Face Food, The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes

by Christopher D. Salyers
Mark Batty Publisher, New York City, NY, 2008
78 pp. Trade $12.95
ISBN-10: 0-9790486-6-4; ISBN-13: 978-09790486-6-1.

Reviewed by George Shortess
Lehigh University

gks0@lehigh.edu


I was very disappointed with this small book. As a long time admirer of the elegance and aesthetic qualities of classic Japanese bento boxes, I expected an insightful look at this classic art form. Instead, I received a rather crudely bound book that presents these character bento boxes with awkward organization and printing.

Although the book gives no real indication of the frequency of the practice, some Japanese parents prepare lunch boxes in which they arrange the food in various designs. Many of these designs are faces based on characters from the popular culture. For me some of these boxes are rather cute and provide a diversion for the children for whom they are made, but not much more.

The creation of these boxes is a social phenomenon that could be understood within the context of contemporary Japanese society. The author (apparently a native New Yorker) makes no serious attempt to do so, but merely presents some anecdotal comments by several of the parent creators. The author praises the amount of effort and skill that produces “astounding results.” According to him, the work to produce these boxes is a “mind numbing exercise” in patience. These evaluative statements are simply asserted without any real evidence to back them up. In this way he tries to make much more of the phenomenon that is viewed in very practical terms by several parent makers quoted in the book.

If the author, in his presentation, had made a serious effort to understand the basis of the phenomenon, the book could have been a much more valuable addition to the literature.