School Lunches of the World

hello friends it's your boy JJ here and last week we did a video all about what children eat for lunch in all of the different countries of the world and by all of the different countries of the world I of course mean these ones but luckily I have a very international audience and you guys were able to come to my rescue by providing me with dozens of very interesting examples of the sorts of lunches that children eat everywhere else we have a lot of ground to cover so let's get to it my friend tan from Malaysia told me about an iconic lunch combo over there called nasi lemak which he said is a kind of stereotypically cheap and easy thing for kids to eat packed in a banana leaf this classically Malaysian combo meal includes coconut rice dried anchovies beans a boiled egg and sliced up cucumber then to drink the kids will either have rose syrup milk or plum juice or these little yogurt drinks that come in these weird shaped bottles which are kind of an icon of Malaysian childhoods got a lot of comments from my Filipino friends who I apparently have a lot of over there I was told that kids always bring these subdivided Tupperware containers to school and they're usually filled with rice and some sort of meat product like cured beef fried fish braised chicken or somewhat less glamorously cut-up hot dog with ketchup there would sometimes be some sort of sauteed vegetable side dish as well such as this one made of scrambled eggs cooked with this thing Filipino kids love to drink Royale brand soda which is what they call Fanta over there for some reason and as a snack they eat fudgy bars which come in all sorts of exotic Asian flavors like durian fruit and Makapuu know my friend Milani from Panama sums up a traditional Panamanian lunch this way a soggy fried carb with a side of some soggy processed meat the soggy fried carb might be an empanada which is a kind of doughy thing stuffed with meat or cheese or Panamanian style tortillas which is a kind of chubby deep-fried cornbread or Mae the whole yard a which is a kind of fried dough and on the side a fried hot dog and a piece of American cheese soggy sounds about right lunches in Venezuela and next door Columbia sound a bit similar my friends from those countries say some of the typical things would include corn bread sandwiches cheese pastries and deep fried empanadas which I assume are slightly less soggy over in Haiti my friend tells me that a typical lunch would be white rice with bean sauce called this and porridge made with mushed up plantains and cinnamon and coffee to drink which in Haiti is apparently not considered a weird thing for kids to have in my first video I pointed out how North Americans and Western Europeans are very obsessed with eating sandwiches for lunch but a number of you pointed out that eating sandwiches for lunch is actually very common all over the world many of my Australian friends for instance noted that Australian children loved to eat sandwiches made of Vegemite which is that beloved Australian yeast slime product for a snack it is also apparently quite popular for Australian children to eat small bags of popcorn or crackers and cream cheese or uncooked instant noodles straight from the bag for dessert meanwhile they might have a lamington which is a kind of Australian cake or an LCM which is what they call rice krispie squares or a superduper which is what they call a freeze pop Oh Australia never change some of my Mexican friends noted that in their country kids often eat sandwiches made of these special buns called Boleo these can be filled with all sorts of stuff including ham or beans or scrambled eggs or some combination thereof my friend Sergio says you sometimes even see sandwiches made of chilaquiles which are a kind of nacho type thing yeah says Sergio a sandwich made with more carbs inside I guess that may be a factor in why we are number one in childhood obesity not helping that is all of the sugary fruit juice that the Mexican children drink which much like the yogurt drinks of the Malaysians come in all of these iconic containers I also heard from men you that in many parts of the world they do not make sandwiches with two slices of bread but rather just one my Norwegian friend Merritt describes a typical Norwegian kids lunch this way grainy bread and at least I used to get one slice with yellow cheese that would get sweaty if I had a late lunch and one slice with sweet brown cheese with Jam underneath the whole ordeal is packed in paper and if you want the authentic experience you need to write have a good day on the front of it in sharpie so the ink seeps through the paper and on to the yellow cheese my Danish friends described a similar situation over there with open-faced grainy bread sandwiches featuring stuff like liver paste or cucumber or fish meatballs yeah I'm sure that would catch on the kids here in Israel the kids don't tend to eat big lunches so their version of a sandwich is just a slice of pita bread covered with something like cream cheese or hummus or a pastrami or Nutella or this kind of weird pesto type stuff made of the hyssop plant my friend elide tells me that one of the very iconic Israeli lunch snacks for children is just a small loaf of sweet chala bread and a little bag of chocolate milk interestingly enough my friend from Romania tells me that this is a stereotypical minimalist lunch in that country too my friend Arak a leaf from the country of Georgia meanwhile says that there are stereotypical lunch things are either a slice of this pastry that is stuffed with sweet red beans or one of these bread bowl things which are full of this mix of cheese and egg and butter I actually tried one of these things when I was at a Georgian restaurant in Israel a few months ago and I must say it was like one of the most rich things I've ever eaten in my entire life so props to the georgian children for being able to eat this on the rigs my frame Maruyama from Pakistan describes the kids in that country is eating pretty well I would say my friend says they usually have chicken or beef wraps made from thick paratha bread beef kebab burgers or BER Yanni which is a dish made from curried meat and rice and of course mango juice mango juice really seems popular with kids everywhere except here I got some interesting comments from my American friends as well for example several of my New England friends pointed out that it is very common over there to have peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches marshmallow fluff being a very iconic condiment of that part of the country several of my American friends also pointed out the role that the thermos plays in American lunch culture a lot of kids bring an insulated thermos bottle to school filled with chicken noodle soup or alphabet noodle soup or some sort of pre-made pasta dish from a can like SpaghettiOs or ravioli a lot of American kids also like to eat Lunchables which are these premade little packages of crackers cheese and meat slices these days the Lunchables Corporation has expanded to all sorts of crazy new territory as well like Lunchables mini pizzas or Lunchables tacos or even Lunchables hotdogs if you ask me more countries should embrace this sort of time-saving efficiency where is the Lunchables version of that Malaysian thing for instance here in Canada some of my Quebecer fans who apparently exist have called my attention to the stereotypically unhealthy Quebec lunch which is chips a can of cola and these Quebec store-bought snack cakes usually just made a really sugary dough with icing filling Quebec lunches are so infamous for being terrible it has kind of evolved into like an ironic symbol of Quebec or pride but you know I think you can also be a sort of mean-spirited stereotype that I'm sure is not even really that accurate anymore I mean according to this article sales of store-bought snack cakes have actually been declining in Quebec in recent years as parents seek out more healthy options and as we all know the last thing I would want to do is offend Quebecers every in donation that I heard from said that their most common lunch tradition is to just leave the school altogether and buy some cool in donation street food such as fish dumplings I went on a stick egg and meat pastries and for dessert mini pancakes with chocolate sprinkles this all sounds pretty good by the way is there a reason why we in the West don't have the same sort of robust street food culture as so many countries and Asia do my one Russian friend estimates that 99% of Russian children eat their lunches in the school cafeteria although it does sound like the quality of Russian lunches varies a great deal from school to school at some places it sounds like they give you fun stuff like Borowski which is a bun stuffed with potatoes veggie or meat or pancakes with cream or these funky Russian hotdog things but then at other places it sounds like you just get some mashed potatoes watery fish soup or borscht and boil buckwheat which is what a lot of Eastern Europeans eat instead of rice and maybe some beef goulash for protein but what all the Russians seem to agree on is that the most stereotypical Russian lunch drink is either berry juice or hot tea I still find this whole concept of children having hot drinks really weird other countries have interesting cafeteria food as well my South African friend mr. fine apple for instance tells me on a special day like Fridays parents usually give their children a boot 20 rand and they can use the money to buy a South African cafeteria specialty called a kata-kata from quarter is a quarter loaf of unsliced bread filled with chips processed meat a slice or two of processed cheese HR basically a mango salsa swimming and vegetable oil and a variety of sauces like tomato sauce and mustard you might think I'm exaggerating with this cartoon but if you doubt me just Google kata for yourself and you will see some truly decadent monuments to gluttony not to be outdone however my Scottish friend Keon tells me that at their cafeteria they sell deep fried pizza which is apparently a beloved Scottish food called pizza crunch way on the other extreme is Finland where my friend Coulter says that what they get is just some porridge with jam and a slice of rye bread that frankly sounds a bit like prison food but cultish owes me it is really good my one friend from Turkey tells me that over there a typical Turkish cafeteria lunch would be beans and rice a kebab and maybe some of these Turkish dumplings with tomato sauce that may sound delicious but my friend assures me that the cafeteria does their best to drain all taste and goodness from them and lastly I just want to read you this remarkable email that my friend Jaime sent me from Ireland he says that in his country they used to have all of these fun Irish snack treats for lunch but then that had to stop due to the food dudes the food dudes were meant to be these young hip down with it youths who ate healthy and it was cool to eat healthy so food dudes came into every primary school in Ireland we would have to bring one new vegetable and fruit in our lunchbox every week to get our reward which was always something cheap like a fridge magnet or a stopwatch or stickers or so on it was awful I hated it and so did everyone else they would also send in little bags like you get at McDonald's of vegetables which were hard and dry and we had to eat them and at the end of the eight weeks of it we got a little certificate where it said you are a food dude now but once that stopped we went back to eating crap I was watching some of these food dude videos on YouTube and I must say they are truly some of the cringe ia's cringe that ever cringed one by one the dudes eat the fruit vegetables that give them their fantastic powers [Music] so yes I hope you enjoyed this slightly more comprehensive tour of lunches of the world apologies if I missed your comment or country there were just so many good ones it was hard to include everything it is really quite amazing how much diversity there is in food culture over in the world although it does seem like one of the great universal themes of life is that children are always dissatisfied with what they are fed for lunch let me know in the comments if you have any other good ideas for food culture themed videos I could do in the future this definitely seems like a pretty rich topic and I'm not just talking about that georgian egg dish all of let myself out

Channel: J.J. McCullough

Views: 476,994

Keywords: Lunch, globe, planet, countries, meal, food, eating, cartoon, illustrations, international, list, funny, Ireland, Georgia, Asia, Indonesia, Russia, Europe, Quebec, US, American, meat, Latino, South America, Colombia, Malaysia, Philippines, rice, Turkey, delicious, Panama, Haiti, Australia, sandwich, dessert, lunchables, drink, soda, brands

Id: fnWJVacxsYg

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 15 2019