‘Indian people smell’ [stereotype],” she said.

She admits she was free to pack what she wanted for lunch, so she only brought Indian food when she was in the mood for it. “I think if I had been forced to take it, it might have been different,” she said, and it’s not as though she didn’t feel different from her peers at times. But she loved Indian food. What was more alienating were the books she read in middle school about brown people feeling embarrassment and pain around what they ate, with the assumption that this feeling was shared by all children of immigrants. “I always believed it to be universal, even though it hadn’t happened to me,” she said. “I’m still trying to find the words around it, but I became aware of the lunchbox moment as archetype, so I think I was always waiting for something like that to happen.”

The expectation that being brown or an immigrant in America inherently meant suffering and shame was frustrating to both Ren and Subramanian. “[It was alienating] as a kid because I just thought that’s how I was supposed to be and feel, because activists [and] progressives were positioned as good and insightful, and if I didn’t agree, it meant I was a bad and clueless person about my own experiences,” said Ren. They recalled reading Yell-oh Girls , a collection of essays by young Asian-American women, and feeling like none of it spoke to them. Ren was annoyed that the experiences of a certain group of Asian Americans were packaged as if they represented everybody. “I don’t know a single person in real life who felt bad about their Asian immigrant food growing up, just online stories,” they said.

Subramanian recognizes it may have been unusual that her white peers responded to her family’s Indian cooking with curiosity and joy, but even if her experience wasn’t typical, it was still hard to see media that basically didn’t acknowledge her experience could exist. The lunchbox moment’s prevalence “narrows the frames we can use to tell our stories,” she said. “I would hate to see someone who doesn’t have any shame around their food see yet another story of bullying because of it, and then believe they should be ashamed!”

Even for people whose lunch experiences did resemble the archetype, certain details were flattened by the trope. Krutika Mallikarjuna, who moved to the U.S. from the state of Karnataka in India as a toddler, remembers her first lunchbox moment. “I would sit down at lunch and I would open up the lunchbox, [and kids would say], ‘What is that weird goopy thing that looks like poop in your Tupperware?’” Instead of being ashamed, she was angry. “I was like, ‘How dare you? This is okra saaru. This is the most delicious meal in the world.’” However, in the interest of having a less dramatic cafeteria experience, she recognized she had to start bringing a more American lunch, which led to a different kind of lunchbox moment.

By middle school, Mallikarjuna’s mom began making her sandwiches, but sandwiches that in no way resembled anything her white friends recognized. “I’d open up my sandwich and on one slice of bread would just be plain unsalted butter, and on the other side would be orange marmalade with the skin in it, which I fucking hate,” she said. Even when her lunches consisted of “Western” food, there was something different about them. But Mallikarjuna’s sandwiches turned into a running joke with her friends, a joke inspired by love, not discrimination. After all, they all clamored for Indian snacks whenever they went to her house. “I’m sure in retrospect there was a little bit of, like, ‘Oh, she’s foreign,’ which is a little gross,” she said. “But at the same time, we were 11 or 12, so I think I can let my middle school friends slide on that.” They were clumsily curious and not at all interested in ostracizing her, and instead of being a moment of exclusion, lunch became a site of fun and connection.

Others confronted feelings of shame about their family’s food derived from media and culture, even if they found support (or indifference) among their peers. Food writer Karon Liu, whose parents moved to Toronto from Hong Kong when he was a baby, said he can’t remember anyone getting teased for their lunch in his school full of Chinese and other immigrant kids. But it didn’t take bullying to make him feel ashamed of Chinese cuisine anyway. “So much of my feelings toward food were shaped by television and pop culture,” he said. The movies and TV shows he watched positioned Chinese food as “weird,” full of “gross” ingredients and prone to making people sick. He began throwing out the lunches his parents packed him, even though many of the kids at school ate the same things, and asked them to cook him more Western food. But he still enjoyed himself at Chinese restaurants. Even with the discomfort, his relationship with Chinese food wasn’t black and white.

Stories about white people finding unfamiliar food off-putting, like the scene in A Christmas Story where the family is shocked and disgusted at the head on a Peking duck, and immigrants feeling shame about their food resonated with Liu as a child, but he thinks they may have limited his understanding of the breadth of the immigrant experience. During an interview, he recalls asking Elaine Lui , of Lainey Gossip, if she felt ashamed of Chinese food growing up. “I was expecting the answer where it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I was made fun of all the time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And then Lainey was like, ‘No, I never resented Chinese food — it’s delicious and my family made me proud of it, so no.’” Shocked, Liu realized that while his feelings of shame were very real, they were also enforced by cultural narratives implying that mortification and bullying are the only experiences an immigrant can have. “Now I’m kind of wondering if I rebuilt my childhood memories in order to fit that narrative.”

In 2016, I wrote an essay about struggle and Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust. In 1995, I was a half-white, half-Indian child living in Manhattan, with grandparents across the river in New Jersey and a taste for cheese. In the essay, I am ashamed of many things: of liking Pizza Hut (a chain, even though I was from the pizza capital of New York City), of the Indian food my grandma cooked, but also of not liking Indian food even though it was the food of my family. I wrote about the things that caused that shame, too, like seeing my classmates mocked in the cafeteria for eating “anything other than standard American food.” It painted a familiar arc to anyone who has read a personal essay by a child of immigrants — childhood frustration, navigating the space between two cultures, American prejudice, all bending toward the acceptance and unity of adulthood. And upon rereading it earlier this year, I realized a lot of it wasn’t really true.

The truth is I wasn’t ashamed of Indian food or my Indian-ness. I was curious about that part of my culture sometimes, but mostly indifferent. I was pretty content in my racial identity, the way one is content with most facts. And I never saw anyone being mocked for their lunch. It wasn’t like I was consciously lying through the process of writing the Pizza Hut essay. Instead, not being a good enough writer or deep enough thinker to identify what, exactly, had caused me such distress as a child, I resorted to illustrating my feelings with a more common narrative: the lunchbox moment. I didn’t know how to write about being a mixed-race child of immigrants in a way that didn’t involve shame or bullying, and the familiar cafeteria scene offered the structure I needed to help my story land. Regardless of whether or not it actually rang true for me, this trope felt familiar enough, and if it was true for people like me, some deep part of my brain assumed it must have been true for me as well.

Reading the essay now, it’s clear to me I was after a sense of belonging — and so much of belonging for people in marginalized groups has to do with shared struggle. Which sucks! We are more than that! But that common experience means being able to say, to people who share parts of your identity, that yes, the white people, the rich people, the colonizers hurt me too. Here is what they did. Here is what they said. This is when the kids bullied me for my lunch. This is when my boyfriend turned his nose at the food my parents served him. This is when they knocked on my door and told me the smells of my cooking were making them sick. And after the description of pain comes the eye-rolling, and then the laughter, the kind that says I know what you know and I’ve been where you’ve been and we .

“Belonging” doesn’t mean one thing. Beyond the imperative to fit in with one’s white American peers and their white American food, there’s the desire to belong with other immigrants, with one’s classmates, or with one’s family. For many, though, part of the desire to share their lunchbox moment isn’t just to commiserate with other members of the diaspora, but to tell a story that white people can sympathize with. In some ways, being bullied for your food is universal — who can’t relate to the feeling of being taunted for something completely outside of your control?

And most of the time, the lunchroom drama is a story with a satisfying ending for both parties. The food in question is often now more widely beloved, so the immigrant narrator is no longer directly bullied; at the least, they’ve grown stronger and more self-assured. And white readers can pat themselves on the back, knowing they’re too open-minded to totally dismiss another culture’s cuisine. Confronting racism becomes as easy as “try new food,” and they get to be the Brian who shows Justin that not all non-immigrant Americans are so prejudiced. White people, essentially, get to be the hero.

These stories are “sellable to an editor,” Mallikarjuna says. She jokes that white editors love it when a brown person writes about their trauma, whether in a children’s book, a personal essay, or an op-ed for a food magazine. If mainstream culture continues to downplay immigrant and POC voices, when these writers do have the chance to tell a story, it has to be a clear, compelling one. Being bullied for your lunch only to grow up and find white people putting chile crisp on everything is a trajectory that’s easy to understand — and easy to sell to a white editor. What’s more, it often operates on a personal scale that makes these issues manageable. The lunchbox moment doesn’t require the reader to think about how class, religion, or caste could all change an immigrant’s experience. It doesn’t point out all the invisible ways immigrants and people of color are made to feel unwelcome. It doesn’t allow for muted or shifting feelings, or the complications of systemic racism. It’s just the hard clarity of Us v. Them, Shame v. Triumph, a white boy telling you you’re gross and a different white boy telling you he actually likes lumpia. The white gaze expects brown suffering, and even if these stories of shame and bullying are true, they can also serve to enforce that suffering. Suddenly, belonging means catering to the stories white people assume we carry.

With the Pizza Hut essay, I wanted to configure my feelings into a recognizable shape to become part of that we . Part of that is just what writing is — highlighting certain things and ignoring others, shepherding the reader to see what you want them to see. But it was so easy to guide myself into an imagined past where I felt things like shame over my heritage, fear of ridicule, and pressure to be a version of Indian I didn’t want to be. There are true things in there: my reluctance to try a lot of Indian food because I only ate it when visiting my grandparents, my frustration with the idea that any one of my identity labels was incompatible with the others, my deep love of cheese. But mostly, I gave in to the lunchbox narrative, and I didn’t notice, and of course no one else did either. Indian and non-Indian friends told me how relatable it was, because it is, because I made it into a story for other people. And in doing so, I trampled over an opportunity to expand what we could mean.

While researching this piece, I finally experienced a sense of belonging. I felt the fluttering energy, the urge to shout “me too!” when someone names an experience, but backwards — it was the excitement over not experiencing the thing I thought was universal. And while it is incredibly important to acknowledge the suffering, there are so many more ways to connect, to belong. “A lot of this is just solved by sharing more voices, more honesty, more of the shitty experiences, and more opportunities to demonstrate pride,” said Subramanian. Our relationship with food can be shameful, but also joyful, confusing, ambivalent, and antagonistic. And there should be room for all of it, and all of us. “I never felt shame around my food and never thought to. That story should fit somewhere, too.”

Emily Chu is an award winning illustrator based in Edmonton, Canada.

Sterlin Harjo’s Guide to Dining in Oklahoma

What will be on chick-fil-a tv, a lomo saltado that amps up the effort for major reward.

Jan 1, 2016

Essay on Lunch Box For All Classes

“What did you bring for lunch?” “Mummy packed me a box of surprise for lunch”

3 comments:

i think this would help me to obtain 10 marks.....thx man

The quality of this essay will sure fetch you 10 out of 10. Thanks for commenting.

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How to Keep School Lunches Hot (or Cold), and Other Food Safety Questions, Answered

Keep your little ones safe from food poisoning with a few simple considerations.

By Kristen Miglore

The love language of packing a school lunch is strangely at odds with the most basic of food safety rules.

Namely, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would prefer us not to leave anything perishable outside a fridge for more than two hours, or one hour on hot days (how about a bologna sandwich cast into a cubby or piled outside a classroom for more like four?). And we’re told to take extra care with the especially risky (deli meats, pre-cut fruit) and the especially vulnerable (including young kids, particularly those under 5).

Fortunately, we’re in a golden age of meal inspiration and gear, and there are simple, inexpensive ways to keep bento boxes and bagged sandwiches safe through lunchtime. Read on for best practices and ideas that go beyond just peanut butter and jelly.

How do you keep the food in lunchboxes safe to eat?

Don’t introduce unwelcome bacteria in the first place, said Britanny Saunier, executive director of the Partnership for Food Safety Education: Wash your hands, the lunchbox and other containers with soap, and rinse fresh fruits and vegetables (even the ones with skins that won’t be eaten, like oranges) under running water. Dry everything well, and bacteria won’t have the moisture they need to survive.

Don’t repack food or unwashed packaging from the day before, tempting as it may be when the better part of a meal comes home untouched. ( These five tips can help ensure your children are actually excited to eat lunch.)

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For the Love of Savoring Sandwiches

T he first sandwich I remember loving was one I didn’t choose. Somewhere near the water in Michigan, my parents doled out a couple sandwiches to split along with a few bags of chips to preteen-me and my three younger siblings. We’d be sharing — no order-taking, no arguing.

We’d never been a summer vacation type of group, but we’d driven to Michigan to visit family so extended that some of us had never met, and the last-minute trip doubled as an escape hatch from Kentucky’s humidity. The salt of the pretzel bread made it feel like we were by an ocean, which I kept reminding myself was actually a lake. I liked not having to pick out of all the sandwiches. I liked that I was able eat whatever I ended up with, regardless of the combination I got—and managed to enjoy it. 

That year was also one of the first that I began experiencing symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder . I didn’t know, at the time, what the unwanted thoughts and feelings that would seep into my days were. Only that they upset me. I didn’t understand why I mentally reviewed events, conversations, or my behavior until I felt separated from who I was or what I liked— too afraid to enjoy it lest it be overtaken with fear, too. I felt, even then, what a relief it was to just like something.

Even as a kid, I was aware of how these thoughts and fears would interrupt me. How much time they seemed to suck up. On that trip, I’d be tearing through the sand with my siblings one moment only to freeze abruptly, and count over and over in my head to make sure no one had gone missing the next. So, the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed something as simple as sandwiches—without analyzing it first, without worrying that enjoying it would surely cause something bad and unrelated to happen—delighted me. A sandwich felt, to me, how summer often feels: something you want to hold on to forever.

Read More: Learning to Want Again

Every summer since, I've craved the crispness of my favorite veggie sandwich (loaded with avocado, cucumber, tomato, peppers, and a hearty slice of provolone thrown in) when it’s just too hot to cook, or pulling a sandwich out of a backpack after a bike ride or a hike. Because sandwiches, in all their messy, toppings-spilling-out-of-bread glory, are my reminder to enjoy, to breathe—to savor.

To be clear, liking or savoring something doesn’t help this debilitating disorder—only evidence-based treatment does that. So often, knowing what I like, and trusting that, feels like a sweaty fight, forcing my mind to make room for my preferences, my ideas, and my yearning amid fear. This runs a spectrum from the small to the catastrophic. Imagine if everything you’d ever enjoyed, or held dear, suddenly felt distressing. Or convincing you that you’ve poisoned the meal you cooked and were about to serve it to everyone you invited over for dinner.

It feels like a small miracle that I’ve been able to hang onto liking something as simple as sandwiches this long. And it reminds me that I can have other things I savor in my life, too. Remember Michigan, by the water? I think to myself. It’s okay to savor. You still can.

Sandwiches have also become touch points for highs and lows: a grilled chicken sandwich piled with tomato and greens on crusty, chewy bread with salt and vinegar chips, ordered in celebration of a milestone work day; a turkey sandwich with spicy cranberry chipotle chutney packaged in plastic wrap the way it might in a kid’s lunch box when I stood in a new city and realized I’d taken a life-changing chance just by being there; a tuna sandwich from a local health food store I planned to eat after my first colonoscopy, that I apparently babbled extensively to nurses about; ordering a sandwich with tomato and pesto mayo that made the focaccia soggy (in a good way) for delivery in the thick of beginning treatment, when I felt so locked in my mind by obsessional doubt so overpowering that I couldn’t turn the doorknob of my home and leave to get it myself.

Every summer, as the sun sets earlier and earlier, we hold tight to our own forms of savoring, wishing it could all last a little longer. After all, enjoying a sandwich on a beach is an enduring pastime for a reason. There’s understated bliss—however fleeting, however small—in reminders of what you actually like. There’s also power.

In my case, that includes a running joke with friends that the hill I’ll die on is that the sandwich is actually the ideal little treat, even though, yes, it is technically a meal. Sure, just how it comes; yep, just the sandwich; oh, whatever bread you have is fine : each an order, each a blessed release of control.

Sometimes, sitting at my desk with summer’s thick bathwater air in the open window, I think about going back to that sandwich spot in Michigan. I think of the summer of that year, when my younger self was just beginning to question why her mind was the way it was, why these thoughts she didn’t want took up so much room, and whether she’d know who she was or what she’d like. 

I think she’d be thrilled to know I’m still here—still savoring sandwiches.

For resources and information on obsessive compulsive disorder, please visit the International OCD Foundation.

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