How School Lunches are Made in Japan

This is how Japanese school food is made in Japan [Intro Music] so I'm back with another made in Japan video Before I showed you how train bentos were made But this time we're gonna go inside of a factory so I can show you how kids school food is made But before we start like always if you want to see what I'm doing on the daily check out my Instagram account If you guys want to help support the channel check out the Tokyo Japan merch and if you guys have any questions about Japan or Japan travels then check out my Discord community That said I've always been interested to see how all of this was done so let me just take you inside and let's find out So here I am Bringing you another Made in Japan hitter where I uncover how things are uniquely crafted in Japan This time how real deal Japanese school lunches are made called Kyushoku It's served in all Japanese elementary schools and most junior high schools It's known for its well-balanced and varied menus all planned by a certified nutritionist okay so we've been here before you know what's gonna happen let's do this and there you go let's go inside so I'm just in the entrance right here and I think we've done this enough time so maybe you can just follow one of the workers in we're going BIG on this one Today I've got special access to visit The Musashino city school lunch and dietary education promotion foundation damn that was long servicing 18 schools in total with 181 hard-working staff I'm going inside to one of their massive Japanese school food kitchens so large in scale I want to call it a food factory to better capture its size It's so massive that it produces food for eight different schools each and every day This ain't no regular school cafeteria kitchen Oh the deliveries are here ! so morning start at 7:30 a.m as the food must be prepared cooked and then shipped out all before lunch time ready to eat for eight different schools with a total of 2700 students Workers use a special docking room to receive the food where only one door is opened at a time outside debris from entering the facility. Once inside, workers thoroughly inspect the food by taking it's temperature, in addition to paying attention to strict government sanitary guidelines. Oh cool, let's see what this guy is doing over here! Excuse me, can I talk to you? What are you checking? Oh! What's the percentage of food that doesn't pass? So, how long have you been working here? So, do you have to do other jobs as well? Which one do you like the most? Thank you! Today's school lunch main dish is a teriyaki yellow tail fish Can't wait to see how it's prepared! So this is where all of the food prep begins! After delivery, vegetables must be washed, cut and peeled in addition to any other specific prep unique to Japanese ingredients and since Japanese school lunches are rich with vegetables, it takes a fair amount of skilled hands to get the job done. about 40 total, I mean 80 if I were counting both hands! Anyway, root vegetables like burdock naturally come in with lots of dirt and grit, so the kitchen uses specialised machines to wash them off but, the majority of the vegetables are prepared by hand. At this kitchen, all of the vegetables are sourced from local farmers so the kids can eat the freshest produce possible every day which is why some are still sporting that farm fresh soil! All in all, it means that Japanese school kids can enjoy fresh, seasonal food throughout the entire school year. In fact, it's all a part of Japan's food education system, which they even have a word for! See, in Japan, lunch time itself is considered food education as supposed to a simple break between classes. Japanese believe that providing the youth a balanced and delicious meal every day at lunch naturally teaches them good eating habits and what they should be eating outside of school no matter the family's income level every student is guaranteed one healthy and balanced meal once per day oh damn it's an apple convention in here sweet juices they even have a full on apple peeler to help them minimize the prep time once peeled the apple still needs that personal touch to get finished off finally the apple slices are placed into containers ready to be served how do you like them apples so before I continue on i want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor for this video squarespace if you all don't already know squarespace is the number one way to build your online presence In fact I use squarespace for my website tokyo zebra here are just some of the reasons why I love using squarespace so much whether you're starting your passion project or building a business squarespace has all the tools to get it done while also looking ultra sleek and professional at the same time They support numerous portfolios and gallery designs which you can customize and even password protect so the right people see your work use its fully integrated blogging tools and commenting features such as threaded comments replies and likes to help engage your community and my personal favorite built-in analytics to see how your visits unique visitors and page views trend over time so there go go to squarespace.com today for your free trial when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com/paolofromtokyo and get 10% off your first domain or website all right let's continue on let's see what they're doing in this room over here [Music] so this is where they steam the rice wow so many giant rice cookers apparently each giant pot can cook up to 700 servings of rice at one time and that colander filled with rice and weighs about 30 kilos 66 pounds that's quite a workout every day so after the rice has been soaked It goes into a vat of boiling hot water [Music] Then after it's boiled for 2 minutes the lid is quickly opened The rice is stirred and the lid replaced to let cook for 30 minutes absolutely making sure to not open the lid until then to maintain a high temperature let's go ask some questions over here Hi what are you doing right now ? Oh what kind of rice do you use ? Why is that ? What's the most challenging thing when cooking this much rice ? So what the key then to making delicious rice ? Cool, the rice is finished Damn they really go gravedigger style on that rice apparently the workers say it's pretty exhausting to scoop it all out But I guess it's all worth it because surprise surprise it's the most served carb in Japanese school lunches over bread and noodles and each container needs to be weighed precisely to serve the exact number of students for each class in each school It's definitely a team effort to work fast and efficiently to get it all ready by lunchtime so this looks like the main kitchen area now the workers prepared the dashi for the soup called Tonjiru as well as for other dishes as it's one of the key ingredients for many Japanese dishes and here they're making it from scratch using kombu and katsuobushi kelp and smoked and fermented skipjack tuna Tonjiru itself is basically a traditional Japanese soup with vegetables tofu and pork It requires a lot of different vegetable ingredients hence the team of workers cutting an assortment of vegetables there's quite a bit of nutrition and a lot of love goes into just one bowl of Tonjiru [Music] Oh cool I think there's some miso action going on over here okay now we're cooking For today's soup the workers are using two types of miso white and red the combination called awase miso in Japanese which complement each other's flavors and creates a deeper umami taste once all the meat soup vegetables and other ingredients have been separately prepared they're all mixed together for the final cooking Damn that's more ingredients than I eat in a week [Music] so I guess this area is where they prepare the grilled fish Time for that main dish hitter At this Japanese school kitchen the fish are marinated by hand and today into a teriyaki sauce once fully marinated it's trayed and moved to the giant ovens to be grilled each oven capable of cooking up to 100 pieces at one time damn that's efficient [Music] hey he's eating on the job what are you doing ? What are you exactly checking for ? What if you are not satisfied ? Ah I see ! But to be honest have you gained weight doing this ? so what do you like most about this job ? And what's your favorite menu item ? cool thanks apparently not just the fish is taste tested But every single dish that's going out to the 2700 kids must be checked before packing to ensure its taste and quality [Music] Oh ! I think she's preparing a traditional Japanese side dish more of the chopped vegetables prepared earlier are now going to be cooked and like all the dishes a day the workers must follow the recipe precisely In order to produce a consistent taste and quality That's quite a lot of recipes considering the main menu changes every day plus the kitchen creates one to two new menu items every month so the kids don't get tired of the food Hi ! What's that ? Is there anything difficult about cooking at this scale ? What's your favorite dish on the menu ? Interestingly the most popular dish among the school kids is their curry rice makes me want to try it myself By the way the metal containers used to transfer the food are so thick that the food is still hot when it's served to the kids at school Okay so this is where they load all the food that's been prepared [Music] Now the food carts are loaded onto the trucks with the delivery scheduled to arrive at the school between 10:30 to 11:30 Just in time for lunch [Music] and there you go all the food is packed up and the trucks are leaving now and this entire food education system is supported by the Japanese government meaning that on average the monthly school lunch fee paid by parents at public schools is about 4300 yen at elementary schools and 4900 yen at junior high schools about 33 to 38 US $ a month and here we go lunch is served let me try a quick bite That is amazing so there you go that is how school food is made in Japan If you guys like this video like always help me out and hit that like button if you guys want to see more videos like this or anything related to Japan hit that subscribe button and the bell button and I'll catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Paolo fromTOKYO

Views: 5,659,956

Keywords: Paolo, Japan, tokyo, made in japan, school lunch, japanese food, school lunch in japan, japanese culture, school in japan, elementary school lunch, school kitchen, school food factory, japan school lunch, japanese school lunch, japanese food tour, school lunches, japanese school, japanese school lunch junior high school, grade school lunch, making japanese school lunch, japanese school food, japan school food, food tour, japanese school lunch program, japan school cafeteria

Id: j9xYsUPoQVs

Length: 11min 59sec (719 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 22 2022